10 Ways to Lower Your Energy Bill This Holiday Season

With fuel costs ticking upward and forecasts for a cool winter in Missouri this year, there’s plenty of motivation to be proactive and cut your energy bills. Besides switching to LED lights and cuddling under blankets, you have plenty of options to stay toasty while using less energy.

Over the holidays and throughout the winter, try these 10 tips for saving energy at home.

1. Take Advantage of Kitchen Warmth

When you fire up the ovens to cook a holiday feast, turn the thermostat down a few degrees. When guests gather around in their favorite ugly sweaters to enjoy your roast, the home is going to heat up anyway.

2. Boost Your Body Temperature

Sweaters and fleece blankets are nice, but you can also boost your body temperature by exercising, drinking cold beverages, and eating whole grains.

3. Install a Smart Thermostat

Add a programmable thermostat, or make better use of it! Then explain to family members that you need to stick to the programmed schedule. Smart thermostats like Nest can even learn your preferences and optimize themselves.

4. Replace Your Oldest Major Appliance

Many homes have at least one appliance that falls well short of modern efficiency standards. Look for energy rebates on certain appliances or pick your least efficient machine and replace it with something Energy Star approved.

5. Weatherstrip Doors

Can you see daylight or feel a small draft around the edges of the closed door? Add weatherstrips or draft guards to reduce how often your heater has to run.

6. Get a Furnace Tune-Up

Did you skip the annual HVAC maintenance visit this year? Systems that are more than a couple years old really need an annual tune-up to maintain efficiency, cut your bills, and also improve air quality.

7. Cool Your Jets

Everyone loves a steamy shower, but there are plenty of benefits to taking cooler showers. Warm up to lukewarm, and lower your water heater down to as low as 120º.

8. Unplug After Charging

Most devices are supposed to be unplugged when they reach 100% battery, so go ahead and unplug when fully charged. Use power strips where appropriate so you can turn off several appliances together.

9. Gradually Change Thermostats

Resist the urge to crank up the heat. Only change it by one or two degrees, then layer up and see if you still feel cold when the heater cycles off. Your energy-efficient comfort zone might be a lower temp than you realized.

10. Welcome the Sun

In rooms that face the morning and afternoon sun, open the drapes or blinds to let in the natural warmth of sunlight. Anytime the sun isn’t shining in, keep the curtains closed (and add an energy-saving blackout curtain) to trap your furnace’s heat indoors.

If you’re already living as green as you’d like, but your energy bills still seem high, your HVAC system might need repairs or improvements. For furnace, heat pump, and other heating system maintenance in the St. Louis area, call us at 314-845-5900 or contact us online to schedule a service call.