Saving Money on Electricity

Archives: Tip: Saving Money on Electricity Archived on 11/02/2008 Answers: Hot Water Heater To save some on electricity I turn the breaker for my hot water heater off every day. Then a couple of hours before bath time I will turn it back on. Some nights I will even turn it off after kids baths. Most of the newer hot water heaters will hold the heat in there for many hours. I never realized how much it would cut down on our electric bill. By Kat (01/31/2005) By ThriftyFun RE: Saving Money on Electricity To save money on your electric bill, call your local electric carrier and ask about their peak hours for usage. You can do a lot with electricity during those off hours and save a fortune! By Sandi (01/31/2005) By ThriftyFun Hanging Clothes Instead of Using the Dryer You can save bundles of money hanging your clothes out to dry instead of using a costly "dryer". In the winter when the weather is bad I hang my clothes on a line strung up in my basement. If you hang your clothes out to dry to save money but hate the "crunchy " jeans, put them in the dryer for 10 minutes to soften. But watch the time or you will leave them in too long and waste your savings from hanging them out. I set a timer. By Reta (01/31/2005) By ThriftyFun RE: Saving Money on Electricity I unplug the toaster, microwave and anything that I will not be using until later or another day. even when appliances are off, they still use a small amount. Unplug t.v.s and vcrs when you go away no use no cost. (01/31/2005) By Susan from Hamilton Energy Saving Tips Use your small kitchen appliances whenever you can. Microwaves, toaster ovens, and slow cookers can use 75% less energy than a large electric oven. Use lids on all your pots and pans to reduce cooking times and don't put a small pan on a large burner. Turn off and unplug any electrical items that are not being used. Many appliances, especially computers, televisions, and VCR/DVD players draw power even when they are turned off. By Robin (03/17/2005) By ThriftyFun RE: Saving Money on Electricity Replace your old incandescent bulbs with new, energy efficient bulbs in new smaller sizes. Sell your old bulbs at a tag sale. www.smartlivingcatalog.com, or 800-527-4448. (03/17/2005) By annielou RE: Saving Money on Electricity In the winter turn the furnace to go on about 68 or lower. We bundle up during the day and night and we save money on the electric that way. Ziggee (03/17/2005) By Ziggee RE: Saving Money on Electricity Don't drain your bathwater until it's cool. Prop open the oven door after you bake IF you don't have young ones in the house. Open the dishwasher door immediately after the final rinse cycle to let dishes air dry and hot steamy air warm your kitchen. While waiting for the water to run warm, use the cooler water to scrub out the sink or fill bottles (I use gallon milk jugs -- lets the children see how much they waste by running the faucet) to later water plants, rinse tubs, or dump into the washer. Dry loads of clothing one after the other. If your hot water tank allows it, schedule showers one after the other -- saves that lag waiting for hot water to run through the pipes and arrive at the faucet warmed. Little things matter -- 50cents savings per day adds up to about $15 per month! (03/21/2005) By gannon RE: Saving Money on Electricity All of these are really good tips, but they didn't seem to work for me. My husband & I moved to Kentucky and rented a 16 x 80 trailer that is total electric. We were told by the electric company that this address normally runs at $120 a month. Well to try and cut that down I did everything that everyone mentioned, throwing the breaker for the hot water heater at night to off, and for most of the day, unplug the tv and vcr, using energy efficient bulbs, etc and my electric bill went up $50, I couldn't believe it and had the electric company come back and read the meter again. They claim its right. So except for the running the dryer for only 15 mins and only using cold water to wash clothes I don't do any of the other stuff because it didn't seem worth it. But maybe if we were not in a trailer right now, everything would work to help keep our electric down. So hopefully they work for everyone else. (03/22/2005) RE: Saving Money on Electricity Hi, Your electricity seems very high and adding another $50 a month to it is even worse. I wrote to Helmut at Dear Webby who helps us with electrical questions to see if he had any suggestions for you. Here is his response. . . "I am not familiar with the electricity prices for Kentucky, but that sounds rather high! I would recommend an energy audit to find out if there is some leakage or if a neighbor is plugging in or where all that electricity goes. If they have a slate or tile floor and electric floor heating, they should most definitely get a programmable thermostat, and put thermal insoles into their slippers. That makes it a lot less tempting to nudge up the thermostat. By the way, shutting down a water heater at night does not reduce electricity consumption one bit. You still have to heat as many gallons of water as you use. Tying a bunch of old quilts and bedspreads over and around a water heater does make a bit of difference. For a major difference I would recommend pre-heaters. Just put one or more old water heaters, with all the insulation stripped, off in the warmest spot in the attic, and feed the icy cold incoming water through that first, so that the electric water heater only has to top off the pre-warmed water. A 16 foot wide trailer would normally have a bit of a peaked roof, however, with flat-tops it's really easy to add all kinds of fun stuff on top, and then cover it with a stylish roof. In some trailer courts it's not just encouraged but required to put a peaked roof on to improve the looks of the court. Even if the trailer has a very low peak, it's usually enough to crawl around up there. If there is not room enough for a water heater laid flat, there is plenty of room for a few 6 inch black plastic sewer pipes. Usually they are run in a "U" or "W" configuration, so that the connection to the ground water and the hot water tank can be made at the service end. I would not want to do that work in summer. It gets brutally hot up there in those trailer attics. I don't know the numbers in your quaint Imperial Loyalist measuring system, but in the metric system it takes ONE calory to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. A liter of water weighs one kilogram (1000 grams), so you need a kilocalorie to raise the temperature of a liter of water by ONE degree. If the water from the incoming pipe is 60 degrees colder than what you want to feel at the hot water tap, then you need 60 kilocalories per liter of water. If the water from the pre-heaters in the attic is 10 degrees below what you want at the tap, then the hot water heater only has to top it off with 10 kilocalories. 50 kilocalories are donated by waste heat and solar. There is nothing, except for not paying your electricity bill for a few months, that will cut your electricity consumption as much as water pre-heaters. However, the first step should always be a thorough energy audit to track down leaks and abuses. Have FUN! Helmut" http://www.webby.com/humor/ Because you are living in a mobile home, I know there maybe no attic but getting an energy audit might really help, also putting insulation around your water heater. Susan From ThriftyFun (03/22/2005) By ThriftyFun Saving on the Dryer To save electricity while drying clothes in the dryer, I toss in a bath towel to absorb extra moisture and make the clothes dry faster. I did notice the cost of our electric bill went down after doing this for a month. By Kathleen (03/23/2005) By ThriftyFun RE: Saving Money on Electricity I have found that if I turn my air conditioner up by 5 degrees while I am at work or away that my electric bill has dropped. (09/06/2006) By Mike Report Spam or Abuse