Household Tips and Improvements
Cam is a licensed electrician from WA with a difference. His company - Total Future Energy Innovations - is focused on smart electrical solutions to power our homes on a smaller environmental footprint and save money from increasingly high electricity bills.
Please note that the information in this article was based on trends from 2018 and may now be outdated.
Cam is a licensed ServiceSeeking electrician from WA with a difference. His company – Total Future Energy Innovations – is focused on smart electrical solutions to power our homes on a smaller environmental footprint and save money from increasingly high electricity bills.
We sat down with Cam, who gave us three easy things every Aussie household can do to save money on their electricity bills.
Replace your home’s lighting with LEDs
Supercharge your home’s lighting efficiency with LEDs that are just as bright as traditional globes but consume far less power as well as last much longer before they need replacing. Cam advises installing high-quality LEDs, which can last up to 100,000 hours of lighting (about eight years of average use) versus just 1,000 hours from cheaper non-LED globes. Installation quotes to install LEDs will cost about $45 per fitting. One halogen downlight can also power the equivalent of 20 energy-efficient LEDs, making it well worthwhile to have a professional electrician install new lighting.
Know your peak and off-peak periods
Depending on your energy company and plan, it’s very likely you’ll be charged different usage rates according to different times of day. Make sure you know when your off-peak periods begin. For example, AGL charges much higher peak rates when you use electricity between 3 pm and 9 pm.
Image from AGL
One easy way to save money by using the same amount of electricity is to simply schedule energy-intensive activities outside of peak periods, for example, running washing machines, clothes dryers and ironing during the weekends or later in the evening.
Is your plasma TV sucking up power?
Once one of the fastest-selling types of flat-screen TVs, plasmas have horrible energy efficiency compared to LED and LCD sets. Cam says, “one month of standard use of a standard LCD TV can be the equivalent of watching a similarly sized Plasma for just an hour’! Although these are less popular to buy now, if you’re still running a plasma TV, switching to a more modern and efficient LCD screen won’t take long to pay back in terms of energy and power savings.
Want to speak with an electrical expert in your local area on ways you can save money on your energy bills? Get free electric quotes from ServiceSeeking.com.au today.