Lowering home energy use does not have to mean making your house less comfortable. Small changes to lighting, thermostat settings, kitchen habits, and how you run appliances can help reduce wasted energy and trim monthly utility costs.
If you’re looking for practical ways to save energy at home, start with a few simple habits and upgrades that are easy to maintain year-round. Consider following these energy-saving tips.
No matter what type of lights you use inside or outside your home, try LED (Light-Emitting Diode) lighting. LED lights use 86% less electricity than comparable incandescent lights and have numerous safety advantages. For example, LED lights are shatterproof, present no fire hazard, and, because they emit almost no heat, are safe to the touch.
While they may be a little more expensive to buy, they’ll save you a lot of money in the long run since they use far less energy and don’t need to be replaced nearly as often.
When your home is filled with people, or the ovens are working overtime, or both, the temperature can rise by several degrees. Rather than opening a window or leaving a door ajar, consider lowering your home’s thermostat, or turning off the heat altogether.
Each degree “colder” that you set you set your thermostat decreases your home’s energy usage up to 3 percent.
While you’re at it, consider installing a programmable thermostat that allows you to program the temperature at specific times of the day. For instance, while you’re at work and no one is home, the temperature can be turned down a few degrees to save on energy.
Then, you can program the thermostat to turn the temperature up about an hour before you arrive home from work to make sure your home is comfortable, All these changes can be made without your intervention when you program the thermostat beforehand.
If you’re the type who likes to plan your meals in advance, you may want to consider preparing foods simultaneously to help cut down on energy expenditure.
Prepping meals in advance leads to running the oven, microwave or stove-top multiple times for each served dish. When possible, prepare foods at the same time and warm in the oven at the same time. In running your appliances less, you will save on energy costs.
Some dishes require hand-washing. For everything else, use a dishwasher. Dishwashers use less water than is required to wash and rinse plates, utensils and pots and pans by hand. They can also use up to 50% less energy than is required to heat the water you’ll need to wash your dishes manually.
That said, only run the dishwasher when it is completely full rather than running it with space leftover. If there are dishes in there that you must use soon after, wash them by hand. Everything else can wait until the dishwasher has been fully loaded.
By running the dishwasher only at capacity, you can save on all that water and heat that’s used to wash and dry your dishes. Speaking of which, consider only using the dishwasher to wash the dishes.
Rather than using extreme heat to dry them, open up the dishwasher while the dishes are still wet after they’ve been washed, and allow them to air dry. Otherwise, towel-dry them yourself. This alone can save a ton of energy.
There are so many ways to save on energy in your home that will help the environment and your pocketbook.
Reducing home energy use often comes down to a few consistent habits: use efficient lighting, adjust your thermostat thoughtfully, avoid unnecessary appliance use, and wait until full loads are ready before running major kitchen equipment. Start with one or two changes that are easy to stick with, then build from there to lower waste and manage utility costs over time.
Yes. Reducing unnecessary lighting use helps cut wasted electricity, and switching to LED bulbs increases those savings even more because LEDs use far less electricity than comparable incandescent lights.
Simple ways include switching to LED lighting, lowering the thermostat when extra heat is not needed, preparing foods at the same time to avoid repeated appliance use, and only running the dishwasher when it is full.
Start with a few practical habits: use LED bulbs, adjust the thermostat instead of opening windows when the house warms up, plan meals to reduce repeated oven or stovetop use, and wait until the dishwasher is fully loaded before running it.
They can. LED lights cost more to buy than some other bulbs, but they use much less electricity and do not need to be replaced nearly as often, which can save money over time.
A practical approach is to lower the thermostat by a few degrees when the home is warmer from cooking or when no one is home. A programmable thermostat can help manage those changes automatically while keeping the home comfortable when needed.
Each degree colder that you set your thermostat can decrease home energy use by up to 3 percent.
A programmable thermostat lets you schedule lower temperatures when the house is empty and raise the temperature before you return home. That helps reduce unnecessary heating without requiring constant manual adjustments.
For most dishes, using a dishwasher is generally more efficient. Dishwashers can use less water than washing by hand and may use less energy than heating the water needed for manual washing.
No. It is better to wait until the dishwasher is completely full before running it. Running full loads helps save the water and energy used to wash and dry the dishes.
Low-cost steps include replacing older bulbs with LEDs, lowering the thermostat when possible, using a programmable thermostat, combining meal preparation to reduce repeated appliance use, and air-drying dishes instead of using the dishwasher’s heat-dry setting.
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