Save Electricity

You may not realize it, but there are countless ways that you can easily save on your electricity bill by making small adjustments in your daily habits. We often think of saving electricity in terms of large changes - retrofitting your home with new lighting, switching to solar energy and installing motion detector lighting power - but these small changes can add up to big savings on your energy use and bill at the end of the month.

One of the largest uses of energy in your home is likely to be electronics and appliances. Whether you realize it, you likely are leaving your electronics powered on well beyond the time period that you are using them. In particular, high definition televisions and computers can use quite a bit of energy.

Increasingly, modern electronics have energy saver options which allow them to go into standby (idle) mode when they are not in use for a set period (generally, 15 minutes) - implementing this option can save a lot of energy in a simple step. Always set all of your computers to idle when they're not in use, so that you get the most energy efficiency from them.

Another major user of energy within the home is laundry appliances, which use large amounts of energy as well as water. Resist the temptation to run a small load in your washer and dryer, as that lowers the efficiency on the use. Instead, wait until you have a full load to run it. If you're looking at new appliances, make sure that you find an Energy Star efficient, load adjusted model that allows you to set a cycle and water amount relative to the load size - that way, you can limit the use of energy relative to the exact amount that you need.