Right now your utility bills are probably pretty agreeable. The weather is nice and you can ease off the heat or air conditioning for a few more weeks and open the windows. However, the summer heat is on its way and your bills will soon climb back up. A great way to optimize your home’s energy usage is to test your appliances with an electricity usage monitor.
There are quite a few manufacturers for this type of machine but the basic idea is that you plug the appliance into the machine and the machine into the wall and it will tell you either in kilowatt hours or dollars how much that item is spending. This is a great practice to give you perspective on what exactly is drawing the most power in your home. It make cause you to rethink the frequency with which you use some of the appliances in your home.
For example, your clothing dryer is likely to make the top of the list. To cut down on energy cost, you might want to limit your use of the clothing dryer and air dry your laundry. The dishwasher is also a common culprit of high energy consumption so you could consider washing more dishes by hand or waiting until your dishwasher is completely full to run it.
The electricity usage monitor can also tell you how much power an appliance draws even when off. This is called vampire drain. Many appliances must have at least some energy flowing to them at all times to be able to react to remote controls or have lights flashing. By testing what draws power even when off, you can know what to leave unplugged to save energy.
