How We Lower Our Monthly Power Bills! ( Continued)

Now that I have my treadmill time done for the day, I have time to work on continuing this post.

We purchased both an energy efficient gas range and really energy efficient Bosch dishwasher. We chose  the gas range over an electric range because gas is cheaper to use and I find it cooks more evenly. Our oven also is a convection oven which I use more often than not when I am cooking roasts. The convection not only makes the meat juicier but it also cuts down on the cooktime by about 1/3 which saves on how much gas you use.

It is not unusual for me  to cook two or three roasts at the same time in the oven. Then I will make up some meals with the leftovers for  the freezer. I may cook a turkey breast for dinners and  another one to slice up into cold cuts for sandwiches. I have been using the oven less often while the A/C is on though. The hot days when I have to run that, I try to use my small appliances either in the garage or out on the front porch so as to not heat the cooled  house up. I will not have a patio until next spring so I have to make do with where I can cook them. When I do turn on the oven, I make sure that it is getting fully used by using all the space for roasts, baked potatoes, roasted veggies, muffins, etc. I want to get my money's worth everytime I turn it on.

When I cook on top of the range, I make sure to cover pots especially when I am bringing things to a boil. I also always turn off the burners and the oven a number of minutes before things are done because the heat will continue to cook them perfectly. When I cook pasta, I bring the water to a boil, put in the pasta, cover the pot and turn off the heat. The pasta is perfect in about 15-20 minutes just sitting in the water.   

Any meal that I can cook in the microwave instead of on the stove or in the oven, I will.  I also use  my crockpot for a lot of meat meals. It uses very little energy even using it 8 hours a day. Matter of fact, any time I can use an energy efficient small appliance instead of the range, I will. We should be purchasing our outdoor gas grill this next week. As soon as I have that, most of my cooking will be  done outdoors.   

My Bosch dishwasher only gets run with full loads on the most energy efficient cycle. I  don't use the heat to dry. I let the dishes air dry.

We do lots of other things too. I won't repeat them but here is a prior post that I wrote when I lived in AZ  where you can see them:

Energy Savings

We have a home that has well over 2000 sq. ft. of living space plus a garage and the same 2000+ sq. ft. in the basement which does have heat and A/C if we want to use it there. However, until such time as we finish that space, I wouldn't think to use the heat or A/C down there. All of our living space rooms have either 10 ft. ceilings or 12-13  ft. Cathedral ceilings. We also have a lot of windows in the house 95% of which are 72 inches long. That is a lot of  window space to be conscious of when drawing shades and blinds.  I tell you this so you can get an idea of how much we have to heat or air condition. Last week on July 23rd, we got our gas and electric bill for the prior  29 days. It was an actual read bill because I read it on the off months from when NYSEG reads it so that I  don't have an estimated bill. The bill prior to this one was $108.34. 

This past 29 days we used 655 KWH of electric and  4 CCF's of gas. The electric bill was $79.37 and the gas bill was $19.13 for a total bill of $ 98.50.  I felt good that our bill was less than last month since we have had our A/C on the entire 29 days. So considering the size of our home, I feel we are doing well with the power bills. I am hoping to lower the bill even more this next month.  

Please feel  free comment and share with us what you do to save on energy bills.