Our homes consume a lot of energy every day, but did you know that the majority of it is wasted due to inefficient appliances and bad habits? If you’re looking to cut down on your energy bills and have a more energy-efficient lifestyle, then here are some of the most power-hungry appliances in your home that you should keep an eye on.
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HVAC
Your healing and cooling system likely takes up a lot of energy, especially if you’re being mindful of how you use it. A lot of people simply turn their heating and cooling system on or off depending on when they need it. Is your home too hot? Turn up the cooling. Is it getting chilly? Crank up the heating! Sadly, a lot of people forget to turn it off, only realizing that it’s still on because the air is suddenly really hot or cold.
To remedy this, we suggest making good use of your thermostat. If you don’t have one, then it’s worth installing one just to conserve power. A thermostat will assist your heating and cooling system in keeping a consistent temperature throughout your home. It’s a great piece of equipment that will save you a lot on your energy bills.
If you’re unsure about installing a thermostat or are interested in maintaining your HVAC system for optimal performance, it’s best to get in touch with an air conditioning service to help you examine it. They’ll be able to clean out your vents, replace any broken or worn components, and make your entire system a whole lot more efficient.
Electric water heaters
Electric water heaters take a serious amount of energy to boil water. Most electric kettles will try to reach a boiling temperature as quickly as possible, and this requires an extreme amount of energy in order to achieve. There’s not too much you can do about this outside of switching to a gas stove kettle or buying a different kind of water heater. A good option is to have a thermos where you store all of the hot water that you don’t use. You can then reuse this later to make another drink or to use in cooking.
However, the better option would be to purchase a water heater that has a large tank and good energy efficiency. This is because it takes considerably less energy to keep a tank of water heated than to boil it. It’s far more efficient to just keep hot water hot than to bring cold water up to a boiling temperature. In short, replace your regular water heater with one that has a large tank and spends very little energy on maintaining the temperature.
Computers
If you have one or two computers in your home then you might be using a serious amount of energy without even knowing it. Thankfully, a lot of the power efficiency in computers is handled by modern technology and the features of each computer. For instance, laptops tend to be quite power efficient these days thanks to longer battery life, meaning they don’t need to be charged as often. However, this is only true for modern laptops–older laptops will still require a lot of charging in order to reach full capacity, and doing anything intensive will drain it quickly.
Computers are a different story. Computers generally need a bit of maintenance if you want them to be as energy efficient as possible. There are loads of small things you can do to cut your energy bills with computers, but here are some simple tips:
- Turn off the PC when you don’t need it
- Turn off the screen when it’s not in use but you still need access to the PC (such as playing music or downloading something)
- Replace the power supply with an energy-efficient model
- Buy a modern computer with automatic power-saving options
- Replace your desktop with a laptop
- Get rid of standby mode and force the computer to shut down when the power button is pressed
These changes will drastically reduce the power consumption of your computer, allowing you to save more energy at home. While it can be expensive to replace your computer, it’s actually beneficial to get newer parts if your current one is around a decade old. Newer components are far more efficient and will save you a considerable amount of money, especially if you use your computer a lot and often leave it running at night or when you’re away from it.
Kori
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