3 Ways To Reduce Your Utility Usage At Home

Dec 01, 2020

No one wants to be wasteful. But for most people, if you’re not actively thinking about how to reduce your usage of things like your utilities in your home, it’s easy to be wasting a lot of that energy and money without even realizing it. Knowing this, it’s wise to find ways that you can start to use less of your monthly utilities in a way that you can essentially set and forget.

To help you be smarter with your utility usage, here are three ways that you can start to reduce your utility usage at home.

Use The Right Appliances

Some of the biggest users of your utilities are your appliances. These machines usually take a lot of power and water to run, so it’s important that you make the best use of these utilities when you’re running the major appliances in your home.

According to Kelsey Sheehy and Lauren Schwahn, contributors to Nerdwallet.com, one of the best ways to be more energy efficient with your appliances is to purchase energy-efficient appliances. By getting the right appliances put in place from the get-go, you’ll ensure that you’re not using more electricity or water than is necessary. But, if you’re needing to upgrade some of your older appliances to get energy-efficient, Energy Star appliances, it’s best to start with the bigger ones that use the most energy so that you can start seeing a big difference in your utility usage right away.

Embrace Nature

In some cases, the parts of your home that use your utilities a lot could be used less if you simply harnessed the powers of nature more than you might already be doing.

For example, Energy.gov shares that rather than having to turn on the lights in your home, you could install a few skylights that will allow more natural light into your spaces. Along with this, you could also consider putting up a clothes line to air dry your clothes rather than using a clothes dryer. And if you’re feeling like your home is getting too hot or too cold, try strategically using your windows to either block out the heat or block out the cold before you turn on your HVAC system.

Keep Everything Properly Sealed

For the times when you do have to turn on your heater or air conditioner and use your utilities, it’s important that you’ve done everything you can not to waste the energy that you’re using.

One thing that can really waste these resources is having leaks throughout your house. According to Adam Dachis and Elizabeth Yuko, contributors to LifeHacker.com, the ducts and other seals in and around your house should be closed up tightly so nothing can escape after you’ve turned on your utilities to heat or cool your space. Doing so will make your home much more energy-efficient.

If you’re wanting to use fewer utilities in your home, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you accomplish this.