Lower your Electricity Usage/Cost

**Judi Dial** · 10-07-2010, 09:12 AM

While I was looking for the appliance chart at my utility, I found this set of tips and thought it might prove useful for folks:

PSNH.com - Energy Saving Tips

Judi

**Booklover** · 10-07-2010, 10:00 AM

Thank you for this. I keep trying all these tips, but nothing seems to work. Our bills are so high, and this week our utilities voted a 30% bill increase. I know many elderly are wringing their hands in despair, because winter is coming and they can barely make it in the summer months let alone the high costs in the wintertime. I will pass these tips along to them.

Times are getting tougher than ever. I don't see an end in sight, but I am trying to remain hopeful.

**savvy_sniper** · 10-07-2010, 01:30 PM

When we bought our home (3 years ago) we started out doing small inexpensive/free things to save on utility bills. Then we did a few higher priced things. This past April we put in a new high efficiency 16 SEER central AC and furnace. We got an $800 rebate from the state of Texas and will qualify for the $1,500 tax deduction on income tax for 2010.

Our electricity bill was cut in HALF this summer! I will be interested to see how our gas bill does over the winter. So the new unit should pay for itself in about 4 years or less!

We are getting ready to purchase more insulation for our attic and install it ourselves. We looked over my office and master bedroom and found we had very little insulation. So once we do this, our utility bills should go down more.

Then we plan to get new front and back doors. The back door is NOT solid core. Both doors are original to the house. We put a lot of insulating strips around both doors last year because you could see daylight around them.

We plan to make and install our own solar screens on the west side of the house. If that goes well, we will do the rest of the house.

It is always an uphill battle to stay ahead of the utility companies! We shop around for everything we purchase and get the best deal possible. We do as much work ourselves as possible to keep costs down also.

**Booklover** · 10-07-2010, 01:36 PM

I agree, those things make a difference. We put in a new furnace last fall, (and received $900 back from the state) and it helped a bit. Next will be new doors and windows.

Part of the problem is the monopoly of the companies here. There is no competition, so they can do whatever they want, and we are the pawns.

I guess my beef is over the things we cannot control in this issue.