Six Creative Ways to Save on Energy in Your Home

If you're looking to save on your energy bills and reduce your home's overall energy consumption, you're going to have to make changes. We're not saying that the changes need to be life-altering, but a bit of effort in one or two areas can make a huge difference in how you save money.

Today, we'll keep it simple for you and tell you 6 creative ways we know can help you save on energy in your home. What's great about energy efficiency is that you're not only saving money on your monthly bills, but you're helping to reduce your own carbon footprint.

Don't let your energy consumption stress you out any longer. Keep reading and learn what you can do to better your own life.

The simplest way to deal with your energy consumption issues is to examine your own behaviors. If you can look at some of the things you normally do around the house and how they might be impacting your energy usage, you can make the necessary changes.

It could be something as easy as remembering to turn the lights off when you leave a room. Maybe you're used to having 20-minute showers every day when you could stand to just have a 10-minute one every other day. You could even hang dry your clothing instead of putting them in the dryer.

For most Americans, the biggest culprit for energy consumption is your HVAC system. We all want to be comfortable and we all want to have great indoor air quality after all, we spend 90% of our time indoors but everyone could stand to lower the heat in the winter and the air conditioning in the summer.

Making some small changes like these can make a huge difference in energy consumption over time. Try to pay attention to how you use your home's electricity and cut out unnecessary energy usage.

There's taking smaller steps to boost energy efficiency, like the things we mentioned above, then there's taking big steps. One of the best things you could ever do for your energy usage and carbon footprint is to install solar panels on your home's roof.

The solar energy market is booming, due in part to the constantly falling price of solar panels. Combine that with the ongoing solar incentives from federal, state, and municipal governments, and it's actually quite affordable to install a solar system these days.

For example, the federal investment tax credit gives those that buy solar panels a 30% credit on their federal taxes for that year. Here in California, there are plenty of solar rebate programs that can help you save even more money on your panels.

When you hire a great solar installer, you can get your solar panels installed in a matter of weeks from start to finish. Learn more about the various types of solar panels and equipment on our website today.

If you live in a home with older appliances, there's a good chance that they aren't energy efficient. You could be spending up to twice as much on your energy bills because you haven't made the switch to energy-efficient appliances.

You should always look for appliances with an Energy Star label. This is a federal promise that the appliance will use less energy than non-Energy Star models, whether in use or on standby. Your clothes dryer and refrigerator are two of the biggest culprits for energy usage, so start by replacing these.

Looking at the annual operating cost of a given appliance is another great way of figuring out which ones to get. You'll likely have to pay more for an energy-efficient appliance, but you make the money back when you start using it.

Northern California is known for being temperate, but we can have some hot days and cool nights at any time of year. Having a functioning HVAC system is important for most Californians, but not that many people use their systems in an efficient way.

For an HVAC system to heat and cool your home, and give you good air quality, you need to maintain it on a regular basis. If you fail to clean your ducts, fix small issues, or change the air filter, you'll put too much strain on your unit.

When this happens, it has to work harder to regulate your home's temperature. Not only will this result in higher energy bills, but you're going to have to pay for HVAC repairs or even premature replacement.

Automation is another thing you can do with your HVAC system, lighting, and other aspects of your home. With a smart thermostat, for example, you can set your HVAC system to automatically run at certain times of the day.

Depending on your system, you could set it to run in certain rooms and not in others. A lot of these thermostats have other perks, like notifying you when it's time to change filters or when there are issues with your system that need attention.

Automating your home as much as possible allows you to minimize the amount of wasted energy. All you need to do is program the device once and you won't have to think about how much energy you're using.

Incandescent light bulbs are still used in countless American homes. If you want to save money, change all of your bulbs to LED. Not only are they going to cost you less to run, but they also last for way longer, so you won't have to change them as much.

Again, look for the Energy Star label when buying your light bulbs. Energy-efficient lighting is a foolproof way to save on bills each month.

Energy consumption is a country-wide issue. Not only are Americans drowning in energy costs, but our energy overuse is hurting the planet.

If you're unsure of where you need to save on energy, we're here to help. Contact us at Infinite Energy to get a home energy audit and we'll help you figure out how to lower your bills and carbon footprint all at once.