How to Save on Spring Energy Bills

As the flowers bloom and temperatures rise, you may also notice the abrupt increase of your gas and electric bills. To help keep utility costs down, follow these simple and cost effective methods to save on spring energy bills.

Open Your Windows

The best part about natural ventilation is that it’s free. On brisk nights, turn off your cooling system and let mother nature’s crisp breeze circulate through your home.

To keep your home cooler during the day, make sure to close blinds, curtains, and windows. If your home is still too hot, investing in energy efficient window treatments is a great solution to reduce heat loss in the winter and heat entry during the summer.

Utilize Fans

The National Association of Home Builders found that ceiling fans can help lower your electric bill by up to 30 to 40 percent, while never touching the thermostat. Make sure to utilize the bathroom fan as well because heat and humidity tend to linger after a hot shower. To lower the temperature of other rooms like the kitchen and laundry room, spot ventilation can be extremely useful too.  

Monitor Your Thermostat

Setting your thermostat too high or too low can result in unnecessary added expenses to your monthly bill, but there are more efficient ways to monitor your thermostat while you’re away.

The Nest Mobile application for iOS or Android allows you to change the temperature settings of your home or business directly from your smart phone or tablet. This intuitive application adapts to your moods and through continuous usage it learns your preferred settings. Nest also provides a detailed energy usage report on how much you’ve saved and sends alerts directly to your mobile device in the event of an emergency.

Fire Up The Grill

When temperatures rise, fire up the grill instead of the oven to avoid overheating your home. If you don’t have a grill, but still want to avoid using the oven, utilize your stovetop or microwave to help keep your home cool.

Reducing Hot Water Usage

Taking shorter showers and only running the laundry or dish washer when full will greatly lower your water bill and reduce heat buildup, thus saving you money. Water heating generally consumes between 14% and 25% of the energy use in your home, so turning down the setting to “warm” (120° F) will ensure you don’t see a spike in your utility bill.

Switch To LED Lighting

Ten to fifteen percent of the energy used by incandescent bulbs is converted to light; the rest produces heat. For as little as $5, LED light bulbs produce 85% less energy and delivers the same amount of light as traditional bulbs. Installing energy-efficient lighting in your home not only lowers heating costs, but electrical use as well.

To keep utility costs down, follow these simple and cost effective methods to save on your spring energy bills. Check in each month with the energy experts of Pro Energy Consultants to learn more helpful and useful home energy saving tips.