Top tips to cutting down your winter power bill

Harcourts Holmwood Merivale - Cindy-Lee Sinclair

As winter properly sets in, you’ve likely found yourself with a growing power bill. With shorted days requiring lights on earlier and colder night enticing us to switch on heaters and electric blanks, how can you keep your power usage down? Here are five smart tips for reducing your usage this winter.

1) Change to LED lights
LED lighting is the greener option and are also more energy efficient, using up to 80% less energy and lasting 25 times longer than incandescent lighting. These are available in a range of shapes and sizes from down lights to flood lights. Switching to energy-efficient lighting could halve your household lighting costs.

2) Switch off at the wall
It’s easy to do, but we often forget to turn off our light switches and appliances at the wall when we’re not using them. Many appliances still chew up energy even when they’re on standby mode. According to Energy Wise, appliances left on standby can cost you more than $100 a year on your power bills.

3) Get your timing right
Homes waste a lot of power through unnecessary heating. A programmable timer can help keep losses to a minimum by letting the temperature in your home stay at the right level suit you. You can use a timer to set the heating to ‘off’ during the day when the house is empty, and programme it to turn on shorty before your due home. Do this with your towel rail also for four hours a day rather than all the time and you could save up to $130 a year.

4) Maintain your appliances
With winter’s cold chill, it’s hard to resist the comfort of a natural gas heater or reverse cycle air-conditioner. However, the reality is there appliances can have a significant impact on your energy bill, especially when they’re not properly maintained. When filters have a built-up of dust, efficiency is impaired leading to higher costs. Ensure your household heating is always running at its optimum by cleaning the filter once a fortnight. Tip: Put a reminder on your phone so you don’t forget! A ten-minute job that saves you money is well worth it.

5) Take faster showers
I know how hard it is to resist a long hot shower when it’s frosty outside. However, research shows hot water accounts for 21% of all energy used in the home. Keeping shower lengths to a minimum is a quick and easy way to downsize your bill.