[Woday]

Leave flourescent lights on for about 100 hours the first time they are on to "season" the bulbs. This makes them last longer.

[peachy]

Woday...just remember that you don't do TOO large of a load of laundry. Do you know how many times I've had to fix my washer because I've loaded it too much?! "Ah, just one more item...it won't break the thing." Yeah it will. =)

[Horlequism]

One thing we do is keep doors closed so that heat coming through the vents doesn't escape...a lot of people here like turning the heat up to ungodly temperatures during the day and I always have to go behind them and turn the damn thermo down...

[gloriacampos]

not as much as I wish to have done. Coming up with the money to buy the things to conserve in our 2 story 30 year old house is not easy. We recently went shopping for window and door caulking. We still need weather stripping and a whole bunch of other things. The people that owned the house before us did none of this. We knew this buying the house, but we were hoping to do all we needed by now. Guess it's going to take longer. It doesn't help that are windows are so thin. By the way if any of you have any advice on how to help conserve energy in our house feel free to let me know and please keep in mind that my husband is not very eco conscious so I may do it but he may not (like turning off the lights!!!!!!!!!!). He says he tries but he always "forgets" .

[peachy]

Well, there's tons of good advice in this thread. Hopefully you'll have the time (in between fixing the house) to find some good tips that you can implement!

Perhaps everytime you catch your husband leaving the lights on, you charge him a quarter. All the extra money can go back into buying supplies for fixing the house! =)

[horselover]

I've got to find time to weatherstrip here myself. It's so hard with the work schedule. I should have been in bed 2 hours ago!!

Maybe I'll do the weatherstripping on Saturday.

[skipper]

One easy thing you can do to reduce your electricity bill is to hook up all your electronics (TV, stereo, computer, etc) to powerbars, and shut off the power bar when they're not in use. Most of the newer electronic equipment draws a "phantom load" even when turned off, and in some cases, it turns out to be quite a bit of power. One study in the UK found that leaving a home theatre system plugged in was like leaving the living room lights on all night.

[Dreamweaverr]

I freeze everyone out , lol. I don't even turn the heater on unless we really can't stand it and then just to take the chill off.

I have a story from a few years ago. California power companies had made some stupid calls and bought energy at an ridicously high prices so of course the consumers got slammed for the big wigs poor judgement. Power bills went sky high and all my friends were in shell shock when the bills arrived. Some of them had bills in the 400 to 800's . Mine for the same sized house was 40 bucks. They wanted to know how I did it. I have a long list but some of them were taking showers and using the bathroom in the dark, running the dishwasher for wash cycle but then shutting it off and opening the dishwasher door to let them dry. I machine washed my clothing and towels but only partially dried them in the dryer then hung them on hangers to dry the rest of the way. I put things that wouldn't need ironing like heavy towels out on the clothesline to dry. The lights were only on in rooms we were occupying and everything else got shut off. I unplugged things like microwaves with clocks that didn't need to run all the time when they weren't being used. I limited t.v. viewing time, electronic games etc.. I swept more and vacuumed less. I turned the refridgerator a little warmer. I kept lots of ice on hand and kept the a.c. off. I took the timers off some of the lights since even those take energy to run. I made iced tea not by boiling the water but by putting a big glass jar in the sun to heat up. sun tea. We tried eating more cold foods and using the gas grill once in awhile instead of the oven. I took the lightbulbs out of the outside light fixtures. There were more, but you get the idea. There was NO way I was going to pay those high bills either. It took lots of attention to details but it worked even if it made things not as nice. I LOVED seeing the looks on people's faces when they were all moaning about their energy bills as if they were trying to outdo each other with how awful they had it and then they heard what mine was.It made me chuckle. It can be done, you just have to be persistant and be willing to put up with some minor discomforts.

[workinman]

that is awsome dreamweaverr! i do the same kinda things and when the natural gas went through the roof 2 years ago, my bill went down because of the changes i made... it was so low that the gas company came out to check my meter reading!!! lol