Improve Your Home's Efficiency With These 6 Energy Saving Tips

Whether it's the middle of a brutal winter or you're getting ready for the summer, if you're a homeowner, you need to be focusing on keeping your energy expenses down. The average U.S. home spends roughly $2,100 on energy each year. If you're not careful, you could end up spending even more on your home energy usage.

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That's why it's so important to do a little research, educate yourself on some energy conservation tips, and consult with professionals. Here are some great energy saving tips that will help your home become more energy efficient and save you some cash:

• Use more cold water -- When you're running the wash, it might seem like using warm or hot water won't make much of a difference when it comes to energy expenses, but it certainly does. By using cold water to wash your clothes, however, you'll actually save close to $70 a year.
• Use a programmable thermostat -- By installing a programmable thermostat in your home, you'll be able to save up to 10% of heating and cooling expenses. Additionally, simply lowing your thermostat just two degrees during the winter will save 6% of heating-related CO2 emissions.
• Improve your home's lighting -- You can reduce energy use by as much as 80% if you switch to more energy-efficient halogen incandescents, CFLs, and LEDs. Also, just because your home's lighting looks nice doesn't mean your lights should be on all the time: turn them off when you're not using them!
• Seal everything up -- Sealing air leaks and properly insulating your home can not only increase household comfort but also save as much as 20% on your energy bill.
• Plant some trees -- Appropriately plating shade trees on your property can save up to 2.4 tons of CO2 emissions each year. Plus, your landscape will look much better with some nice trees.
• Clean your HVAC filters -- You don't have to be a professional mechanic to know how to clean or replace an AC or furnace filter. If you're neglecting this piece of equipment, you'll end up wasting a lot of money and energy each year. Clean your filters regularly and replace them as needed.

If you want to learn more about some of these energy-saving tips or work with professional green energy services, give Starion Energy a call today!

Lower Cost Same Power

Millions of Americans use utilities every single day of the year, which is why energy conservation is such a popular subject amongst those who pay said utility bills. The crazy part is that only about 10% of the United States total energy consumption in 2015 comes from renewable energy sources, or about 9.7 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu).

To elaborate, the amount of zeros in one quadrillion is 15. That is 9,700,000,000,000,000 BTU created from renewable energy. Over half of all renewable energy produced in the U.S. is done so for electricity. A full 13% of total U.S. electricity generation production comes from renewable energy as of 2015.

Bank On Energy Expenses

Over 150 years ago, wood supplied almost the entirety of the nation's energy needs. Almost 90% of the total energy requirements across the United States were met by wood at that point in time. Coming back into the modern era, it is gladdening to see the changes resulting from innovation.

Energy saving tips are definitely one of the areas that have experienced vast changes through the developing years. Solar energy might be described as a modern marvel. Annually solar energy users are facilitating personal power generation. Through their own investments, they work towards energy savings. Around 75 million barrels of oil are saved annually by solar users.

Hydro-power is another modern marvel in regards to power generation. It accounts for about 6% of the total electricity generated in the U.S. As renewable energy, it is a much larger segment as it is responsible for 46% of all renewable generation nationwide.

How To Save Energy

The local utility provider can only benefit from educating their customers in knowing about energy consumption. An important aspect of consumption is conservation. There are a number of ways that a modern consumer can take in order to work towards their own long-term financial savings.

Insulation is a perfect example of ensuring the security of a property. Making sure that the right kind and amounts are in the walls and ceilings can save up to between 20% and 30% of heating bills, and even reduce CO2 emissions between 140 and 2,100 pounds per year.

Lowering the thermostat by just two degrees during cold weather months can save as much as 6% of heating-related CO2 emissions. Annually this produces reductions of property emissions by around 420 pounds.

Make sure to install a programmable thermostat in order to capitalize on heating and cooling costs as well.; up to 10% can be saved by this installation. Assuring that air leaks are sealed and equipment is maintained up to 20% on heating and cooling can also be recovered.