4 Areas to Cut Energy Costs
If you’ve been looking at your monthly energy bills and wondering how you can reduce them, consider some of these money-saving tips.
Water:
It’s a common thing to see – someone is brushing his teeth…with the water running in the sink. By simply turning it off while you brush, you’ll make a (small) dent in your water usage. Other things to consider – replacing your old high water use toilet with a low flow toilet, which flushes effectively without using gallons of water; taking shorter showers and fewer baths; doing only full loads of laundry; installing a water-saving shower head; using the dishwasher only when it’s fully loaded and watering your grass infrequently or not at all.
Electricity:
Turn off lights in rooms that aren’t being used. No sense in lighting up the night when nobody is there to see it! Conversely, allow sunshine to fill your rooms during the day so you don’t feel the need to turn lights on when it’s light outside. Unplug appliances when they’re not in use. Many still suck electricity even when they’re just sitting around. Restrict oven use in the summer to avoid heating up the house, which then pushes the air conditioner to kick in. Turn off TVs, radios and other electronic devices when they’re idle. Same goes for computers. If you have an electric dryer, only dry full loads of laundry, which you’ll be doing if you heed the advice above about using your washer.
Recycle:
Well, this might not lower your bills, but it does help the environment – and that’s hard to argue with. Many municipalities now have single stream recycling. Basically, this means you can throw all your recyclables into one container and they do the sorting for you. Easy, peasy. And, believe it or not, it’s fun to see how little trash you finally accumulate. Which – if you recycle regularly might mean you could reduce the number of times your trash is picked up in a month. How’s that for under-the-radar savings?
Temperature:
A good rule of thumb – cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer. Nope, not a typo. By keeping your thermostat lower in the winter, say 68 degrees, you reduce your energy consumption appreciably. The same is true in the summer if you keep your thermostat set a constant number between 73 and 75 degrees. Yes, you’ll be a bit warmer inside, but if you live in a climate like St. Louis has – it’s guaranteed that your home will be cooler inside than it is outside! You can also invest in a thermostat that automatically calibrates depending upon the time day. Check out this cool thermostat “The Nest.”
Saving energy and lowering your bills isn’t hard, but it takes persistence and consistency. Once you get into the habit, however, it becomes a way of life that does have dividends for your wallet and fuels your good feelings about your stewardship of the earth.
About Better Life Maids
Better Life Maids is a green house cleaning service founded in St. Louis, MO. It has created a unique marketing partnership with Better Life a natural household cleaning products manufacturer. Together they are working to create the first national name brand in natural household cleaning products and green house cleaning services. Better Life Maids is expanding in select markets through a franchise development system. For more information visithttps://betterlifemaids.com or http://www.cleanhappens.com. Better Life Maids blog provides weekly tips on clean house cleaning and green living topics. Tune in each week for more great info.