How do you save money on utility bills?
Easiest, cheapest and with a fast pay-back period is to go to more efficient lighting. LED and compact fluorescents are each about 5 times more efficient than incandescent bulbs. Long, thin fluorescent tubes (the longer the better and the newer/thinner ones the best) are even more efficient. LED bulbs are, however, really nice for outdoor lighting in snow country because they come on instantly, while fluorescents need to warm up, sometimes taking minutes to do so. After that? Behavioral changes like turning off the lights when you leave the room. Not running the dish washer or clothes washer until you have a full load. Note: dish washers use less hot water and therefore less energy than hand washing. Take shorter showers. Turn the water off when brushing your teeth. Turn the thermostat down and wear sweater. Certainly turn it way down when you leave the house for the day. Consider replacing appliances. An old fridge or freezer could be costing more in electricity than a payment plan on a new, much more efficient one. A Kill-a-watt meter, placed on such appliance and left for a day or a week will give you good info about how much power (and money) it is consuming. Other than horribly inefficient old appliances, youre unlikely to replace one that is still working. But when you do need to replace it, look carefully at energy rating. The correctly sized, most efficient freezer, washer, or air conditioner could use half the energy of another model and more than pay or itself over its life.