Ways to Reduce Your Utilty Bill and Use Less Electricity

Learn How to Save + Conserve

Is your utility bill creeping up every month and you’re not sure why? Or are you just looking for ways to conserve electricity and be more energy efficient to help combat climate change? There are many ways you can lower your electricity usage and become more energy efficient, and the good news is some won’t cost you a cent.

The US Department of Energy updated its Energy Saver guide for 2022, highlighting the top household energy guzzlers and offering great tips on how to save money. Many of these ideas are free, they’re just a matter of changing a few habits and unplugging certain devices. Weatherstripping, energy-efficient lightbulbs and regular maintenance on appliances won’t cost a lot upfront but will save money down the road. If you need to upgrade appliances and utilities like water heaters and thermostats, we’ve got tips on what features to look for and what are the most energy-efficient models on the market today.

Consider a home energy audit, where a professional makes a detailed assessment of your entire home. Energy Star has a local search tool for resources near you but if you want to DIY it, start with Berkeley Lab’s Home Energy Saver tool. You tell it about your home, and it will spit out personalized recommendations for energy-saving improvements.

There has never been a better time to energy-proof your household. The Inflation Reduction Act includes consumer rebates and tax credits for quite a lot of energy-efficient improvements like purchasing new appliances, replacing old windows and doors, adding insulation and sealing, and even installing a solar energy system.

Learn More: Solar Power 101

Adjust Your Thermostat

Heating and cooling the air in your home make up a third of your annual energy usage, but the single biggest contributor to your bill also offers a number of ways to save. Adjusting the thermostat just a few degrees closer to the outside temp helps a lot: 7 to 10 degrees closer for eight hours a day could reduce the bill by 10%.

You can also save by replacing the thermostat altogether. New smart thermostats can be controlled remotely, can learn your at-home preferences and can maximize your energy savings by modifying the temperature when you’re not at home. They’re also data geeks, offering you a ton of valuable info on your usage so you can find opportunities to save even more.

Learn More: The Best Smart Thermostats, Tested by HGTV Editors

Use Fans

Adding fans to your repertoire makes your living spaces feel cooler without hitting the thermostat’s down arrow. Don’t use your central air conditioner's fan — leave that one on auto. Set ceiling fans to run counterclockwise during the summer months for the wind-chill effect. In the winter, flip the direction to clockwise to circulate the warm air trying to rise back down into your living latitude. If you’re wondering how to even do such a thing, look for a switch on the ceiling-hugging part of the fan or check your instruction manual. Fan innovator and review-site favorite Vornado has introduced a line of DC-powered air circulators that use 80% less energy than the typical AC-powered personal and room fans.

Learn More: 15 Stylish Ceiling Fans Under $500 to Keep You Cool

Change Air Filters Often

Just keeping up on regular HVAC maintenance can save you a bundle. Dirty filters waste money by making the heating and cooling units work harder (aka use more energy) to pull air. Schedule periodic filter changes in your phone calendar, or have your new smart thermostat alert you when it’s time.

Poorly sealed and uninsulated air ducts are a huge energy drain, wasting energy and adding hundreds of dollars a year to your bills. Proper sealing will also improve your air quality. Do you think you’re just sending air into the crawl space with those leaky ducts? Nope, it’s usually a two-way street. Ewwww.

Of course, new heating and cooling appliances can reduce electricity usage by a whopping 20%. You also save by having appropriately sized units for the house and household needs. Apparently, many of us don’t.

Filtrete Air Filters: Lowe's, $18

Fix Air Leaks

Air leaks are one of the biggest sources of wasted electricity in the home — adding 10% to 20% to your heating and cooling bill. The good news is that the problem is also one of the easiest and least expensive to diagnose and fix.

Light a candle or stick of incense and hold it next to the common culprits — windows, doors, fireplaces, outlets, baseboards — essentially any place where a flat wall is interrupted. If the smoke moves horizontally, you have an air leak. Replace the weatherstripping around doors and windows. Caulk and seal where pipes and ducts pass through the wall. Foam gaskets and foam spray are ideal for larger gaps. Flue blockers and inflatable chimney balloons are great solutions for fireplace drafts (though not appropriate for active vented gas, FYI).

