Start Simple: Step 2

Hot Water Heater or Energy Eater?

I never thought about our hot water heater as a major consumer of the electricity in our home. Boy I was wrong. Use Energy Wisely shows you just how much on average things in your home consume. This gives you the ability to figure out without paying someone easy and low to no cost ways to save energy. Our Electric company not only told me that an electric hot water heater in a home that uses propane/natural gas furnace is the main electrical cost of the bill. I thought she was joking.

Now not every electric company offers the same incentives but ours offered a brand new hot water heater for $300.00 (not installed) as long as we put on a controller that allowed the electric company the ability to shut off the hot water heater during peak times of use during the week. We did this program and got a 105 gallon hot water heater with a lifetime warranty. Our hot water heater was 12 years old. I still didn't think we would see much difference in our bill but any savings and an updated water heater seemed to make sense.

Due to the program we saved $50.00 the first full month and $83.00 the second month. This savings is 44% of the cost of the hot water heater. I realize that this is not what everyone should expect but it was well worth looking into what our electric company offered for incentives.

Now the plus to this was that our electric company also has an annual rebate sheet for things we purchase anyways like the new style light bulbs. I get $1.00 back for each bulb I replace and submit a receipt for. We just bought LED Christmas lights prior to the end of the year and I will get $1.00 for each strand of lights when submitting a receipt.

Now that was all simple for me, took little effort and time and saved a lot. Keep reading and see the next steps to saving by STARTING SIMPLE