Residential Customers » Energy Tips

• Avoid running water continuously while doing dishes, washing up, brushing teeth or shaving.
  
  
• Keep your freezer tightly packed, adding bags of ice as needed to fill space.
  
  
• Don’t peek in your oven as you cook. A significant amount of heat escapes every time the door is opened.
  
  
• Keep fireplace dampers closed whenever your fireplace is not in use.
  
  
• Make sure your appliances and heating and cooling systems are properly maintained.
  
  
• Lower your thermostat in winter and raise it in summer.
  
  
• Use kitchen and bathroom ventilating fans only when they’re needed.
  
  
• During the heating season, keep draperies and shades on south-facing windows open during the day and closed at night. During the cooling season, keep the window coverings closed during the day to prevent solar heat gain.
  
  
• Lower the thermostat when using your fireplace.
  
  
• Repair leaky faucets.
  
  
• Take showers in stead of baths.
  
  
• Set the water heater thermostat at 120°F.
  
  
• Turn off lights and appliances when not in use.
  
  
• Plant deciduous trees that lose their leaves on the south and west sides of the house to provide shade in the summer and sun in winter. Plant evergreens on the north and west to deflect wind in winter.
  
  
• Check if your water heater has an insulating blanket.
  
  
• Make your waterbed every day. The bed coverings act like insulation.
  
  
• Use the air dry setting on your dishwasher.
  
  
• Regularly clean or replace furnace, air conditioner and heat pump filters.
  
  
• Caulk very leaky windows.
  
  
• Insulate hot water pipes and ducts wherever they run through unheated areas.
  
  
• Seal up the largest air leaks in your house – the ones that whistle on windy days, or feel drafty. Check around windows, doors, utility cut-throughs for pipes (plumbing penetrations), and unfinished spaces behind cupboards and closets.
  
  
• Replace appliances, heating, air conditioning, and water heating equipment before they stop working.
  
  
• Enable your computer’s power management feature.
  
  
• Turn off your computer at night, on weekends, and when left unused for an extended period.
  
  
• When operating efficiently, a gas flame should be blue. If your gas flame is yellow, it is not operating efficiently. Have the appliance serviced by a licensed contractor.
  
  
• Set your freezer at 5° and your refrigerator at 37-40°.
  
  
• Wash full loads of laundry and use cold water whenever possible.
  
  
• Dry full loads of laundry and turn the dryer off and remove the clothes as soon as they are dry.