Saving money on electricity does take a little time and effort. Thankfully none of the tips I written about need a huge sacrifice on your part. Have a look around your home to see what's plugged in. Do you need it ?
Here are another 10 tips to help lower your electricity bill -
* Turn off your Google Nest or other smart home displays. You know you don't use them too often. We turn ours on when we want to play music.
* Turn off your Wii, xbox and other gaming consoles at the power point when not in use.
* Defrost food in the fridge over night instead of using the microwave.
* Close ducted heating vents in Summer and cooling vents in Winter. If they can't be closed, see if you can slip in a piece of cardboard.
* Close heating / cooling vents in rooms not being used.
* Use blankets, doonas or sleeping bags over windows to keep heat in a home at night and heat out in Summer. Before we had evap cooling I pegged all spare blankets and sleeping bags over our lounge and dining room windows during heatwaves in Summer. It really did make a big difference.
* Match your saucepan to the right sized cooking element on your stove top.
* Don't use delay start functions on your washing machine, dishwasher, dryer and other appliances like slow cookers and all in one pots. Fill up the washing machine when you get up and if need be, turn it on when you get home.
* Turn off your pool / spa lighting when not in use. There's no point in impressing your garden with a light display.
* In Winter ( especially ) eat dinner at the kitchen bench if you can and utilise the kitchen lighting you have on . This is instead of turning the dining room lights on too.
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| Close vents when not in use |
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| Use the sized right pot and cooking element |
Great posts Wendy. I am doing most of these already but wanted to add that yesterday I put tape over the bathroom heat lamp switches so the kids could not turn them on!
ReplyDeleteWe also purchase a 23l air fryer that doubles as an oven with many other functions. It draws far less power than our oven. It is only heating a small space and does not require pre-heating. Unfortunately, the oven is hard wired so we cannot turn it off otherwise I would!!
Stay warm,
Vicky
And if you have solar panels you can have a credit rather than a bill. I just got a 50 buck credit. Excellent
ReplyDeleteI always use lids on my saucepans and because we have solid hotplates I turn the heat off five minutes of so before I expect the food to be cooked. I know people use a thermos type flask to keep hot water hot. Instead I heat the minimal amount. the big thing around hers is to check that mum has closed windows before putting on the air conditioner for heating or cooling. Yes we unintentionally let heat escape yesterday.
ReplyDeleteIt is summer here in the States. I put up a small table on the front enclosed porch and use my roaster, bread machine out there, to keep my kitchen cool. If I had a propane burner, I'd can outside also.
ReplyDeleteWe keep the blinds and drapes closed during the day when I'm at work and close as the sun moves around the house when I'm home.
I've been using the Economy setting on my clothes washer for lightly soiled items.
We are outside until late in the evening (8:30-9 p.m.) so we are using much less electricity by not having the tv or lights on.
We had our air conditioner checked at the start of the warm weather. So glad I did as the outside unit was clogged with dirt. They washed it out and it is running much more efficiently. Next on the list is to check the clothes dryer hose. I think it is partially clogged.
Hi all, I have been looking for more ways to save on EVERYTHING this year. We have been paying off as much as possible, our car, next is our house, we have no credit cards debt. We are growing a large community garden with our family , along with that we have done community prepping . To save on electricity we have started to turn off our power at the breaker box for 6 hours a day. We use crockpots and BBQ grills for cooking. We are putting a wood burning stove back in for heating. Since we already have lots of wood we figured it would be best to tap that resource again to save money and hedge our bets on power outages. Love the blog! God bless Gaila in the NW USA
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