Products to Help Reduce Your Electricity Bill

Making more economically sound decisions around the house can greatly reduce the cost of living - leaving you more money to save or to spend how you see fit. One easy way to reduce monthly costs is by reducing the monthly electric bill.

While there are practices that can help you achieve this, such as turning off the lights when they’re not in use, there are also products that can help with that.

Here are the products you can get into your home that will eventually save you money by reducing the electric bill.

Retractable Screens

Retractable screens are really efficient at helping to keep the heat in during the winter. With retractable screens installed in the right places around your home, you might not even need to turn on your air conditioner. One of the best places to install it is at your back entrance or your front door and windows. You will be surprised at how much ventilation it brings into your home. See Go Retractable's blog here as they give more details about purchasing retractable screens

Light bulbs

Every room typically comes with one or even multiple light bulbs, depending on the size of the room. Light bulbs are small electrical devices that do not consume that much energy, but having a lot of them and keeping them on for a long time will surely add up and make a significant dent on that electric bill. 

An easy way to reduce your electric bill is to just invest in light bulbs that are more energy efficient. This may be expensive at first as these lightbulbs are more expensive, but the savings will make up for the cost and more. Older light bulbs, especially ones that are incandescent or fluorescent, should be replaced with the more modern LED ones that are way more energy efficient. 

Laundry Racks/Clothesline

One way to help reduce the electric bill is to simply replace certain activities that use electricity with alternatives that do not use electricity in the first place. For example, drying clothes. If you are in a home that uses a dryer to dry clothes after laundry, then you can easily save money by choosing to dry your clothes the traditional way - by hanging them dry. 

If you have a spacious backyard, get a clothesline installed. It’s an easy installation since it’s basically a length of rope where you can hang wet clothes on. You may also want to get clips to avoid clothes falling off or being blown away. If you don’t have enough space, laundry racks will also do the job. A laundry rack will easily fit inside the laundry room and the best part of it is that it won’t cost you a single penny to use.

Refrigerators 

Refrigerators are a staple in all homes and just like the light bulbs, you have to get one that is more energy efficient. This is more important because the refrigerator is basically turned on 24/7 to keep food cold and avoid spoilage. 

Newer homes might already have energy-efficient refrigerators but because refrigerators last pretty long, older homes might still have these older refrigerators. When you’re looking at refrigerators, make sure to check their energy rating to compare it with the one you may already have. You can already even calculate the savings you’d be making with a more energy efficient refrigerator.

Motion Sensors

These may seem a bit technologically advanced for other people but motion sensors are actually easy to set up and are a great way to help reduce the electric bill at the end of the month. 

Motion sensors are actually pretty versatile because their purpose can vary depending on how the homeowners want them to. A pretty easy application of motion sensors is to use them with lights. This setup will make it that the lights will automatically turn on in a room when the motion sensors detect movement such as you coming in. 

These motion sensors will also be able to turn the lights off as soon as they detect no motion for a period of time, for example if you’ve already left. These have to be used in the right rooms though because you may not want these in your bedroom. The kitchen is a great example of a room where this setup will be very helpful. 

Another application of motion sensors can be for the air conditioning. No one needs air conditioning for rooms that no one is in. Setting up motion sensors with the air conditioning makes it easier for people to have the AC on when they’re inside and off when they’re not there. 

Smart Home Control

If you want to take motion sensors to the next level, then perhaps you should consider getting smart home integration for your house. Inexpensive smart hubs such as a Google Home or an Amazon Echo can help reduce your electric bill by giving you ultimate control of certain home appliances, particularly lights and heating. 

The motion sensors can help but having smart home capabilities can give you control of those appliances from the comfort of your smartphone. You’d be able to control your lights and air conditioning even if you’re outside of your house. You can also do away with motion sensors if you can set up a really good timed routine - these are programs that will automatically turn on and off certain appliances based on time and other conditions. 

For example, with additional sensors, a smart home can automatically just turn on the lights inside a room when it has reached a certain level of darkness. Smart home integration can also control heating around the house efficiently, thus saving more money for the electric bill in the long run. 

Conclusion

There are numerous products that can actually help reduce the electric bill, from a simple rug to the more advanced smart home integration. In partnership with cost-saving practices, you’d be able to significantly reduce your electric bill with just easy steps.