This post is sponsored by Evergy.
We’re in the hottest part of the Midwest summer. My air conditioning is working hard, I’m doing laundry, kids on electronics and I see dollar bills flying out the window with all of our energy usage. This summer, I’ve tried to be mindful of ways to conserve energy and incorporate them into our family’s routine.
Evergy has a wide variety of tools online that can help you assess your current energy usage and give you insight into easy things you can do around your house to save money on your next bill.
Home Energy Analysis
The Home Energy Analysis is an online survey that helps you understand what is using the most energy in your home. For us, appliances are the No. 1 energy sucker. With a family of five that goes through a lot of laundry, meals and dirty dishes, this is no surprise. After the energy usage analysis, Evergy provides customized tips on ways to reduce energy around your home.
Neighbor Compare Tool
This online tool compares your usage to your neighbors. This allows you to see how your consumption stacks up against both your average and efficient neighbors. We fall somewhere in the middle. With two adults working from home, we use our fair share of energy during the day.
Bill Compare Tool
The Bill Compare Tool tracks your bill from month to month. Evergy provides reasons why your current bill may be higher or lower from the previous cycle – weather changes, cycle length, etc.
Highest Day of Use
Evergy analyzes your bill and determines which days each month are the highest for energy usage. Interestingly enough, Wednesdays are always a high energy use day for us – probably all that laundry!
Tips Library
Looking for more money-saving tips? Evergy provides a tips library that walks customers through rooms in the house and suggests ways to lower energy usage. Don’t miss the videos from an energy efficient expert on how to get your AC working most efficiently. After our first big bill of the summer, I scheduled a maintenance with a heating/cooling company. They assessed my units, hosed them off, and replaced the insulation tubing to keep the A/C from having to work so hard on the extremely hot days. I signed up for a yearly plan so I don’t have to remember to schedule these twice a year.
I also added small changes to our home to hopefully lead to big savings including:
- Switched out all lightbulbs to LED.
- Started using Smart Power Strips
- Used our Smart Thermostat to program a plan. We no longer cool the upstairs when we aren’t using it and vice versa with our main floor overnight.
- Installed foam tubing around our copper pipes to hot water heater that way warm water goes through a warm tube and doesn’t have to work as hard.
- Used foil HVAC tape to plug holes around our heating and cooling units.
If you’d like to explore ways to save energy in your household, these online tools can be a great place to start.
