Appliances

Making a few minor changes in your daily habits can help you reduce your need for air-conditioning and add to energy savings during the dog days of summer. Try incorporating several of these tips into your daily routine.

Does your refrigerator have a Wi-Fi connection? What about your dishwasher: Can it self-dispense detergent and choose the cycle based on the number of dishes you load? But don’t stop there: You might be surprised to learn that some ovens double as refrigerators, so you can leave dinner in the oven in the morning and later send the appliance a text message, telling it to switch from cooling to cooking!

Heat pumps are becoming a more frequent choice for families replacing an old, inefficient heating and cooling system. This is because a heat pump can heat, as well as cool, your home efficiently. The cost of electricity for heating and cooling a house – although it gradually increases over time, as most prices do – is much less volatile than the cost of natural gas, oil or propane.

According to federal government agencies, the average person uses 100 gallons of water a day – and water heating accounts for about 12 percent of the typical family’s power bill every month.