Five Ways to Lower Your Utility Bills Year Round by Combining Good Energy Saving Habits with Simple Energy Saving Solutions. Part 1 of 3

Hey there readers, Use My Guy here with five ways to help drastically reduce your utility bills year round.  This will be a 3 part series so check out next week’s post for five more ways to save plus another tip on building better habits.  Now here’s the thing about saving money on your utilities.  You actually have to follow these steps to save money you can’t just read these tips and expect them to work if you do not practice them.  It can take some time to build good energy saving habits, but with desire and perseverance you can see significant savings in just two months.  According to most studies it takes at least two months to break old habits and to form new ones.   According to Web Md there are three easy steps to forming new and beneficial habits that can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to break old habits and form new ones.

Step 1) Make it Conscious:  According to psychiatrist Susan Jaffe MD it is of paramount importance to take time to find out why you do certain things.  Is it triggered by stress or certain emotions?  Is it a certain time of day?  Or a group of people that you spend time with?  Once you can correlate your habit to specific behavioral patterns it becomes much easier to target what you are doing and when.  When you have a better understanding of your habits it will be easier to address them.  It could be as simple as the way that you were raised.  If you think about it energy saving has really only come to the forefront of societies consciousness over the last thirty years or so.   That means that many of us were raised without regard to shutting the water off while brushing our teeth or turning off the lights every time we leave the room.  Behavioral patterns that have been practiced for many years or even a lifetime are much more difficult to break than habits that formed recently (by recently I mean within five to ten years) so expect to work harder on these energy saving habits than say biting your nails or cracking your knuckles or picking your nose.  

 

Now let us get to the fun part, the energy saving tips and tricks.

For the most part these are ideas that will not cost you an arm and a leg and will raise the value of your home when it comes time to resell. 

      

1) Have heavy window drapes installed.  Entry level drapes only cost about 30.00 dollars per window and can reduce heat gains in the summer by 33% and heat loss in the winter by 25%.  The way these drapes work is by creating an extra barrier and seal around your windows effectively keeping hot air out and cool air in in the summer and vice a versa in the winter.  Drapes like this come in all sorts of fashionable styles and colors so you are sure to find some that delight you while adding a little pizazz and style to the room.  Window drapes are especially effective when combined with preexisting blinds so don’t plan on replacing your blinds with drapes as both will help add to the efficiency of your house.  Now most blinds and drape companies will offer some sort of installation package with your purchase but it is almost always cheaper to go to a home improvement store like Home Depot or Lowes and install them yourself or hire a local handyman to do it.  Most blinds and shades are very easy to install anyways and why pay more when you don’t have to?  The whole point of this is to save money right?

 2) Check your weather stripping on a regular basis.  This is one of the most inexpensive ways that you can save on your utilities.  Weather stripping is extremely inexpensive to buy-usually no more than sixteen to eighteen dollars per door-and very easy to install.  An easy way to tell if you need new weather stripping is to stand outside of your front door with the A/C on and see if you can feel any air pushing through, in some extreme cases you will even be able to hear a low whistle.  If you feel or hear even a little bit of air flow it is time for new weather stripping.  This goes for winter and summer equally.  If air can get out while your A/C or heater is working than hot air or cold air can get in while it’s not on.  This is especially important for houses more than ten years old and mobile homes of any age and it applies to front doors, back doors and even sliding glass doors.


 3)  Upgrade to LED lighting.  This is so easy and yet so many people have not done it yet.  Changing over to LED bulbs can save you up to 108.00 dollars yearly with an average of 24 bulbs that burn at least three hours a day, many homes have over fifty bulbs that could be changed, that’s 216.00 dollars that could be saved every year!  The other great thing about LED bulbs is that most new ones only need to be changed every 20 years.  That means that over the standard life of an LED bulb you can save 2,160.00 dollars and that’s on the low end.  Standard light bulbs usually only last for 750 hours and that means that if you run a light for three hours a day you will need to change that bulb every year and that’s only if you don’t bump or break them.  Think about it if you are changing all of your bulbs once a year and a four pack of bulbs costs three to six dollars you are saving 36.00 dollars a year just on new bulbs and that’s before you factor in the energy savings. This means that you save money while significantly helping to reduce your landfill footprint.  OH!!! And don’t change to CFL bulbs, not only do these bulbs not save you very much money there is a small amount of deadly mercury in them and for those of you with children if one of these bulbs break it will release tiny amounts of mercury as a vapor.  Mercury exposure has been linked to nervous disorders, cancer, kidney damage, respiratory failure and even death!!!  That is not to say that being exposed to one broken CFL will kill you but it is something to keep in mind as mercury exposure does build up in your system over time. 

4)  Have a water pressure regulator installed.  Now this is neither an easy nor an inexpensive fix but even in one year you will see a return on your investment.  Most water pressure regulators run about 100.00 dollars at your local hardware store and depending on who you get to install it the installation can run upwards of 600.00 dollars.  Do not attempt to install this yourself! This requires special tools most people do not have access to and if the installation does not go right than there could be serious consequences ranging from serious injury to destroyed plumbing that will cost you 1000.00s of dollars more to fix.  However since most houses have a standard water pressure of about 100-150 psi and safe pressure is about 50-55psi it is a good idea to, at the very least go down to your local hardware store and buy yourself an inexpensive water pressure tester.  Anything over 60psi is considered unsafe and will reduce the life of your pipes and appliances such as water heaters and dish washers and also faucets and shower heads.  By having one of these handy devices installed the average family of four can save anywhere from 30,000-40,000 gallons of water a year if your water pressure is reduced by 50%.  That’s a pretty significant savings that you will reap every year after for the life of the regulator.  


5)  Last on our list for today but certainly not the least, changing your air filters every 3 months can save you up to 15% annually on heating and cooling costs.  The reason for this is that when your air filters get clogged they make your A/C and heater work much harder and even while working harder they will still not get as much air flow around the house.  This means that you are paying more money for less cooling or heating respectively.  Changing your filters is super easy and inexpensive.  Most basic 20 X 20 inch air filters run about five dollars apiece.  That’s twenty dollars a year to reduce your utility bill by 15% and ensure that your equipment lasts longer, works more efficiently and increases the air quality of your home.

Now for the hard part, deciding on a quality company to help you with these fixes.  Most of these are pretty easy like changing a light bulb or an air filter.  But what if you have high ceilings and don’t have a tall ladder?  Or if you have a physical disability that keeps you from being able to use a ladder or other simple tools?  You want someone in your house that you can trust and who you know will treat your house like their own.  Additionally it is important to choose a company that has a history of excellent customer service and has been proven to finish the job through to the end.  That’s where we come in.  We are Use My Guy Services your local family owned and operated handyman service.  We have been in business for over 5 years now, we have dozens of 5 star reviews on yelp and Angie’s list with more being added every day.  We are also A+ rated with the Better Business Bureau and just won the Super Service Award for 2015 from Angie’s List.  Check out our website by clicking here.  We are also on yelp, Angie’s list, Facebook and the Better Business Bureau.  Call us today at (602)316-9187 to speak to our friendly staff who will treat you like are a part of our family.  We will give you an honest quote and ensure that you are well taken care of from start to finish.  Thanks for reading, till next week.

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