Follow These Holiday Energy-Saving Tips, and You’ll Celebrate When You Open the Utility Bills

While it may seem a bit soon to think about the holiday season, especially in the Orlando area, in reality, it’s not too far away. As you prepare to decorate your home for the holidays and plan your yearly get-togethers, you can reduce the impact these activities will have on your utility bills with some of these holiday energy-saving tips:

Decorating

• Consider getting rid of those old incandescent holiday lights and replace them with modern LED strings. LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, use up to 90 percent less electricity than even the miniature bulbs and they run cooler, reducing the risk of fires.
• Put your lights, indoor and out, on timers so they’re only on for a few hours and will not stay on all night if they’re forgotten.
• Use decorations, such as tinsel and reflective objects, creatively to maximize the existing lights instead of adding more.

Entertaining

• When cooking your holiday dinner in the oven, eliminate preheating, cook multiple dishes at once, open the oven door as little as possible, and use the window to check cooking progress.
• Use a microwave or slow cooker for suitable dishes, as these appliances use less energy than the stove or oven.
• On the stove, use a small burner for a small pan. Use of a small pan on a large burner can allow a large amount of heat to escape and be wasted.
• Use clean reflectors under the burners to utilize more of the heat energy.
• Keep your refrigerator full to reduce cooling needs and avoid opening the door unnecessarily.
• Use your dishwasher for full loads only, use the energy-saving cycles, and choose the air-dry option, if available.

Heating

• Have a heating system tuneup done before winter for efficient heating.
• Replace or clean the furnace or heat pump air filter once a month.
• Lower the thermostat as much as comfort allows.
• Reduce your water heater to a comfortable, yet efficient, temperature of around 120 degrees.

These holiday energy-saving tips are merely a start. To increase your home’s energy-efficiency even more, contact our professionals at Rinaldi’s Energy Solutions to discuss your options. We serve Orlando and the surrounding Central Florida area.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Orlando, Florida and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about energy saving tips and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

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