Living (and loving) Life
If you’re like me you probably get frustrated every time you pay your electric bill.
After all, that monthly check you send off to the power company is one of your largest household expenses.
And like mine, your electric bill probably seems to go up on a regular basis.
These days most folks are doing everything they can to lower their electric usage.
You can turn off the light when you leave a room and turn the thermostat up or down a degree or two, but things like that can only do so much for reducing your electricity usage.
But there’s one simple thing you can do to dramatically lower your electric bill, starting right this moment: Shift your appliance usage to off-peak hours!
For example, if you usually load your dishwasher up during the day and wash all of your dishes at once, setting the timer to wash them in the middle of the night can save you as much as 80% on the cost of the electricity the dishwasher uses!
And since clothes washers and dryers are major energy hogs, you can achieve those same incredible savings by washing and drying your clothes at night or on the weekends when the electric rates are lower.
How much lower, you ask?
Well, the difference between on-peak and off-peak rates vary from one power company to the next (and a few power companies don’t offer off-peak rates at all), but the difference is almost always substantial.
For example, Appalachian Power (the electric utility that serves my area) charges almost 6 times more per kilowatt hour for on-peak usage than they charge during off-peak hours!
In other words, the electricity I use at night and on weekends costs a whopping 80% less than the electricity I use during the day on weekdays!
Want proof? Check out this screenshot I took from this page on the Appalachian Power website:
As you can from the screenshot, Appalachian Power charges their customers 13.758 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity that’s used on weekdays between the hours of 7am and 8pm (their on-peak hours).
However, they only charge 2.368 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity used between 8pm and 7am and on weekends and holidays (the off-peak hours).
That means the electricity an Appalachian Power customer uses during the on-peak hours literally costs 82% more than off-peak electricity!
As you can see, simply moving as much of your electricity usage as possible to night-time hours, weekends and holidays can save you over 80% on that electric usage. And that will lower your electric bill by a huge amount!
Of course there are some electric appliances that simply must operate around the clock (your refrigerator, heat pump and water heater for example), but most everything else can probably be shifted to one of the many off-peak hours.
After all, 8pm really isn’t all that late when you consider the potential savings.
If this money-saving tactic interests you I recommend that you contact your power company (or check their website) for the off-peak hours they recognize and the amount they charge for off-peak rates.
To finish up, here’s a fantastic short video featuring more tips for dramatically reducing your electric bill. Check it out!
Note: As always, you can watch the video at full screen by clicking the “square” icon that will pop up in the lower-right corner of the video after it begins playing.