I reduced my own power bill by a huge amount and I did it without using any solar panels. Most people think that if you want to lower your power bill, you must install solar panels. This is just not true. My power bill dropped by 20% after I did the steps below and now I’m going to show you exactly how I did it.

Window Insulation – The best thing you can do to lower your power bill is to make sure your windows are insulated properly. If you only have single pane windows, you are losing a lot of money. Single pane windows are terrible insulators. You need to upgrade to double pane windows. Double pane windows will save you a lot of money. Take a room by room approach as double pane windows are expensive.

Ventilation In The Attic – Your attic stores an incredible amount of heat. If your air vents get clogged with dust, too much heat will build up in your attic and make your air conditioner run much too long. You need to clean the vents in your attic and make sure they are allowing hot air to escape through them. If you have an attic that doesn’t have vents, you need to have some put in. Go to your local hardware store to find attic ventilation kits.

Change Those Air Filters – Dirty air filters will cost you a lot of money because it will make your air conditioner work too hard to keep your home cool. You need to change your air filters once a month if you want to save money off your monthly energy bill.

Filter In Your Range – Hardly anyone knows about the filter in the fan above their range. This fan uses a ton of electricity. These fans get clogged with grease quickly and a clogged fan will make it work twice as hard costing you a ton of money. You need to change your filter every 9 to 12 weeks depending on how much you use it. Most people never change this filter until the fan motor burns out and it actually stops working.

Save Money By Turning Off Lights – You should go around to all your lights and lower the wattage on all your bulbs. Do not leave lights on when you leave the room. Do not use outside lights. A single outside light that uses a standard 60-watt bulb will cost you about $10 a month. Forget using dimmer lights as they don’t save you very much. Use fluorescent lights whenever and wherever possible.

Appliances Power Usage – If you want to understand how the solar power calculate works or you want to calculate this manually you first need to estimate how many hours per day you use the appliance. You then use this formula: Wattage / 1,000 x hrs/day x $/kWh / 30 days/month = total cost per month. A refrigerator uses 540 watts per hour. If your refrigerator runs for 125 hours a week, that’s 125 hours / 7 days = 17.9 hours per day. Here’s what a month’s worth of use costs you: 540 / 1,000 x 17.9 x 0.15 x 30 = $43.50 per month. If you are using a central air conditioner (for 10 hours a day during the hot summer months) it’s costing you: 4000 / 1,000 x 10 x 0.15 x 30 = $180.00 per month.