How do you keep utility bills down when you are at home all day?
Turn your central heating down (as we are moving in to spring, more likely off). If you feel cold put a long sleeved shirt or dress on; or a jumper. See points 14 &15 below. Cook in batches. So if you live on your own (as I do) I will make a meal for four (even if it is a paste out of a jar) fry or prepare the meat as required until cooked. Then eat what you need (note not want) then split the remainder up and place in the freezer. Alternatively if you want to have the same meal tomorrow. Leave that element you want to eat in the pan/cooker. cover it slightly so nothing nasty can get to it and put the balance in the freezer. At least you are not re-heating the whole lot from frozen (using more power) . If you do not need a light on in say a bedroom, then leave it off until you need to go to bed. In a living room, you probably dont need 100W light bulb you can use a 60 and still see what you are doing. Leave as fewer appliances as possible on stand-by. The fact that they are partially switched off doesnt mean they are not drawing power. Do your washing in the load capacity of your washing machine. Not only will you save power, but water as well. If you have an overnight tariff , do your washing and drying (if you cant get outside) overnight. That can be 1/3 the price of you day time usage costs. Use the washing up water to flush the toilet (yes it sounds ugh, but providing you rinse the bowl that held the washing up, with a small amount of bleach, germ free in an instant. In fact that is one of the problems today and why our immune systems have become so weak is that we are not exposed to the little bugs in small portions (so to speak) any more. Shower as opposed to take a bath ( I know most Americans do shower) but even so a shower only uses the water you need and therefore heats what you need. So double whammy. I live on my own so have a hot water tank but such is its capacity that a whole tank will last me two days. Fill your kettle up from the hot tap, and only boil what you need as that saves power as the smaller the difference between the ambient temperature of the water to the point you need it heat is less so therefore less energy. Lower fuel bill. The same goes for cooking things like pasta, where you can fill the saucepan with hot water from the tap and again reducing the heat difference. For the record is takes 4.2Watts to heat 1 cubic centimetre of water by 1 degree from it current/ambient temperature to the temperature you need. With reference to 9. although not always practical, cover saucepans containing water or sauces, and in particular pastas either in the form of shapes like macaroni , short spaghetti. One of my most used kitchen utensils after my wok is my small pressure cooker, which is actually designed for two people families. I can cook a bolognaise or chili in that in half the time as the pressure increases the reduces the boiling point of water and therefore less energy; not to mention condensate. Again I tend to batch cook so that is ideal as it cooks in effect four dinners, one I eat, the other three I freeze down to eat if I get home late and need something a meal before I go to bed. Yes I am using energy to re-heat in say a microwave but I am not cooking from scratch. If you have two small children say 2 & 5 years old, if you have a bath, then bath them at the same time they can fit in the same bath easily enough you use one bath of water to clean both of them, and providing they are not that unclean you can wash their hair at the same time. Dry them off put them in to the pyjamas /night dress/shirt and slip them both in to bed. If they share the same room you only need one night light and to save time you can read them their separate bed-time stories or both of them at the same story. Actually I am very concerned about the number of children under the age of 8 who DO NOT have a bed-time story read to them or a share-read bedtime story. That is to say you the story book your are reading from they read a sentence or a page, then your do the following page; to and fro until the next chapter. It is not only relaxing them to sleep but helping with their reading development as well. Unless it is very cold, the bedroom temperature does not have to be that hot, a cuddly hot water bottle and particularly girls like cotton -flannelette night clothes. To a large degree so do boys. Also flannelette sheets also insulate so you dont need the heating in the room so high. Encourage children to wear slippers that are cosy around the house as opposed to padding around in socks (which will get dirty) but a lot of heat is lost through the feet. So a pair of soft lined slippers insulate the feet and actually warm feet means a warm body. You dont realise the size of your feet as a ratio of your overall body, until you take your shoes off. Your foot from heel to big toe, is the same length of your elbow (ulna) to your wrist at the outside edge of your arm. It is also roughly the same width as your forearm which is slightly narrower, more so in children. (Take your shoe off and try it !) Relating to 14 above wearing long sleeved shirts and/or jumpers reduce heat loss in the same way. Again reducing the need to heat the room to a higher temperature than it really need to be. Turn down the heating accordingly. If the children want to stay up and you let them, put them in to a fleecy dressing gown or loose knit wrap around cardigan. For point of reference, look at the closing scene of Kramer -v- Kramer where Billy is about to be picked up by Joanna, under the Custody Order, and calls Ted down to the lobby. Billy is sitting on the sofa with this thick cardigan/wrap around him almost like a dressing gown but is in fact a long cardigan with a thick knit. Close all interconnecting room doors. particularly if you have three bedrooms which all open on to one landing. Particularly if one room is not used but is Spare close the door on that since it doesnt matter if it gets cold in there since no one is using it. Have deep lined, floor to ceiling Curtains at the window, and draw them together tightly when the light fades in to darkness; then switch the living room light on. Even if you have double glazing you will be surprised how much heat goes out through a window ! During summer you dont need to have the Air condition; the opposite to 16 & 17 above let the air move around the building and it will cool. OK it doesnt always work but frequently it does. These are just some ideas, but doubtless you will think of others as time goes on. Chris R- London