Energy Saving Ways to Reduce your Electrical Bills

Simple energy saving methods can save you thousands of Rands a year. Let’s face it – electricity costs in South Africa are increasing at an alarming rate. If Eskom is accurate in its assessments, by 2012 electrical tariffs will have increased by as much as 300%! For most of us, energy saving is not a priority until we start feeling the pinch on our pockets. So, if you’ve watched with silent alarm at steadily increasing electrical bills from month to month, then it is definitely time to start think of ways to reduce your electrical usage. And there are a number of key methods that mostly require you to apply a little effort, invest a small amount and most importantly transform bad energy wasting habits into energy saving, energy efficient behaviour.

This is the most important tip of the lot as geysers utilise as much as 45% of most home owner’s electrical bills! As the most wasteful appliance ever to be created, geysers, like incandescent v guard gas geyser light bulb, generate a whole load of heat and chew up a lot more electricity mostly for nothing. Turn your geyser off for most of the day and only turn it on again an hour or so before you need to use it – which is often only twice a day. What’s more, you don’t need to warm up the water until it’s a piping, 3rd degree burning hot! Turn down the thermostat on your geyser to 50 degrees – that’s still hot enough and simply requires a little less cold water thrown into the mix. Simply change how you use your geyser and enjoy the easiest and most impactful energy saving results!

Driers are the second big energy chewing device in most households next to the geyser. Besides ruining your clothes over time and making others hand-me-downs because they won’t fit anymore – driers are simply one of the lazy, modern appliances that we use far too often. In summer time, the energy saving think to do is to put in a little effort and hang your clothes up outside to dry or a few hours out in the fresh air and sunlight.

Those nice old electric heaters work like a bomb, but can use over 2000W! Check all your appliances to see what kind of electrical output they require and turf those that chew your electrical bills up. When buying new appliances, ensure you buy ones that have been specifically designed to operate in an energy saving way.

Besides being the best to cook with, gas is an energy saving & energy efficient means of heating food. Gas is still Very cheap and can save you a stack on your monthly electrically bills. Electric kettles, toasters and other electrical appliances utilise a huge amount of electricity because they need to generate a lot of heat very quickly – so use your gas stove to do the trick for you. It may take a little longer, but it is a smart energy saving alternative.

Very typical and very wasteful behaviour that most of us are guilty of! If you’re not in a room, it generally doesn’t need to be lit up. Remember that lighting makes up as much as 25% of most house hold electrical bills, so a great energy saving habit is to turn lights off when you don’t need them on.

Incandescent (and Halogen to a somewhat lesser extent) is an ultra wasteful, truly energy inefficient means of lighting. Over 90% of the electricity required to run an incandescent bulb is used to simply heat the tungsten metal filament to a temperature hot enough to produce light. With most households burning 60-100W incandescent bulbs, a great energy saving investment can be made and implemented by buying quality LED Lights – whether they be downlights, tubes, strip lights or bulbs. LED Lights utilise a fraction of the electricity required, produce virtually no heat, contain no hazardous materials and have an operational lifespan of +50, 000 of continuous use. They can and will save you as much as 90% off your lighting bills!

There’s no point keeping the heating on full blast if you enjoy fresh air when it’s cold outside. Indoor heating is often the precipitator of the common cold so a great energy saving method to reducing your heating bills while keeping your nose clean is simply to dress a little more warmly than usual while inside your home or business.

Clean under your refrigerator and ensure that the coils at the back are clean as an accumulation of dust and other materials can make your compressor work overtime. Ensure also that you defrost the fridge from time to time as an ice build up (especially in your freezer) can create air leaks again causing the compressor to work overtime to try and keep the temperature inside your fridge cool. Remember the harder your compressor works, the more heat it generates and the more electricity it uses to cool its contents.

Turn appliances and electronics that you are not using off to start with but know that even though the tv, computer or stereo system is not “on”, electrical charge is still passing through them and can waste a lot of electricity over time – kind of like the dripping tap.

There are many other energy saving methods and means that can save you heaps on your electrical bills, but the list above is a simple and quick way to instantly reducing your electricity costs by mostly changing the way you think about energy while becoming more conscientious about energy saving behaviours that become habits in time for you, your family and your business.