Here at Dura-Shine Clean, cleaning is our passion! We love cleaning and another thing we love doing is helping you in your everyday life, from home-life balance tips to favorite recipes, and even ways to cut down on your electrical bill. Who wouldn’t benefit from saving a few dollars and managing their energy usage better? Especially when we have a busy home life, our house is constantly running on electrical gadgets, appliances, and other energy suckers. It is not surprising that appliances account for 20% of our household’s energy consumption. These include clothing washers and dryers and refrigerators. When purchasing an appliance, you should always look for an Energy Star rated appliance, which is a federal rating for energy-efficient appliances – these consume less energy overall in their lifespan.
But besides going in and buying a completely new set of appliances, there are simple everyday actions we can take to reduce how much electricity we consume in our household. A good recommendation is placing simple reminders around our home, especially around electrical outlets and appliances. Also, if you have small children in your home, be sure to baby proof around the home.
Here are some simple things we can do to cut down on our energy bill
Contact your city’s utility department
The majority of them will offer an energy auditor to visit your home completely free of charge to conduct an evaluation. Isn’t that great? After they’ve evaluated your home’s energy consumption habits, appliances, and heating and cooling, they’ll smart make recommendations for upgrades. Some upgrades require a large upfront cost, but will provide great savings in the long run, so they’re a worthwhile investment.
Green Lighting
Substitute energy-inefficient incandescent light bulbs for CFLs or Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs. These can be easily found in your local appliance or home improvement store. Believe it or not CFLs use 66% less energy than incandescent light bulbs so they are highly recommended for energy savings.
Unplug!
This one seems like a no brainer, but here it comes: Plug and unplug your electronics! The quickest way to do this is to use power strips for connecting your TV and other electronics and then turning the strip off when not in use. Also make sure to unplug all cell phone, battery, tablet, and other electronic chargers when you’re not using them to save energy. Believe it or not, but our chargers draw power continuously! So unplug them! You can also set your desktop computer to hibernate mode to lessen the load even more.
These simple changes can have a big impact on your electrical and utility bills. At Dura-Shine Clean if we love anything is to make the lives of our clients easier – by keeping their home sparkling clean and sharing with them beneficial information. Like what you’re reading? Check back on our blog often where we share cleaning tips, tricks, and other home improvement information. Want to make life even easier? Give us a call for a free quote on cleaning your home!
