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“Adulting” comes with a lot of pros and cons. While you finally have the freedom and independence to do what you want, there are a lot of responsibilities that you cannot merely turn away from. To top it all off, no one can escape adulting! Especially when you start making your own money, you are eventually going to start paying your own bills. School doesn’t teach us how to manage finances between utility bills, rent, taxes, food, and wants, but we’re here to at least give you a few tips on how to save electricity at home!
How to Save Electricity
As we live in a modern age, electricity is the biggest need to power everyday appliances and gadgets. Even then, there are a lot of easy hacks on how to save electricity. Keep reading and put these tips to use so that you can cut down on the cost of your future electricity bills!
Change all your lights to LED
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When you’re trying to find new ways on how to save electricity at home, we definitely recommend that you start with changing all your lightbulbs. CFL used to be the norm, but almost everyone is switching to LED lights with good reason! You might think that LEDs are costly, but in the long run, they are definitely the better investment. LED lights have a much longer lifespan compared to traditional bulbs. Not only that, but LEDs have high intensity and brightness by consuming less energy than incandescent bulbs!
Aside from being energy efficient in itself, LED lights also have a wide range of wattage options to allow you to set a different mood in every room of your home. This is where you come in! You know your house better than anyone, so if you want to cut down costs, you can even get down to the nitty-gritty and optimize your energy consumption of lights!
More often than not, higher lumens (total amount of light from a bulb) means higher wattage. And a higher wattage means more energy consumption. You can take a mental note of which areas need mood lighting, normal lighting, and task lighting. Choose low lumens for mood lighting, high lumens for task lighting, and that sweet in-between for your everyday lights. Doing this is one of the best ways on how to save electricity at home! Everyone needs illumination at home, but getting the right lighting for the right area will help trim down your electricity usage in the long run.
Set up the right air conditioner
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Now we move on to the big boy of energy consumption, the air conditioner! In a tropical country like the Philippines, especially during the summer, the temptation to keep the aircon on all day is strong. While it’s definitely important to feel comfortable in your own home, the dread of seeing a spike in your electricity bill may leave you feeling regretful. Fret not, because there are a lot of ways to save on electricity even with an aircon. First off, make sure you are using the best air conditioner for your home. Window types are the norm, but inverter type aircons will save you a lot of money! Inverter air conditioners may be pricey, but when you take into consideration how often and how long you will be using them, the energy efficiency of inverter technology is very much worth it.
Regardless of which type of air conditioner you choose, it’s important to schedule maintenance for cleaning. A clean aircon filter can actually lower its energy consumption by up to 15%! A clogged filter will require more energy to cool your home, and that’s why regular cleaning is critical. Every month or every two months is fine, but you should consider having a clean filter right before the start of summer!
On the other hand, in the cooler season, there’s a neat way on how to save electricity. That is switching your aircon settings to dry mode. When your air conditioner hits the right temperature, the compressor will automatically switch off, allowing a more energy-efficient run. If you’re interested in maximizing this setting, you can get a hygrometer to measure humidity. Any time you see the humidity higher than 60%, you can use the dry mode function!
Then again, if you want to lessen your general usage of air conditioning, you can check out the best air coolers that you can find on Shopee Philippines. Spoiler alert: An air cooler uses much less electricity compared to an air conditioner, making it a great substitute!
Turn your home into a smart one
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With two of the biggest energy users out of the way, we have one more nifty tip for you that will teach you how to save electricity. Remember how smart homes only used to be a dream? You can turn your own home into a smart one through smart home devices available on Shopee Philippines! These aren’t only for frills. Smart home devices actually do a really great job at managing your electricity! Home automation allows you to be more energy efficient at home without having to think about it.
Be energy-efficient in your sleep
As we just talked about the different ways you can save electricity with an air conditioner, you can take energy efficiency one step further with an aircon-to-fan timer. A lot of us require to be bundled up in blankets to fall asleep properly, but the heat is an obvious obstacle to overcome. The trusty air conditioner can cool your room in no time, allowing you to sleep peacefully. However, you have to think about how long you sleep! Whether that’s merely two hours or a whopping twelve hours, you can’t really feel the cold air when you’re knocked out in bed. With an aircon-to-fan timer, you can fall asleep to your aircon but wake up to the cool air of a fan! This way, you aren’t consuming as much energy as leaving your air conditioner on all night.
Manage electricity consumption through automation
If the aircon-to-fan timer is mindblowing on its own, wait ‘til you hear about smart plugs! It’s a tough pill to swallow, but so many devices at home consume energy when they aren’t in use. It even hurts more to hear that these include TVs, gaming consoles, microwaves, and ovens! It seems unfair, but you can easily remedy this energy consumption with a smart plug. For full transparency, using a smart plug does not immediately help you save electricity. The role of a smart plug is to allow you to manage your energy consumption. With a simple tap on your phone or a call to Alexa, Google, or Siri, you can block off the heavy use of energy from these devices! Don’t get us wrong, smart plugs consume electricity too. But the consumption is so minimal compared to a direct plug of your devices to a socket!
Of course, the budget option is to simply unplug devices when they aren’t in use. However, the way smart plugs improve your quality of life at home has no competition. With smart plugs, you can even set a schedule for your devices to shut down! This way, you are automatically blocking off vampire draw (from devices with standby power) without having to think about it.
Save Electricity & Reap Its Benefits
Again, we completely understand that “adulting” is hard. But with these tips on how to save electricity at home, you will definitely be saving money in the long run! Following these energy-saving hacks is a win-win situation, and these are only a few of many different ways. Baby steps are always better than nothing at all, so take your time and your first step into living a smarter adult life!
