Author: solarbright

As the winter months approach and the days get shorter, it’s a good idea to start thinking about your home’s energy efficiency. During winter, with the majority of us spending more time at home, energy use can spike. As a result, our power bills can skyrocket. Therefore, it’s important to consider your energy consumption and the potential for reducing your power costs. Even small changes can lead to helpful savings, so here are a few tips on how to keep your energy bill lower during winter.

Understanding Your Energy Use

When trying to find ways to reduce your energy consumption, it can be useful to understand how much energy your home actually uses. Knowing exactly where in the home the most energy is consumed can help you determine the focus of your energy-saving endeavours.

The average Australian home consumes energy:

•         Heating and cooling – 40%
•         Appliances – 33%
•         Water heating – 21%
•         Lighting – 6%

With these figures in mind, it’s easy to see that heating and cooling have a significant impact on your power bill, with appliances and water heating close behind. Therefore, making some changes in these areas can have a positive effect on your overall energy costs.

1. Only Heat The Rooms You Use The Most

Consider which rooms don’t get much use during winter and keep the doors closed as much as possible. Drawing heat into unused areas is a huge drain on energy, so save on heating costs by only providing heat to the rooms you need.

2. Optimise The Efficiency Of Your Heat Pump

Your heat pump runs most efficiently between 18°C and 20°C. Blasts of high-temperature heat may seem like the most effective way to heat a cold room, but in fact, using your heat pump in this way won’t heat your room any faster and will increase your energy use dramatically.

For the most economical results, use the timer function on your heat pump to pre-heat your space for 15 minutes before you intend to inhabit the room and set it to turn off automatically when it’s no longer required.

3. Maximise Heat Retention

During daylight hours, your windows allow winter sun to heat your home. However, once evening falls, those same windows can also let more than 40% of the warmth escape. That’s why it’s important to close your curtains as soon as the sun disappears to retain the heat.

Additionally, draught-proofing your home can be extremely effective in keeping your home warm. Use weather strips to block off gaps under external doors and ensure the seals around your windows are sound.

4. Take Advantage Of Free Clothes Drying

Whilst clothes dryers are a convenient and fast way to dry your washing, they are also costly energy consumers. An alternative to using power-hungry dryers is to hang your clothes outside on a clear winter’s day.

If you don’t have access to an outdoor line, think about hanging your washing on a clothes airer located in a sunny window.

5. Install A Water-Saving Showerhead

With water heating accounting for 21% of your home’s energy consumption, changing your showerhead to a water-efficient model will not only save you water but will reduce your hot water costs considerably.

6. Make The Change To Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs

During the winter months, we become more dependent on artificial lighting to illuminate our homes. Making the switch to energy-efficient LED light bulbs can save you money in both energy and replacement costs.

LEDs use around 75% less energy and last between 5-10 times longer than traditional incandescent light bulbs.

7. Replace Mechanical Whirly-Bird Roof Fans With A MaxBreeze Solar Roof Fan

The old whirly-bird mechanical roof fans suck the air out of your roof cavity any time the wind is blowing. On a windy, cold winter’s day, you will be trying to warm the inside of your home with heating. Meanwhile, on the roof, the old whirly bird will be turning in the wind sucking this warm air out of the house and roof, making your heater work harder and increasing your heating costs.

The SolarBright MaxBreeze solar fan is a smart modern version of the old school whirly-bird. It is solar-powered and thermostat-controlled. On a sunny, cold winter’s day, it won’t start to operate until the roof cavity temperature is about 37°C, helping preserve the warmth in your home. And in summer, it works to help cool your home.

8. Make The Most Of Your Solar

If your home is fitted with solar, you have the advantage of energy-saving benefits thanks to your ability to harness the power of the winter sun (or, more specifically, ultraviolet light). To get the best results from your solar in winter, however, the following factors are useful to consider:

•         Most solar energy is generated throughout the day, so it’s best to operate appliances during daylight hours.
•         Schedule high-energy appliances, such as your dishwasher and washing machine, to run at different times. Again, daytime is always best.
•         Charging your electrical devices should be done through the day when energy generation is at its peak.
•         Switch off any appliances or devices that are not in use and replace any older appliances with energy-efficient models.

Reduce Your Winter Power Bill With Solar

For further tips on how to save energy this winter, SolarBright is here to help. Our solar solutions have been helping Australians reduce their energy costs for over 14 years. Offering a wide range of energy-saving solar panel products from leading solar providers, we are committed to finding the right high-quality solar solution to suit your home.

