Managing your home energy costs while on vacation

Posted by admin on May 4, 2009

Managing Your Energy Costs While You’re Away

Often, while you’re away, your home is using more energy than it needs. This can increase your energy bill and cost you money. Here are some tips for managing your energy costs while you’re away on vacation.

These big users of electricity can have a significant impact on the energy your home uses while you’re away.

Heat pump or air conditioner – If you prefer to leave your heat pump or air conditioner on while you’re gone, set it between 85 to 90 degrees. For each degree you raise the temperature, you’ll save 2 to 3 percent on the cooling portion of your electric bill. Remember though, turning your thermostat to a very high setting may affect how hard your refrigerator and freezer have to work to stay cool.

Swimming pool pump – If your pool pump is not operated with a timer, it will run 24-hours a day while you’re gone. If you normally turn the pump off for a period of time each day, the 24-hour operation can result in a large increase in your usage.

Water heater – If you don’t attend to your water heater before you leave, it will continue to work to maintain water temperature. Turn it off at the circuit breaker. (Before you turn the breaker back on, run water from the hot water faucet to be certain the water heater still has water in it.)

Refrigerator and freezer – If you’ll be gone for a few days, turn your refrigerator’s thermostat to a warmer setting — 42 degrees for your refrigerator, 5 degrees for your freezer. If you’ll be away for as long as four weeks or more, you may want to clean it out and turn it off.

In general, you should strive to turn off as many things you don’t need as possible.
Don’t leave anything on that does not need to be left on.
If some items need to be left on for maintenance or preservation reasons, choose levels that will minimize energy use (such as for the refrigerator).

Information extracted from SouthWest.