9 Little Tricks To Save Electricity At Home Big Time

Being energy conscious will help you save hundreds of dollars each year without any extra effort.

Take a while and think about all those unused lights or appliances that are running at your home or office right now. You might wonder that there are many things that you are not using but take a constant electricity supply like: your television that runs on standby mode, the laptop that you use while the charger is plugged in, or not utilizing the oven fully while cooking.

The Importance Of Electricity Reduction

Everyone is engaged in several daily activities and most often one does not think of certain small steps that can be taken to have the extra money in the pocket. We will explore numerous ways to take those steps.

Another reason why we should think of saving electricity is that it has a direct linkage to the environment. The energy in the form of electricity that we all utilize with so much ease comes from the fossil fuels like coal. And burning these fuels releases CO2 along with several other toxic metals like mercury, lead and gases like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, etc. Overall, these substances cause global warming and brings higher costs for our electricity bills.

Therefore, it is very essential for all of us to save all forms of energy, with electricity being the most used form today.

Tricks To Save Electricity

1. Be Profitable With Lights

Just look around and see how many lights are turned on in your room and in other rooms where no one is present. It may be possible that you have some extra bulbs on while they do not do anything to your vision.

• Turn off all unnecessary lights and turn them back on only when you are in that room. Otherwise, before leaving the room switch them off. This sounds very basic and easy, however most of us, including in my family sometimes, people don’t switch off the lights they don’t use.
• Use task lighting like table lamps or small desk lights while you are sitting at one place.
• Take advantage of the natural light. Raise the curtains of your windows or you can try working in the room where you can get constant light, at least in the sunshine hours.

2. Do Full Loads Weekly

• Doing full loads of clothes in the washing machine can be another important tip in saving electricity.

And what is your frequency of washing clothes, daily or weekly? The latter is more profitable.

It takes almost the same amount of time as it would take to wash clothes every day. It can give you some extra number of hours per week to do your more valuable tasks. And of course, you would save lots of money. If you only have a few clothes which needs to be washed, you can wash them by hand.

• Doing a cold wash is equally nice as a hot wash. It is also more beneficial. It takes about 90% of the machine’s energy intake for heating up the water for the wash. This means if you use cold water for washing your clothes then you can save up to 90% amount on running it.

Related: DIY Cheap & Portable Washing Machine

3. Reduce Heat In The Kitchen

You might not have thought but there are numerous things that you can do to be energy efficient in the kitchen.

• If you use an electric burner, then turn it off a little early as the food and the cooking utensil is still hot and can cook the food. This is more profitable while boiling vegetables or pasta.
• Use the right size of cooking utensils and stove for cooking.
• Don’t boil a full kettle or heat a whole large meal unless required.
• Utilize a microwave for cooking small meals or use the oven fully.
• Sun-dry vegetables. This can take time but it is energy efficient.

4. Take Cold (Colder) Showers

Who does not love taking hot baths. But taking cold showers instead could assist you to conserve some bucks. By doing so, you can both save some electricity alongside benefit your body and mind.

Living in areas with cold temperatures?

• Turn off the heater early.
• Cover it with a blanket or heat resistant-foam.

Additional: Keep the required amount of water in a bucket or barrel which is having thick width, or you may cover it with a blanket or a foam. This will make the water relatively warm.

5. Be Efficient With Refrigeration

Lots of things can be done to reduce the energy intake by the refrigerator. By being efficient with the refrigerator you can directly also help the environment.

• Lower the temperature of your refrigerator a degree or two. This will make a huge difference.
• Utilize the whole space of your refrigerator or either put a jug of water or some trash paper. When things are placed close together inside the refrigerator then the food materials can be kept cooler at low temperatures.
• Keep away from direct sunlight, the oven, or any other heating device.
• Defrost the freezer whenever required.

6. Unplug Unused Electronics

The technology has given us many electronics that help us do our work with ease. And those electronics are required to be charged or plugged in for use. Also, several times we do not plug them off or maybe we think that they might not take too much electricity. But the opposite is true.

Even if we are not using some items like television, kitchen chimneys, heaters, air conditioners or any other electronics they are mostly kept on standby mode. This means they are plugged into the electricity point and constantly take in an enormous amount of energy.

• Switch off the electronics from the power board or use a power strip for ease.
• Do not use a laptop, phone, or any other chargeable electronics, while they are plugged in (without having low batter)y. This reduces the life of any device; then we must recharge them a lot more than usual, which ultimately increases the electricity consumption.

Related: 5 Recipes That You Can Make If You Live Fridge-Less

7. Utilize Dish Cleaner Well

First, you should wash your utensils by hand. But in case you do not have time or maybe there are lots of them then follow the steps below.

• There are different columns for all types of utensils in the dishwasher. What you must do is place all the utensils properly into their specific location and utilize the whole space correctly.
• Lower down heating temperature to some levels.
• Skip rinse.

8. Hand Cleaning

You might be using some sort of electric cleaners like a vacuum cleaner and wind blowers. But maybe with just some extra minutes, you can save energy consumption on these electronics.

What you can do is clean your house with a broom and then wipe it with a wet cloth. But if you have carpet flooring then you need to use the vacuum efficiently.

• Use it on a weekly or biweekly basis.
• Clean its motor and other interiors regularly. Oil its motor if required.
• For the wind blower, you can use a rake to clean your yard or try using the blower as little as attainable. Maybe in every three weeks.

9. Handle Water Purifier Intelligently

Almost everyone drinks purified water and usually, the tap water is purified. But many of us use a water purifier to double clean it.

Although water purifiers do not utilize lots of electricity you can use other ways to clean water, like a water purifying jug, or maybe you can boil the water and store it in a container for later use. This also helps to reduce the wastewater that the water purifiers throw away.

Extra Tips:

• Do the maintenance of your appliances regularly.
• Change or clean the filters of your appliances like that of AC and vacuum cleaner.
• Wipe your kitchen chimney. As the oils from the food may clog its motor which can decrease its performance.
• Seal any air leaks in your room. This will help to keep the room cooler or warmer for a longer time.
• Also, try using your machines with some small breaks. This can allow you to use them for a longer time in their proper state with little maintenance.

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