Data show that the U.S. state with the highest monthly average utility bill is Hawaii with $587.79 each month (electricity and gas). Florida comes in second with $459.40, South Carolina in third place with $450.51, Alabama in the fourth spot with $448.73, and Georgia rounding off the top five with a $441.10 average monthly utility bill. These U.S. States sure have a lot of households that consume gas and electricity higher than the rest of the nation.
As the COVID-19 pandemic still rages on and businesses closing down, it’s only prudent for homeowners to take the wise path by conserving power. By doing so, they can enjoy big savings each month on their power bills and have a ready source of contingency fund should things go south in the future.
Here are some clever hacks on how you could bring down your monthly power bills and save big money in the process:
- Clean your windows regularly. This may come as a huge shock for you but it is actually one of the most clever energy conservation hacks out there. Regular window cleaning not only preserves your windows’ aesthetics but also helps lower your home’s electrical consumption month after month. Over time, dirt buildup could cause the windows’ ability to trap heat and begin releasing it instead of helping keep a warm indoor temperature. Eventually, the windows would hardly be trapping much-needed heat during the winter, so your heating system has to work overtime and, as a result, lead to shocking power bills at the end of the month.
- Unplug everything that consumes electricity when not in use. Just because they’re plugged into your sockets but are not powered doesn’t mean they’re not using electricity at all. This is one of those erroneous mindsets of homeowners that become their undoing each time the bills come. While the amount of electricity that these silent suckers consume is not substantial by most standards, the fact that they do consume power even when you’re not getting any benefit out of it should be enough reason to nip this wasteful habit in the bud.
- Work out those cracks and seal them all up. They are like silent creepers that cause you nightmares each night. Those small cracks around your house are discreetly draining you of potential savings on your monthly power consumption and they should be stopped dead in their tracks. Have a professional home maintenance crew give your home a once-over to find those cracks and properly seal them up.This simple, yet clever trick would go a long way in reducing the amount of energy that your home consumes, albeit wastefully so. Experts estimate that sealing cracks in homes can give homeowners as much as 30 percent savings in their monthly electricity bills, so it’s an energy-conservation path worth taking.
- Invest in motion detectors for your lights. Why keep the lights on in a room when there’s no one moving? One of the most wasteful habits of many homeowners is keeping all their lights on throughout the night (or day) even when most of the home is unoccupied. Fortunately, there’s a quick and painless remedy to it: motion detectors.There are many of these smart devices in the market that you can snag anytime if you want to save big on your monthly power bills. Smart detectors that are connected to household light bulbs turn off and on the lights when motion is detected. This means that your lights will only consume electricity when needed, plus the added fact that you don’t have to stress out yourself by having to manually turn off the lights when your family members forget to do so.
- Have your home undergo an energy audit. You can perform a DIY energy audit of your home by following some simple steps if you don’t want to spend anything. You can also inquire with your local power company if they do conduct home energy audits for free, as there are those that do offer this service to consumers. An energy audit would point out specific areas in your home where you’re wasting power and where your energy conservation efforts must be focused on. This is a critical step towards saving big dollars on your month-over-month electricity bill.
Do you practice any or all of these clever power-saving hacks? Do you know of any other equally smart ways of conserving energy and saving on monthly power bills? Leave a comment below, so other homeowners could learn a thing or two from you.
