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Is your electricity bill weighing heavily on your monthly expenses? We all know the dreadful feeling that comes whenever we see a jump in our monthly utility bill. Fortunately, it isn’t that difficult to reduce the cost of your electricity bill. Most of the time, high electricity costs are a result of poor usage of your electrical gadgets and appliances. If you’d like to find out how to start saving money, here are five likely factors behind your costly electricity bill. If you are interested in how you can save even more on your electricity bill, you can find out more about singapore energy here.
Most modern electronics have been designed with technology that prevents them from switching off completely. As such, household appliances that are “switched off” may really be left on standby mode (e.g. laptops, DVD players, and the television), thus continuing to consume electricity because they are plugged in. Additionally, devices that have clocks installed in them will continue drawing electricity despite being switched off. These would include kitchen appliances like ovens, coffee makers, and video players.
One way you can combat this issue is to plug your devices into power strips, as they will help to reduce energy consumption. More importantly, power strips will disconnect your devices once you have switched them off – you won’t have to worry about there being any hidden consumption of electricity in your home.
Large household appliances like laundry machines and dishwashers are huge consumers of energy. Furthermore, some of us tend to use these appliances too frequently, running them at less than their full volumes. Take America for example, where the average household washes nearly 400 loads of laundry each year, with about 150 liters of water used for each full load. Furthermore, these loads often don’t make use of the appliance at its fullest capacity – imagine how much energy and water gets wasted!
To reduce the energy consumption of your laundry machine, stick to washing your clothes only once a week. This ensures the machine is run at its full capacity. When drying your clothes, adjust your settings to minimal or no heat. Similarly, for dishwashers, try to fill it as much as you can before letting it run. In addition, ensure that you have selected a suitable wash cycle, and opt to have minimal or no heat in your dryer settings.
To make sure you get maximum benefits from being energy-efficient, you should also keep your house well-ventilated. You can increase your airflow by simply installing new windows. Regardless of the kind of appliance you use, it always makes a huge difference when your house is already well insulated.
For instance, over the colder winter months, you may unknowingly have to use your heaters or radiators at a higher temperature. Come summer, the same holds true for your air conditioner consumption. Even with energy-efficient appliances, the higher and more frequent usage may still increase your bill. So, a home renovation that’d be worth doing in the coming year is the installation of better and new home insulation.
However, be very cautious about trying to do all these by yourself. No matter how much you love to do a good DIY project, it’s best to leave this job with expert contractors like TXU Energy. That way, you know for certain that the job is done correctly and won’t ever be botched.
One of the common mistakes people make when installing ceiling lights is to use them to brighten up the whole room. This is an inefficient way of using light sources – a much better way is to install lights only in the specific areas you wish to be brightened up. These would be your dining or work tables, reading corners, or your bedside, where you would use lamps instead of ceiling lights. Furthermore, installing home lighting in this way helps you to avoid leaving ceiling lights on when they are not in use. Placing individual lamps around your home ensures that you only turn on lights that are in need. To save even more money, replace any incandescent lights with compact fluorescent lamps – they are energy-efficient and will reduce your energy consumption in the long term.
As for ceiling fans, avoid using a single fan to circulate or cool the temperature of the whole house. Install fans for rooms that need them, and always switch them off when they aren’t being used. Another useful tip is to adjust the settings of your fan according to the season you’re in. if you’re in the winter season, adjust the settings to let your fan turn clockwise. If it’s the summer season, switch it to anti-clockwise. The result is that you will get to enjoy a more efficient circulation of air in your home.
This might not be commonly known to some of us, but old electronic devices can really contribute a ton to your household electricity consumption. Compared to their newly designed counterparts, old household appliances tend to consume more energy.
Some of us may treasure the use of older models because they give a retro and quaint look to your kitchen. However, these appliances might be the primary reason you’re getting costly electric bills each month. If possible, do consider upgrading your devices to models that are more energy-efficient. In fact, any appliance designed before the late 1990s is likely to not be Energy Star rated. New, energy-efficient refrigerators, for instance, are capable of consuming four times less electricity than their older counterparts. If you want to maintain the retro theme in your house, consider purchasing from brands that carry classic, old-fashioned-looking models. This gives you the best of both worlds as these new models won’t clash with the interior look of your home while enabling you to cut down on energy costs.
Rather than keeping these old appliances, as a new year comes, you might want to invest in new and more energy-efficient appliances. This is a very good, positive change you can create in your home. It’s also one of the best investments you can make.
If you can only buy one big new appliance, you can opt for an energy-efficient refrigerator or a new set of kitchen appliances. The more energy-efficient your appliances are, the less energy you use and, therefore, the less you spend on your energy bills. Thus, you can have both benefits–more savings and lower energy bills.
In this digital age, we’ve bombarded ourselves with countless gadgets that take up electricity – from smartphones, tablets, laptops, gaming consoles, even electric toothbrushes, and razors. If you’re depending a lot on the use of tech gadgets and devices, chances are you’re having these devices plugged in throughout the day, leading to higher electricity bills.
Remove any chargers or adapters from their sockets when you aren’t charging any devices – remember that most devices will still draw electricity as long as they are plugged in! Additionally, try to charge your devices only when necessary. Avoid charging them for too long or overnight, as excessive charging will cost you extra money and reduce the battery life of your devices.
Hopefully, these tips and insights on how to save energy and electricity costs will effectively reduce your utility expenses. Just by making a few adjustments to your daily habits of energy consumption, you can expect to see lower electricity bills being charged to your household. It also helps to check out the latest deals offered by the various energy suppliers. You compare energy on simplyswitch.com to see what’s on offer at the moment.
