Energy vampires are those things in your home that use power for no particular purpose. Dealing with energy vampires in your Utica or Ferndale home sooner rather than later can lower your electric bill by as much as $100 a year, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). The DOE also also states that Americans spend $100 billion a year on this standby power. If you’d like to lower your electric bills and stop your contribution to this collective waste, go through your home to identify what’s draining your power.
- Find the chargers for portable electronic devices and label them for the device they charge. Unplug them from the sockets or power strips and put them in one central location inside your home. When you need to charge something, plug the charger into a socket and then the device. Unplug it when it’s fully charged.
- Consider using smart strips as an alternative to unplugging the chargers. Smart strips have one or more sockets that stay live, even when the rest of the strip is inactive. Plug the devices you want on, like a DVR or a programmable coffee pot, into the active sockets and the chargers into the sockets that lose power when the strip is off.
- Purchase eco-chargers. These sense when the device is fully charged and turn themselves off when finished.
- Select Energy Star products when dealing with energy vampires to reduce the amount of power the electronic device uses when active and even charging. Look for HDTVs that have this label or have energy settings to help you lower standby power consumption.
- Let your computer monitor go to sleep after it sits idle for 15 minutes. Many monitors use more electricity than the computer itself.
After dealing with energy vampires, save even more energy by having your HVAC equipment serviced annually. Although it doesn’t use power when it’s not running, your heating and cooling systems account for about half the energy your home uses. A neglected HVAC system will increase energy consumption and costs significantly.
If you’d like to learn more about saving energy through maintenance, contact Aladdin Heating & Cooling. We’ve provided HVAC services for Grosse Point, Dearborn and Metro-Detroit since 1945.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about energy loss and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Aladdin Heating services Novi, Farmington, Farmington Hills, Southfield, Oak Park, Ferndale, Beverly Hills, Berkley, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Bloomfield Twp., Bloomfield Hills, West Bloomfield, Madison Heights, Clawson, Sterling Heights, Warren, Troy, St. Clair Shores, Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Woods, Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Park, Detroit, Utica, Shelby Twp., Rochester, Rochester Hills, Auburn Hills, Lake Orion, Oxford, and Clarkston.
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