Money Saving Tips: Cut Your Energy Bill Without Solar Panels

Posted under solar power by Todd Dornan

I lowered my energy bill without solar panels. Almost everyone thinks that the only way to lower your energy bill is with solar panels. This is not true. I was about to lower my energy bill by 23% and now I’m going to share with you exactly how I did it.

Window Insulation - The best thing you can do to lower your power bill is to make sure your windows are insulated properly. If you only have single pane windows, you are losing a lot of money. Single pane windows are terrible insulators. You need to upgrade to double pane windows. Double pane windows will save you a lot of money. Take a room by room approach as double pane windows are expensive.

Ventilate Your Attic - Hot air needs to escape from your attic. If your attic air vents become clogged, which they will over time with dust, your attic will hold the hot air and ultimately making your air conditioner work too hard. You must clean your attic vents to allow the hot air to escape from your house (remember, hot air rises). If your attic does not have air vents you need to go down to your hardware store right now and buy some ventilation kits and put a few in.

Air Conditioner Filters - A dirty air filter makes your air conditioner work much harder which means it takes more energy to do its job. Changing your air conditioner filters once a month will save you money off your monthly energy bill.

Change Your Stove Fan Filter - The fan that is located above your stove will get backed up with grease quickly. Fortunately, there is a filter in this fan that catches all that grease. The problem is that most people do not know that this fan even has a filter so they never change it. When this filter is clogged with grease, your fan has to work twice as hard costing you even more money.

Save Money By Turning Off Lights - You should go around to all your lights and lower the wattage on all your bulbs. Do not leave lights on when you leave the room. Do not use outside lights. A single outside light that uses a standard 60-watt bulb will cost you about $10 a month. Forget using dimmer lights as they don’t save you very much. Use fluorescent lights whenever and wherever possible.

Learn How To Calculate Energy Costs - You need to learn how much the things in your home are costing you in terms of energy cost each month. The formula is wattage / 1000 x hours used per day x your kWh charge (found on your monthly bill) / 30 days in a month = total cost of energy per month for that appliance. Let us do an example problem. If you are using a central air conditioner for 10 hours per day during the summer, it is costing you: 4000 / 1000 x 10 x 0.15 x 30 = $180 a month.

Written by Todd Dornan. To read more money saving tricks and tips off your monthly energy bill visit solar panels