Try these 9+ tips to save money on your utility and air conditioning bills
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The News & Observer’s service journalism team is putting together a free
with tips to cut costs across several categories. We’ll be adding new stories often.
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With inflation rising, we’re all looking for ways to save a little money and keep our budgets in check.
The News & Observer’s service journalism team is putting together a free Money-Saving Series with tips to cut costs across several categories.
In this installment, we’re offering up tips to save money utility bill costs, including electricity, gas and water. We’ll update this story with good tips we get from readers.
1. Schedule an energy audit of your home, or do one yourself
Before you can identify ways to cut costs on your electric bills, it helps to get an idea of how energy efficient your home already is — or isn’t — with a home energy audit.
For example, if your home has air leaks that you don’t know about, or the insulation needs to be replaced, an energy audit will identify those things, and you can then decide what changes to make.
Most energy and electric companies offer free home energy audits, meaning you don’t even have to spend money to get the information you need about your home.
In the Triangle, the following major electricity providers offer home energy audits:
▪ Duke Energy / Duke Energy Progress: duke-energy.com/home/products/home-energy-house-call
▪ Wake Electric Membership Cooperative: wemc.com/residential-member-services
▪ Piedmont Electric Cooperative: pemc.coop/save-energy-money/ask-an-expert-2/home-energy-analysis
Some electricity providers may also offer online tools for energy audits, and you can also perform an energy audit of your home yourself.
▪ The U.S. Department of Energy has information on how to perform a do-it-yourself home energy audit at energy.gov/energysaver/do-it-yourself-home-energy-assessments.
2. Seek out money-saving programs from your utility provider
Whether you’re looking to save on electric, gas or water, many utility providers offer programs to help you save on your monthly costs — you may just need to do a little work to seek them out and sign up.
We’ve done some work to help you get started by locating these programs from some local utility providers:
▪ Duke Energy currently offers programs including Prepaid Advantage, which helps you “prepay for your power in smaller amounts when and how you choose,” and a Flex Savings Option, which helps “shift your electricity usage and save with the Time of Use with Critical Peak Pricing rate.”
▪ Piedmont Electric Cooperative offers a $50 rebate program to customers who own a smart thermostat and allow Piedmont Electric “to adjust your thermostat through your in-home Wi-Fi a couple degrees on very hot afternoons in the summer.” Learn more about this program and others offered by Piedmont Electric at pemc.coop/save-energy-money/use-less-save-more/rebates-loans.
▪ The City of Raleigh offers the Utility Customer Assistance Program (UCAP) “to help economically distressed water and sewer utility customers manage their utility bills.”
▪ OWASA, which provides water to many residents in Orange County, offers LIFT-UP, a partnership with the Community Empowerment Fund to reduce payments for overdue balances, among other benefits. More information and tips for saving money on your OWASA bill is available at owasa.org/save-water-save-money.
Note: Some money-saving programs offered by utility providers may have income requirements or cut-offs. Check with your provider to verify the details of the programs they offer.
3. Set your thermostat to an optimal temperature
We know, it’s hot out there. And there’s almost nothing better than coming inside to the cool air conditioning on a hot day.
But setting your thermostat to a higher temperature during the hot summer months can use less energy — thus saving you some money. The opposite applies to the winter months, when you should set your thermostat to a lower temperature.
Most energy providers recommend setting your thermostat to at least 78 degrees Fahrenheit to optimize your energy usage and spend less money on cooling costs.
▪ Piedmont Electric Cooperative wrote in 2016 that setting the temperature of your home to between 78–80 degrees could save you up to 8% on monthly cooling bills.
Pro tip: Using a ceiling fan can help move air around in your home and keep you cool while you have your thermostat set to a higher temperature. But Piedmont Electric says you should remember that fans are meant to cool people, not rooms — so turn off the fan when you leave a room to save even more money on electric costs.
4. How to use less water to save money on water bills
If you want to lower your water bill, you can try to use less water.
Typically, people think about taking shorter showers (a common recommended shower duration is 5-7 minutes) when trying to use less water. That’s a good start — but think about the other ways you use water in your home, and how you could reduce water usage in those applications.
▪ When you’re doing the dishes, especially if you have a dishwasher, wait until you have a full load to wash them. If you don’t have a dishwasher, use the same rule of thumb — don’t run the water to wash each individual dish, but plug the sink and wash multiple at a time.
▪ When you’re doing laundry, wait until you have a full load to run the washing machine. Pro tip: Using cold water, instead of hot, can also save you money on energy costs.
More tips for using less water around your house are available at epa.gov/watersense/start-saving.
5. Turn down the temperature on your water heater
Many water heaters use 140 degrees Fahrenheit as the default heating temperature. But setting your water heater to a lower temperature can help you save money on energy costs, while still keeping your water nice and warm.
Setting your heater to 120 degrees is generally the lowest acceptable temperature, as anything below that could pose a risk for bacteria development within the heater.
6. Turn off your lights to save energy
A common tip to save money on your electric bills is to turn off the lights in your home, especially if you’re not in the room.
But there are many different types of lightbulbs, and the exact advice for how to best conserve energy depends on which kinds of lightbulbs you’re using in your home.
The U.S. Department of Energy makes the following recommendations based on lightbulb type:
▪ If you’re using incandescent lighting, they should be turned off whenever they’re not needed. That’s because they’re the least efficient kind of bulb, and 90% of the energy they give off is actually heat, not light.
▪ If you’re using halogen lighting, they should also be turned off whenever they’re not needed.
▪ The cost-effectiveness of CFL bulbs is more complicated, but the general rules of thumb are to leave them on if you’ll be gone from a room for less than 15 minutes, and to turn them off if you’ll be gone for 15 minutes or more.
“The operating life of CFLs is more affected by the number of times they are switched on and off,” The U.S. Department of Energy says. “You can generally extend the life of a CFL bulb more by switching it on and off less frequently than if you simply use it less.”
7. Use power strips to plug in electronics — then unplug them
Have a lot of electronics and cords to keep track of? An easy way to organize all of them is to plug them into a power strip — and it can save you money, too.
Whenever you leave your home for an extended period of time — maybe for a summer vacation — and you won’t need to use the electronics, simply unplug the entire power strip.
Having the electronics unplugged during your time away will save you some money, since your home won’t be using energy to power them. And using a power strip makes it simple and easy to plug and unplug them all at once.
8. Avoid using your oven when possible
Using your oven adds extra heat to your home — and in the summer, you’ll likely use lots of energy and money to cool it down after you’re done cooking.
Instead of using your oven, try using smaller appliances that don’t add as much heat to your home or don’t use as much energy, such as air fryers or toaster ovens. You can also try no-heat meals, such as cold salads, to avoid using heat and energy at all.
9. Use window coverings to lower ‘heat gain’
The Department of Energy says the use of window coverings can “reduce heat gain by up to 77 percent.”
That means using curtains, shades, blinds, awnings and other window treatments can help keep your house a little cool and your energy bill lower.
Other tips on window coverings can be found at consumerreports.org.
Share your money-saving tips with us
Have a tip for saving money? Share it with us in the form below, or try accessing the form here.
We might use your tips in a future story.
This story was originally published June 21, 2022 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Try these 9+ tips to save money on your utility and air conditioning bills."
