Your Energy Bills: Seeing Where You Can Save Once You Understand Where Your Money Is Going

Taking charge of your energy bills is much easier when you know where those dollars go. Employing energy-saving tips can reduce your bill significantly, without sacrificing comfort in your home.

energy billsHeating and cooling

Conditioning your home accounts for 45 percent of the energy expenditures. Besides turning down your thermostat in winter or setting it higher in the summer, you can save money on heating and cooling by:

  • Changing air filters in your HVAC equipment. Dirty filters make heating and cooling your home more expensive and create unnecessary wear and tear on the air handler.
  • Sealing the air leaks in your home and ductwork. Leaks around windows, doors and incoming wiring or plumbing are easy to seal with caulk, expanding foam or insulation. Leaking ducts can increase your energy bills substantially. Contact an HVAC company who can detect and seal the ducts for you.

Water heating

The typical household allocates 11 percent of their energy dollars for heating water. Save money and increase the life of your water heater by:

  • Turning down the thermostat to 120 degrees. This saves energy, and hard water deposits do not form as readily at the bottom of the tank when the temperature is lower.
  • Wrap your water heater with an insulating blanket, available at home improvement stores.
  • Wash only full loads in your dishwasher and avoid using hot water for your laundry.

Lighting

Responsible for 7 percent of your energy bills, you can save even more when you change all your bulbs from incandescent or fluorescent to LED or CFL bulbs.

Refrigerators

If your refrigerator is old, it may use more than the typical 6 percent that newer refrigerators use. Side-by-side refrigerators use more electricity than those with freezers on the top or bottom. When you upgrade an older appliance, choose an Energy Star refrigerator to save more on energy bills.

Small electronics

Turning off the power strip for your small electronics can help you save on standby power losses.

Air-Tro can help you discover ways to trim your energy expenses. We serve the greater Los Angeles area and can help you save on heating and cooling costs.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about energy bills and other HVAC topics, visit our website.

Air-Tro Inc. services the greater Los Angeles area as well as the metro areas of Riverside and San Bernardino County. 

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