Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Utility Bills

How on earth do you cut your utility bills?

I've been dreading this question. Step one was finding out how much I pay for everything. I did that a couple of days ago. Step two is looking at them one by one and doing a little research.

My natural gas bill is on my mind today. Obviously, the way to cut the bill is to use less of it, but that's our source of heat.

We have a high-efficiency furnace. We installed new windows which should be better at holding in the heat. We turn it down into the 50s at night....

We keep it at about 70 degrees during the day.

What else can we do?

I'm short on time today, unfortunately, but I'm going to try to do a little online research. I'd love to hear any suggestions you have, too. How have you cut back on your heat usage?

3 comments:

Janet in Toronto said...

We are also keeping our temperature in the house a little lower this winter and so have learned to embrace sweaters, thick socks, and throws on the sofa. We keep it around 20C (68F) during the day and it goes down to 15C (59F) at night.

How is your water heated? We have a gas hot water heater. I have switched to washing most of my clothing in cold water with no loss of effectiveness and have really noticed a difference in my gas bill.

Jennifer Feddersen said...

You know what? I was assuming the water heater was electric, but I don't know! I'll have to go check it out.

I just realized the other day that I thought I'd been washing in cold, but it turned out I was using the "warm" cycle with a cold rinse. I'm switching over to a cold/cold cycle and I'll see if that makes a difference.

L Harris said...

We live in a very drafty house and have 5 little ones so we tend to keep the house quite warm, The thermostat is set at 71 all the time. This last cold snap was a doozy!!! The bill is nasty, even with the gov't rebate. I've tried to keep it cooler in here and embrace warmer clothing. Just not the right time for us to cut in this area. :)

Oh and I wash everything, cold/cold. And we have no dryer - but most dryers are electric, so that might be a comment for an electrical post. :)