If you're anything like us, or the thousands of other people in North America trying to keep their hard earned money in their pockets, this article will help you! With climbing hydro rates that are expected to double in 5 years, we needed to find a way to save money on our hydro bill!
Every month when our hydro bill arrived, it was a guessing game as to how much we would be paying. It just seemed to climb up each month, sometimes only by a few cents, other times by a few dollars.
We decided that we needed to do something NOW to keep the bill down... so here are a few of the things that we did that helped us.
The first thing we noticed were the drafts coming in from the electrical outlets and switches...so we went to the dollar store and bought a package of craft foam. It comes in different colours, but nobody is going to see it. We made our own inserts, and you could notice the difference as soon as you put the plates back on... there were no drafts. (by the way you can buy these from any of the big box stores).
Another area where there was a major draft was from the baseboards. Have you ever walked around the house and noticed a cold spot on the floor? If you have, that is probably where cold air is coming into your home. We bought a couple of cans of spray foam, then removed the baseboards. This can be very tricky to do, because you need to make sure you don't break them. When they were all off, we sprayed all around the base of both interior and exterior walls. After it had cured, we took an xacto knife and cut the foam back, even with the wall, so that we could replace the baseboards. Doing this made an incredible difference. As the evening came, we didn't feel the temperature in the house drop like it used to. This was great! We were able to sit around and not freeze.
We also bought window insulation kits. These are a cheap and easy way to insulate your windows.
All you need to do is clean the area around your windows, put the tape on and then cut the plastic to the correct size, take the wax paper off the tape and stick your plastic to it. Using a blow dryer, take out all the wrinkles and when it is smooth, your window is insulated!
You also need a programmable thermostat. These come with pre-programmed settings that, if you use them correctly, are intended to save you money without sacrificing your family's comfort!
Using one of these can save you about $180 a year! That is quite a substantial saving. A programmable thermostat will cost anywhere from $30 up to around the $100 mark.
I hope you found this article interesting, and helpful in your quest to save money!!!
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