Why is My Electricity Bill High?

Why is My Power Bill So High? How to STOP Paying so much…

Rising Electricity Rates are happening all over the country despite many energy companies implementing more green measures. So when you open your power bill and ask, “Why is My Electric Bill So High?” that is 1 of the factors to consider. But, you can stop the bleeding per say of your finances by being more pro-active on your bill, figure out what is costing so much, and take immediate action of changing that. Read on to see how to calculate how much you are paying on power bills, and also how to STOP paying so much! We have helped hundreds of thousands of families and business owners all over the globe reduce energy bills drastically. Read on to find out how you can too…

How Much Does Electricity Cost?

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Look at your power bill and see what rate they are charging you. Once you figure out your rates you should be able to easily calculate your average cost of electricity per kilowatt hour. For the upcoming examples, we’re going to assume that it is 15 cents per kWh.

Now let’s take a look at how to calculate the cost of running your individual appliances.

We’ll start with a simple example, a 100 watt light bulb. Let’s assume you have the 100 watt light bulb running for 5 hours a day every single day. You would be using 500 watt hours hours a day x 30 days in the month.

This gives you 15000 watt hours or 15 kilowatt hours of electricity used per month. At a rate of $0.15 per kilowatt hour you would be paying $2.25 per month to run that single light bulb. So as you can see, the math itself is not very difficult.

Things get tricky when you start trying to calculate how much energy you are using on appliances that don’t use a constant amount of electricity. Take the refrigerator for example. The refrigerator spends some time at idle and some time running. You would need to calculate how much time it spends running over the course of an hour.

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This can also be hard to calculate because every time you open your refrigerator, the cold air pours out and will necessitate another cycle of running the cooling system. So depending on how many times you open your refrigerator and how often it runs during the hour, will determine its energy consumption.

The best way to figure out something like this is to use a special meter called a “Kill A Watt” Meter. It is fairly inexpensive and can be purchased either online on Amazon or at your local Home Depot Store. This meter can tell you how much electricity certain appliances are using. Plugging the refrigerator into this device and waiting to see how much electricity it consumes when it’s running will give you the initial figures.

refrigerator-buying-guideOf course, you could always refer to an online guide which gives the average amount of electricity spent on a refrigerator. You just want to ensure that you find one that lists a model the same as or very similar to the one in your home. Once you know the average amount of electricity used in an hour

you can then follow the mathematical formula above to calculate how much running that particular appliance costs you.

save-electricityIt’s time to Start Saving Electricity At Home!

Saving electricity in your home doesn’t have to be an impossible task, even with little ones running around. With the above information, you should be able to isolate which of your appliances are using the lion’s share of energy and therefore will have good targets for either correction or replacement.

You would now only need to isolate which appliances use more electricity than the others and find ways to improve their efficiency. Let’s take a look at different ways to optimize common appliances that you would have in your home.

REDUCE POWER BILLS BY FOCUSING ON AIR CONDITIONING COSTS

We will start with the air conditioner as according to EnergyStar.gov it accounts for 40-60% of your electricity bills.

1) To begin, ensure that the filter is kept replaced or cleaned regularly. This will improve the ease of airflow and the system will not have to work as hard to circulate air.

install-programmable-thersmostat2) Install a programmable thermostat to help ensure that the AC is never left on by accident and that it is operating with efficiency in terms of the scheduling.
Programmable thermostats come with energy saving settings that you can use in order to optimize the usage of the AC itself.

3) Install an Electric Saver 1200 to your HVAC, Air Conditioning, or Heat Pump system. This device help reduce the amount of electricity your main heating & cooling system consumes. Air conditioning units are actually terribly inefficient because they will draw more power from the electric company than they actually need.

CONSERVE ELECTRICITY BY FOCUSING ON HOT WATER HEATER

adjust-water-heater-temperature4) Optimizing your water heater, you will want to ensure that it is not set to a temperature higher than necessary. If you turn on just the hot water tap and leave it running for a few moments, allowing the water to reach its full temperature, you’ll be able to see if the

water is too hot. If you can’t keep your hand comfortably under the stream, then your water heater is being overworked. Adjust the temperature settings of your water heater to fix this.

water-heater-insulation5) You can also go a step further by wrapping your water heater with a layer of insulating material. This will keep the heat trapped inside for longer and we’ll make the unit more efficient.

 

 

 

tankless-water-heater-before-after6) Install a Tankless Water Heater. This water heater only heats water as you use it so you end up heating less hot water and saving space as it’s much smaller without a large tank. And TRUST ME when I say it gets plenty hot. We never run out of hot water for bubble baths, even when everyone takes long showers.

 

SAVE ON POWER BILL WITH WASHING MACHINE

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7) The washing machine is another big electricity user in the house. To use less electricity on washing clothes, you will need to opt for doing large loads of laundry instead of many small loads. You may need to get a little bit more organized as to when you do laundry, but one large load uses less power (and water) than two small loads.

washing-clothes-at-cold-water8) Another way to save energy on washing clothes is to use only cold water. Hot water really isn’t necessary to get good results with cleaning clothes. Most modern cleaning agents and detergents will take care of the toughest stains no matter what temperature water you use. Using hot water only wastes electricity.

LOWER POWER BILL USING OTHER APPLIANCES

9) A clever way to conserve electricity on general appliances is to unplug them when they’re no longer being used. Some electricity is consumed by appliances even when they are turned off if they are left plugged in. Unplugging your appliances when you aren’t using them circumvents this problem altogether. The above may sound like a pain to do I know. Here’s an easier method: Use smart power strips and have all your devices/appliances plugged into 1. Then it’s just flip the switch and problem solved!

save-electricity-energyYou now know how to properly read your electric bill, determine which appliances are using too much electricity and fix the problem so that your electricity bill can be reduced. Put this knowledge to good use and start paying the lowest electricity bill you have in years.

Want even MORE free Tips to Lower Electric Bills? Continue Reading…

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