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As a biologist and frugal mama, the combination of saving
money and the environment are things that I really care about. Several years
ago we learned about the Team
Power Smart program which provided another incentive to try and reduce our
energy usage as there are cash rewards. We were successful in the first year
and continued to maintain that usage and therefore the rewards continued. How
were we able to decrease our overall energy usage by 28% in that first
year? BC Hydro has a fantastic
list for saving electricity and these are the ones that we follow:
1. Blankets. The
temperature in our home is a little lower than most in order to save but also
because we have a very active family who always seem to be warm from running
around. We love having extra blankets on our couch. Not only does it make our
home look cozier, it sure feels that way too! We will often cuddle under them
to read books or watch a family movie. Don't forget that slippers are awesome,
too.
2. Manage your thermostat.
We usually set our daytime temperature to 19 C and our evening to 16 C. If we
are going away, we change it so that we aren't wasting energy heating our home.
If you have electric heat, lowering the temperature by 2 degrees can save you
5% on your bill.
3. Open the
dishwasher on the dry cycle. Either deselect it or if that is not an
option, when the drying cycle comes on, manually turn the dial to the end of
the cycle so that the heat turns off.
4. Hang laundry to
dry. If you do need to use the dryer, put a dry towel in with the rest of
the load to reduce the drying time! I grew up with a clothes line but our yard
is not quite large enough for that and a simple drying rack works wonderfully.
5. Use natural light as
much as possible. Rarely do we have lights on in our house during the day.
The windows in our bedrooms all have black out blinds to help with temperature
regulation. We do cover those large windows in our family room with a plastic
film to retain the heat in the winter.
I really enjoy tracking our energy use data on our online account with BC Hydro. The graphs allow you to see your usage right down to the hour and compare to homes of similar size around yours as well as your own usage in the year prior.
Above: this is a sample graph showing my home electricity
usage for a one-month period, in comparison to homes nearby.
Right now with the Team Power Smart program we are trying to
maintain the same usage as last year and are on track to do so–there is a $25
incentive for it.
Be sure to check out BC Hydro's website and follow along on
their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to learn how to lower your bill. BC Hydro
is also currently hosting a contest for a chance to win a Samsung Family Hub
smart fridge as well as other great prizes. To learn more about smart home
technology and enter the contest visit
powersmart.ca.
What do you find the most useful for saving energy? What is
the incentive for you?
Love,
Louise
We do a lot of these things, but I'm always the cold one in the house so I try to keep it a bit warmer. We have solar panels and a large battery and charge up devices like our phones, tablets, flashlights etc. Sometimes we'll try to just use the devices we've charged, so we might snuggle up on the couch with the iPad and only use flashlights for one night. We treat it like a fun challenge and the kids think it's an adventure. I'm not sure how much it actually saves, but it's fun, and then we track the consumption going down for that evening and try to top it another time.
ReplyDeleteI recently looked up our internet usage and was shocked with the number of devices on our network which all need to be charged! This is something I need to figure out. I think we could charge our devices when driving in our cars maybe to save energy? Like that you treat it like a challenge :)
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