Cut almost $2,000 off your utility bills
Do you know it’s actually possible to cut your expenditures by almost S$2,000 every year by simply looking at how you use your electricity and water? Or are you just letting your dollars flow down the drain?
Of course there’s lots of ways. You can save money by pasting notes all over your house reminding you to switch off the lights when you’re done, but there’s a tad tiresome (not to mention UGLY). But there’re some smart and practical ways to drop our expenses tremendously by just making a few small adjustments.
Air Conditioner
How many ticks does your air-condition have? 4? or 1? What about your usage - do you turn it on the entire night at 16 degrees celsius, or do you just turn it on for perhaps 2 hours before you sleep, and use a fan thereafter?
Turns out that you save up to $700 a year just by using the fan instead of the air conditioner through the night! If you absolutely must use some form of air-conditioning, try this: max out the air-conditioner an hour before bedtime, then switch to the fan as you sleep. You won’t even feel the difference. Or use the automatic timer for the air-conditioner to automatically switch it off after, say, 3 hours.
Don’t forget to use an energy-efficient four-tick air-conditioner - that saves you yet another $300 over one with only one-tick, making the total savings with smart use of a four-tick air-conditioner at $1,000 already!
Lighting
Yes, we should all switch off our lights whenever we can, but we all know that sometimes, that’s just a plain hassle.
If you’re still using incandescent bulbs, you have to know that by just doing a simple change in the bulbs we buy, we can save about $25 per bulb per year! That’s $250 for every 10 bulbs you change.
What bulbs? Energy-saving fluorescent bulbs that use at least 5 times less energy.
Hot Water
Now, we all use hot water, be it to make our daily dose of caffeine, or to take that hot shower on a cold rainy day. The difference is how we get the hot water. Do you use an electric airpot? Woah, that’s costing you $300 a year extra. A storage water heater as opposed to an instant water heater? The difference is about $100 per year.
As for hot water to make your coffee, boil only when needed (like using your coffee brewer) or use a simple effective thermos flask. That’s $300 savings.
And for water heaters, really, it doesn’t make that much of a difference - you know it. Maybe you’ll have to wait 2 minutes for the water to be hot, but storage water heaters arn’t that instant, either. So switch to that instant water heater and save $100 every year.
Refrigerator
This one’s a no brainer. Choose a four-tick model! That’s instant savings of $150/year over a one-tick model (for 400 litres). Plus, you help save the environment.
Conclusion
| What to do | Savings |
|---|---|
| Use a four-tick air-conditioner | $300 |
| Run the air-conditioner for an hour before bed and switch to the fan |
$700 |
| Use energy-saving fluorescent bulbs (per 10 bulbs) |
$250 |
| Using an instant water heater | $100 |
| Boiling hot water only when needed | $300 |
| Using a four-tick refridgerator | $150 |
| Saving the environment | Priceless |
What about you?
What tips and tricks do you have to share?
One Comment, Comment or Ping
Daniel
You can get those plugs that work on timer, they work pretty well for me! :)
Nov 3rd, 2008
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