What are the best electric efficiency upgrades to do around your home? With winter being in full effect and summer gone, you will need ways to help your electric bill be lower. These tips will also help you out during the summer months when warmer weather overheats your home. It is important to keep in mind to use a professional for some of these upgrades to your home. Some of this can be done on your own, however other options need an electrician to come out and work for you.
Depending on where you live, some of these may not apply to you as much as they may someone else. However, you might end up finding them all to be beneficial to you and your home during any season.
Using air conditioners in the summer increases the electric bill immensely and can even get your bill over the $100 mark, depending on how large your home is. Try these alternatives to reduce your electric bill costs.
Instead of using your air conditioner, try using a fan instead. It may get really hot out, but a nice fan in every room can help keep your home cooler and with less electricity cost compared to air conditioning. There is no doubt that using air conditioning is more expensive than using fans, and not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford air conditioning. Some places do not even have it installed, and AC window units tend to make the electric bill much higher when run all the time.
When using fans around your house, make sure you put them by windows and open those windows up to let the cool air in during the morning hours. When it starts to warm back up outside, close the windows but keep the fan circulating air for you. This will help keep your house cooled off while also saving you electricity. If you prefer to keep your windows open, you will need to turn off any fans near those windows to reduce the chance of it blowing the hot summer air into your house. Using these kinds of fans are very simple to install, all you need to do is plug them in!
Ceiling fans are also very useful to use during the summer. They can also be of benefit to you during the winter! In the summer, having the right sized ceiling fan rotating the right way will help keep the rooms in your home cooler. In the winter, these fans can help bring the heated air that rises up back down to where you are sitting. This allows the heat to be spread more evenly throughout the house instead of rising up to the 2nd or 3rd floors. You will most likely require professional installation for ceiling fans, unless you are an electrician yourself!
You can also switch your light bulbs out with LED lighting by a professional electrician. These lights produce such a small amount of heat it is barely noticeable, and they can be left on a lot without using too much power or overheating the bulb. On the other hand, incandescent and fluorescent lighting can produce too much heat and raise the heat level in your home. Not too much of a problem in the winter, but it can be detrimental during the summer. Installing LED lights are just as easy as any other kind of lighting. Pull out the old lightbulb and “plug in” the LED lightbulb. Use these year-round to save on your electric bill!
These are just some energy efficient things to do for your home. During the winter, you can also use heat tape installed into your colder flooring which in turn will keep these floors much warmer on your feet. This means less heat is needed to keep your floors warm. The best high-quality tapes are great for embedding into your floors to keep them from freezing your feet off. You can install these yourself or have someone do it for you.
