Electricity here in Southern California aint' cheap!! To cool our home in the summer is very expensive. We decided to have one of the free energy audits of our home and here is what we learned. I want to share in case it can help any of you lower your electric bill.
Our bedroom is really warm. The one room in the house that doesn't seem to cool down. Afternoon sun all day, beating down on it, just warms it up. Of course a huge tree would help, and that will be planted in the fall, but the audit suggested an awning. To Amazon I went, and found one I thought was nice looking but reasonably priced. Also, I had 10 bucks in Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks so instant discount. Hubby installed it, and my gosh what a difference it did make. Without sun on that window, our room did not heat up like it normally does. We could leave the shutters open and let the afternoon breeze in.
We love the results so much we are going to put them along the entire back of the house.
As part of the audit they let you know what are real energy suckers and our garage freezer was high on the list. She said next to a pool motor, which we don't have, keeping a refrigerator cold in the summer in a hot garage is a huge draw of power, so we ate through what was in there and I cleaned out my house fridge and
made room for what needed to come in the house. For the summer months I will not stockpile any meat. I would rather be cooler and run my air more than have an extra roast in the garage.
Now, I do not have a large fridge, so I have to be organized. We have two refrigerators and we keep waiting for one of them to die before we get a new one for the house. The waiting continues.
I know it looks empty. Was on my way to the store.
Another thing she said was an energy waster in the summer, and I was very surprised to hear this, were fans. Now, we always would leave ceiling fans and other fans running all day and she said that to only run them when you are in the room. Fans do not lower the temperature of the room but make you feel cooler with the breeze, so to switch them off when you leave a room.
Also, all those nasty video game consoles and chargers should be placed on a strip and turned off when not in use. I am on my girls about this all the time. The older girls' room has 50 things plugged in in there. I will be checking to see they are turned off.
I will see how our bill is next month after these changes and will give you an update.
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