From Guest Blogger Lizzie Weakly: Five Ways Your Home Could Be Wasting Electricity and How to Fix Them

Homes waste a lot of electricity. This results in costly utility bills each month. Even worse, it can create a negative impact on the environment. Electricity doesn’t work through magic. Instead, creating that energy often requires the destruction of finite resources and the release of pollution into the atmosphere. Thankfully, there are things you can do to help bring your home’s total electricity use down significantly.

Program Your Thermostat

Something that can waste a lot of electricity and energy is running your home’s heating and cooling system when it’s not really needed. If no one is home during the day, you don’t need to run the air conditioning and heating as much. Programming your thermostat to only run the heating and air conditioning when it’s needed can save a lot of energy.

Unplug Your Appliances

Something you may not be aware of is that many of your appliances are using up electricity when they are plugged in even when they are not being used. This is true for many things such as computers, flat screen TVs, DVD players and more. Make sure to unplug your appliances and gadgets when you’re not using them to save electricity.

Upgrade Your Light Bulbs

Old incandescent light bulbs run pretty hot. As such, they burn a lot of energy. They also have a tendency not to last that long either. If you want to upgrade to lighting that lasts longer and uses far less energy, choose compact fluorescent lamps instead. CFL bulbs use 25 to 80 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs.

Perform Routine Maintenance

According to Supreme Electric, one thing many people ignore is that their home’s electrical system needs routine maintenance. Without it, your system could be running inefficiently and wasting electricity. Make sure to have professionals perform maintenance and repairs to your system as needed.

Upgrade to Smart Lighting

Much like your smart phone, lighting can be “smart” as well. For example, you can program lighting to switch on when triggered by a motion sensor. This can help to ensure that lights are only on when they are needed. You can also connect your lighting to a smart phone app so you check to see what lights are on at any time during the day and turn them off with the app.

Homes waste a lot of electricity. However, many homeowners are oblivious to the fact that they can lower their energy consumption if they make a small effort. Use the strategies listed above as well as others to help bring down your home’s electricity use.