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Save Energy, Save Money

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Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Save Energy, Save Money

We already know you love saving money, because you’re reading the MoneyWise Matters blog (and are hopefully a subscriber)! That’s why we’re confident you’ll love this post, because it’s all about saving money… and energy. How great is that? You can help the planet and your budget at the same time.

In order to help you improve your home’s energy efficiency, we teamed up with Indianapolis Power & Light Company. They taught us that small changes can have a big impact on energy bills. But if you’re not an IPL customer, don’t worry, we have links to energy providers in your community at the end of this article.

Here are five easy things you can do this weekend to improve your energy efficiency:

  1. Replace the air filter in your furnace every 6 months. A clogged filter is problematic for several reasons. When it comes to energy efficiency, a clogged filter requires your furnace to work harder. Replacing the filter will not only improve the air quality of your home, but it will allow that air to flow through the filter with greater ease. (Side note… you should also consider cleaning the air vents and hoses that connect to your clothing dryer. Dryers also have to work harder when the vents and hoses are clogged with dust, plus, all that debris is a fire hazard.)
  2. Replace the incandescent light bulbs in your home with LED bulbs. Incandescent bulbs may cost a little less in the store (as little as 70 cents per bulb), but they don’t last nearly as long (about 1,000 hours), and 90% of the energy is wasted in heat, while only 10% goes toward producing light. Meanwhile, standard LED bulbs run anywhere from $1-$3, but they are much more efficient and will last a lot longer (about 25,000 hours). According to Energy.gov, your lighting energy costs can be cut 50%-80% by switching out your incandescent light bulbs to LEDs.
  3. Using setbacks on your thermostat is another great way to get significant savings. In the winter, 68 degrees is the recommended temperature when you are home and awake, and 63 degrees is recommended when you are away at work or on vacation. In the summer, it is best to set your thermostat to 78 degrees when you are home and 83 degrees when you are away.
  4. Seal air leaks and cover drafty windows. Replacing windows can be expensive and time consuming, but there are plastic kits you can buy in most home-improvement stores to help you insulate the windows you have in the meantime. Install new caulking and weather-stripping to help seal air leaks around doors because they can wear out over time or may have never been installed when your home was built.
  5. Unplug electronics and appliances that are not being used. If you have a guest room, that is a great place to start. Nearly everything that plugs into the wall outlet will draw small amounts of power even when turned off. You can save energy by unplugging anything you do not regularly use. You may also want to consider an energy efficient power strip for your entertainment system. It will cut power to devices that are not in use, but still provide power to things like your internet modem and DVR when you are away from home.

To tackle some of these projects and identify other energy bandits in our homes, one of our Indianapolis-based staff members scheduled a FREE energy assessment with IPL. Watch as Brandon Kline, our Elections Outreach Coordinator, tours his home with Casey Roehm from CLEAResult®, who manages IPL’s residential and commercial energy efficiency programs.

IPL’s eScore™ Home Energy Assessment is free to IPL customers. An energy advisor will come to your home, conduct a walk-through assessment, and install energy-efficient products to help you start saving immediately. Your home will be given an eScore of 1-10, and the energy advisor will provide you with recommendations to improve that score. All of the recommendations will appear in your eScore dashboard, which you can view online when you log into your IPL account.  One of the “coolest” parts about the eScore program is that the advisor can install a FREE smart thermostat by Nest. To qualify, customers must enroll in IPL’s CoolCents® program, and they must have electric heat or central cooling, a compatible HVAC system and working Wi-Fi. You can learn more about the CoolCents® program by clicking here.

So what if you’re not an IPL customer? Energy providers throughout Indiana offer similar ways to save. We compiled a list of the energy efficient programs in other parts of the state.

Blog topics:  Budgeting, Credit, Archive