Comments on: How sealing our apartment saved our electric bill this winter

By: Meredith

Meredith — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:27:49 +0000

We don’t winterize…our house is newer and sealed fairly well. One thing that we did start doing when I quit my job was go on the budget plan so that there were no surprises when we opened the monthly bill. I love having our payments spread over the year evenly…we do the same for natural gas and it is a beautiful thing!

We also have a programmable thermostat which is great!

By: Kacie

Kacie — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:37:51 +0000

That’s a great reminder, M, whether you’re sealing your home or not (I doubt leaky windows would be enough to let out dangerous carbon monoxide).

By: m-

m- — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:45:26 +0000

Please, if you seal you house up very tight. Send a little money on Carbon Monoxide Detectors for each room. Saving money is good only if you are safe.

By: Jes

Jes — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:22:48 +0000

We put weather stripping around the back door of our apartment, the windows and front door are new and REALLY good with the insulation. We live in the south, so it doesn’t get as cold here, but our cinder block apartment doesn’t offer any insulation, they didn’t even put insulation under the floors, so a lot of our heat escapes.
I guess we’re a little backwards, we like to have it warm at night, so that when we wake up we’re willing to get out of bed, so we turn the heat down during the day and up during the night. Never more than 2 degrees though. Our thermostat is messed up, so is set 74 most of the time- which according to our indoor/outdoor thermometer keeps it at 68-70 in the living room, about 68 in our room, and around 70-72 in our daughters room.
The biggest thing we do to keep our electric bill down is keep the thermostat set at one temperature and leave it. The more you change it, the higher your bill will be. our average electric bill was $85. I’m loving the temperature now though, it’s almost warm enough to open up the windows all the time and not worry about Heat or AC.

By: lori

lori — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:24:03 +0000

Hi Kacie! Great job on the electric bill – here’s what we did to save $$. We have gas heat and after receiving a $115 bill for February, we decided to shut off the rooms in our house that were used the least. This included our spare bedroom/workout room and the extra bathroom. We shut off the vents, kept the doors closed and rolled up towels to place at the bottom of the doors. After doing this, our bill was $20 dollars less! I was shocked at how much less it was just from shutting off these two rooms. Plus, the average temperature was exactly the same during both billing cycles, so I know it was definitely our preventative measures. I guess it is worth literally freezing our buns off when we use the spare bathroom! ha!

By: fragileheart

fragileheart — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:40:49 +0000

After living in Ireland, I’ve gotten used to wearing track pants and/or PJs and sweaters around the house. Before that though, I would hate it and always try and turn the heat up in our house. It’s crazy what a difference it makes!

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:15:34 +0000

We put plastic over most of our windows, put a rug against the bottom of our back door, and turned the heat down at night and when we left the apartment. I’d say it saved us some money, but I’m not sure how much since I don’t have anything to compare it with. We have gas heat, so it was about $65-$70 a month. We definitely could have been stingier with the heat as we usually kept it around 65/70 when we were home during the day and 60/65 at night or when we were away. Lowering the heat bill is one of my priorities for next winter!