Get the How-To: 8 Ways to Fix Drafty Windows

Add Insulation

The term building envelope refers to the home’s defining line between the indoors and the outdoors — the roof, the walls and the foundation — and it has a serious job to do to keep the indoor climate in and the outdoor climate out. Insulation is the workhorse for the building envelope and when it isn't working properly, we pay a lot more in utility bills. It’s common for older homes to have insufficient amounts of insulation, but even newer homes can benefit from added insulation. Insulation comes in several forms with specific uses (attic, floors, walls) in a range of R-values. The R-value refers to the insulation's thermal resistance — essentially how hard it works — the higher the value, the greater its insulating effectiveness. Thus, the Department of Energy recommends higher R-values for northern climates and lower values in warmer areas. Visit the Energy Save website to find recommended R-values for floors, walls and attics for your particular climate zone and to learn more about why to choose one type of insulation over another.

LEARN MORE: How to Insulate an Attic

Cover or Replace Windows

Our windows are perhaps the most appreciated parts of our building envelopes. We love them for letting daylight in and letting us see out. Unfortunately, single-pane and inefficient windows can let in hot and cold outdoor air. Replacing inefficient windows will make a huge difference, but there are less expensive corrections that are still quite impactful.

Using indoor and outdoor window treatments strategically is a design upgrade that could pay for itself in energy savings. Honeycomb and Roman shades are great at keeping precious heat inside, and curtains with white plastic backings reflect any unwelcome heat trying to come in. Window films are a similar tool. Use low-E film on the inside to preserve indoor heat, and reflective film on the outside to repel it. Outdoor awnings can dramatically reduce the heat absorbed by south- and west-facing windows too. Adding storm windows makes a huge impact in many regions — saving 10 to 30% on those heating and cooling bills. Oh, and if you need some help deciphering energy efficiency ratings, Energy.gov has a helpful translation of the alphabet soup on the window label.

Learn More: Windows Buying Guide

Use Energy-Efficient Lightbulbs

Lighting our homes eats up roughly 15% of our electricity bill, with 70 lightbulbs in the average household. So, the good news is we have more than 70 opportunities for energy savings. On the bulb end, improvement in LED technology has inspired a lighting revolution, enabling us to outfit our lamps with bulbs using a fraction of the electricity of the old incandescents and lasting 15 to 25 times longer. Convert the whole house to LEDs and you could save upwards of $200 in electricity costs this year. LEDs come in color temperatures — the Kelvin (K) rating — ranging from that of warm incandescent bulbs to the coolest of blue skies to fit all moods. They are also sized and shaped for stylish exposed-bulb pendants, cathedral-ceiling cans and everything in between.

Some buying tips: Stick to a CRI (color rendering index) of 90 or above and you won’t be sorry. This is the color accuracy of the bulb. Instead of watts, learn to speak lumens, which is the real language of how bright the bulb is. ENERGY STAR has a helpful conversion chart. Then, to maximize the impact of your bulb purchase, ensure you use LED-compatible fixtures with energy-saving components like timers, photocells and dimmers. Double bonus: Since LEDs produce 70% less heat than incandescent bulbs, using them can even reduce your air-cooling costs. And LED recessed-light retrofit kits will turn that old can light that’s leaking air into the attic into an airtight, energy-efficient beacon.

Learn More: Light Bulb Buying Guide: How to Pick the Right Light

Install Skylights and Sun Tunnels

To decrease your need for electric lighting entirely, incorporate daylighting techniques in your home. Daylighting is the strategic use of windows, skylights and sun tunnels to minimize how much you switch on the lamps during the day. New, openable skylights will work twice as hard for you, drenching your space in light but also allowing some natural temperature control through ventilation and circulation. Sun tunnels do an electricity-free impression of a recessed light and are a fab way to illuminate powder rooms, closets, hallways and any other space without natural light.

Get the How-To: How to Install a Skylight Tube

From: Brian Patrick Flynn

Unplug Energy-Draining Electronics

Oh, electronics, how do we love thee? Well, counting the ways will require more than our fingers and toes, as there are 24 in the average US household according to Energy Star. Computers and printers, televisions and gaming equipment, home entertainment systems — the electronics category include all our tools of work, communication and fabulous distraction and (sigh) they use a ton of energy. You know the unassuming cable box? Having two of them is like having a second refrigerator as far as the utility bill is concerned. And screensavers? Green-spenders is more like it. Obviously, we don’t want to forgo our devices, but we can find savings without diminishing our use.

On computers and televisions, turn off those screensavers and instead use sleep and hibernate settings. For electronics without power-saving settings, an advanced power strip will sense when they are in standby mode and stop sending power to them. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has a nice infographic to help you pick one of these energy chaperones. For that cable or satellite box, you can actually request an Energy Star-certified one from your TV provider. The Energy Star label means 25 to 30% less energy used. Oh, and one other thing: When you cuddle up to stream the next family movie use a tablet or laptop, not the game console. That greedy console uses 10 times more electricity.

