Our Custom Electrical Services clients frequently ask us about the most effective ways to reduce their electricity bills and at the same time help the environment. We’d like to share with you some of the best and simplest ways to achieve this.
1. Adopt Eco-Friendly Habits
You don’t necessarily need to make any changes to your home to save energy and reduce your utility bills. Just by changing your habits, you could reduce your energy consumption. For example, turn off lights, appliances or anything electrical which you don’t need. What’s more, instead of using an electric vacuum cleaner to clean small spills, use a broom. The ways we wash and dry clothes could also help you save – don’t use a washing machine for a couple of pieces of clothing and whenever possible hang-dry your clothes. In addition, consider lowering your thermostat in winter and using your A/C less in summer by dressing more appropriately for each season within your home.
2. Conduct an Energy Audit
Whether you live in a modern energy efficient home or an older home with older appliances, it is always a good idea to conduct an audit of how energy is consumed in your home. This can be done by you, your local utilities company or professional electricians like the team at Custom Electrical Services. Once you identify how you are consuming electricity, you can then decide on areas that you can reduce usage.
3. Replace Incandescent or CFL Lighting With LED Lighting
The price of LED light fixtures and replacement light bulbs has become quite affordable and definitely worth considering. LED lighting is so energy efficient that it can reduce your lighting energy consumption by 90% which translates into significant long-term savings. Moreover, it’s not necessary to replace all incandescent bulbs in your house with LED ones, you can do it for the most used areas of your home. However, LED lighting has become so affordable that it would be a shame to keep using outdated technology or potentially harmful products like fluorescent light bulbs.
4. Upgrade Your Thermostat
If you don’t have a programmable thermostat to automatically turn off or reduce heating and cooling when you are not at home or sleeping, then you need to upgrade your current thermostat. By doing so, you can minimize the waste of energy for heating and cooling without the need to upgrade your entire HVAC system.
5. Use Ceiling Fans
This piece of advice might sound good for the summer months but it is also quite effective in winter as well. In the winter, you should use ceiling fans on low speed in a clockwise direction to create an updraft which can help circulate warm air throughout a room. Naturally, in the summer, your fans should be working counterclockwise to cool a room and decrease your use of air conditioning which can consume a significant amount of energy.
6. Install Modern Dimmer Switches
Today’s dimmer switches are not like their predecessors which basically added resistance to the circuit that turned energy into heat instead of light. Modern dimmer switches cut the electricity supply on and off rapidly at hundreds of times per second. By doing so, the switches can reduce the amount of energy required to light a bulb and can create a more romantic atmosphere.
We hope you have found our suggestions helpful. If you have any questions regarding residential electrical issues call Custom Electrical Services at 515-669-3418 or schedule an online appointment. Our experienced and licensed electricians will be happy to answer any or your questions.