Learn More: The Best Smart Plugs, Tested by HGTV Editors

Maintain Your Refrigerator

The refrigerator is one device we dare not turn off, but we can make sure it isn’t wasting energy during its 24-hour shift. Start with testing the door seal by closing it over a dollar bill. If you can pull the dollar out easily, you may need to tighten the hinges or replace the seal. Position your fridge away from the oven and dishwasher and out of direct sunlight so it doesn’t have to work harder than it needs to. Leave some room for air circulation behind the fridge and on the sides. When you are ready to upgrade to a new unit, be sure to recycle the old one because it has a ton of useful components. The EPA has a list of utilities that will even offer rebates if you recycle.

In terms of your usage habits, don’t do the gaze-and-graze — snacking with the door propped open. And make sure you cover everything stored in the fridge because the compressor has to work harder when moisture is released from food. Set the fridge temp at 40 degrees or below and the freezer at 0 degrees (USDA). But don’t rely on the fridge to tell you how cold it is; buy a good thermometer.

Learn More: The 11 Best Refrigerators for Every Budget in 2023

Turn Down the Water Heater

Think of all our aquatic activities at home: baths and showers, washing clothes, running the dishwasher. We tend to like our domestic water hot, so it's no surprise that water heating is the second-biggest energy hog at 18% of the bill. How do we reduce that figure? Well, some of it’s on the equipment end. Setting the water heater’s thermostat to 120 degrees (instead of the usual default of 140 degrees) can save up to $400 a year. Also, as a bonus, it lowers the buildup of minerals and corrosion in the unit and your pipes. Save 10 to 20% annually by insulating the water heater and pipes to prevent heat loss. If your water heater is more than a decade old, it’s time to consider an equipment switch. New conventional units are more efficient than the oldies, but alternative technologies — on-demand, tankless, heat pump (aka hybrid electric) and solar water heaters — can provide substantial savings over the conventional, the latter two up to 70 or 80%!

LEARN MORE: Solar Power Options and Ideas

Reduce Your Hot Water Habits

Of course, the other big way to reduce our water-heating costs is to intentionally reduce our daily hot water consumption — that is, the water we use to clean our dishes, our clothing and ourselves. Simply installing a new showerhead can cut your consumption in half. Older fixtures (pre-1992) release as much as 5.5 gallons of water per minute (gpm). Newer models release 2.5 gpm maximum, and those with EPA’s WaterSense label release just 2.0 gpm or less. At the sink, relocate your default position on the single-handed faucet to cold. It’s drawing hot water even when you don’t use it long enough to feel the heat. Decreasing your shower duration will make a big difference too.

Learn More: Low-Flow Showerhead Benefits

Do Smart Washes

In the kitchen, don’t hand-wash or rinse dishes in the sink before loading them in the dishwasher, which wastes thousands of gallons of water a year. Just scrape the food off and stick ‘em in. Also, limit dishwasher usage to full loads, and air dry instead of using the drying cycle for double the savings. Pick your battles with laundry, using the cold or warm temperature setting for most loads and reserving the hot cycle for those zesty items like dog towels.

Once again, if your dishwasher or washing machine is more than a decade old, it could be time to purchase new appliances. The new machines are totally different animals from their predecessors. They actually wet and clean the dishes and clothes differently, using less energy and less water. The washing machine is gentler while accommodating a larger load, so you’ll maximize the lifespan of those organic sheets while you save money. Many online retailers have an Energy Star filter to keep you focused on the most efficient products or you can use Energy Star's product finder.

Learn More: The Best Washers and Dryers for Every Space and Budget

From: Brian Patrick Flynn

Thoroughly Read Your Utility Bill

Another couple of ways you can save money involve cozying up to your power company. Many of us now have smart meters that transmit data back and forth in real time. The smart meter coupled with your utility’s online portal or app can enable you to see the minutia of your usage, down to the hour. You can also set usage notifications that will alert you by text or email when you go over the preset amount. Time-based electricity rates offered by some utilities incentivize customers to use power at nonpeak hours, allowing you to schedule your dishwashing and laundry loads for those cheaper periods. Of course, smart appliances can be programmed to do this themselves.

If the sun shines brightly on your home, consider a solar installation and make your own electricity instead of buying it. Just like those new efficient appliances — but even more so — the upfront cost of solar can be offset by drastically reduced energy bills.

LEARN MORE: Solar Power 101

Make an Energy Conservation Commitment

We’ve included here dozens of ways to save on energy costs covering every room in the house. Unless we said otherwise, both the data and the useful tips came from the Department of Energy’s Energy Saver website and its updated guide. For more great ideas, review it in its entirety.

Learn More: Solar Power Options and Ideas

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