Contact the expert team at SolarBright to arrange a free consultation and start saving on your energy bill today.

 

Read Also:
Why Solar Power Is The Healthy Choice For Your Family
How To Choose The Best Solar Panels

Solar energy is a great way to save money and slash your power bill. However, most residential solar systems without solar battery storage only power your home during daylight hours. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce your energy usage at night and save even more.

Explaining On-Grid Solar Systems

Most solar installed in Australia is “on-grid” solar. When you have an on-grid solar power system, you are still connected to the main electricity grid. Solar energy produced from your panels needs to be used immediately, as your solar inverter converts it to standard electricity. If you produce more than you use, the excess is exported back to the main electricity grid.

This means at night, or other times when your system isn’t producing enough solar energy, you’ll draw electricity from the main grid. Your electricity retailer will charge you for the electricity provided.

Tips For Reducing Your Power Usage At Night

Needless to say, it’s wise to use more power during the day – when it’s free from the sun – and decrease your consumption at night when you need to pay for it. Here are some tips to help you get the most savings out of your solar energy system.

Schedule Appliances To Work During The Day

Many household appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines can be programmed to start at a future time. Coincidentally, these appliances are some of the most power-hungry in the home. So, rather than putting the dishwasher and washing machine on in the morning or night, set them to start during the middle of the day. That way, solar energy will power them completely, as long as weather conditions are optimal.

If you’re concerned about not generating enough power during the day, make sure your scheduled appliances aren’t running all at the same time. This should ensure you don’t pay a cent for power during the day.

Turn Off Non-Essential Appliances At Night

If you’re not using appliances during the night, turn them off. It sounds simple, but so many people neglect to do this, and they’re missing out on energy savings. Remember, you pay for all the electricity you use at night, so being careful with consumption can save plenty of dollars.

If you don’t need to run something during the evening, don’t. Wait until daylight when your solar panels can give you all the free power you need.

Use Showers Earlier In The Day

Hot water is always a killer when it comes to the monthly energy bill. Many people love having a shower in the evening before bed, but this is the least economical way to use your shower. The same goes for early in the morning when your solar system isn’t producing energy yet. Of course, when you shower is largely guided by your work schedule. If you work from home, try to wait until after 10am.

If you’re a fan of the evening shower and you get home from work around 5-6pm, in summer, your solar system may still be producing energy. Take that evening shower as soon as you get home, and the hot water may be powered with free solar energy.

Turn Off Air Conditioners At Night

It’s always tempting to leave heaters or air conditioners on overnight. It’s nice to wake up to a warm home in winter or a cool home in summer. But unfortunately, even the most economical air conditioners are likely to be the most expensive appliances in the house.

One smart way to manage cooling and heating is to leave the systems running through the day and turn them off when the sun goes down. That way, you’ll come home from work to a nice warm house, and assuming you have good insulation, your home should stay at a comfortable temperature overnight.

Make The Solar Switch Today

If you want to start saving money, there’s no better time than now to switch to solar energy. The Federal Government offers the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme, which can drastically reduce the upfront cost of an NSW solar installation. SolarBright can give you all the advice you need, and we only stock the most reliable, high-performing solar energy products. Book a free consultation today and find out how much money you could save every year with solar energy.

In the hottest continent in the world, we are obliged to battle the heat for much of the season. The excessive summer temperatures don’t make for a particularly hospitable work environment, but at the very least, we should be able to count on a reasonable degree of relaxing coolness in our homes.

Circulation is absolutely vital for our houses. Heated air can be trapped in ceiling spaces, warmed by the roof shingles, leading to a crawlspace feeling more like a Turkish bath. This heat radiates through the ceiling and walls, and can make the house a sweatbox. This is felt especially acutely in the upstairs bedrooms, where you’re trying – and often failing – to sleep.

For these reasons, engineers developed a method of drawing the heated air out of your crawlspace. You’ve no doubt seen the classic Whirlybird on roofs Sydney-wide: a round, cylindrical vent, driven by the wind. As it spins, the blades on the whirlybird draw out the warm air in the roof crawlspace and disperses it. Because heat rises, it is best to locate yours as close to the peak as possible, which is conveniently the best spot to catch the strongest breeze.

Meanwhile, ceiling vents, typically located underneath the eaves of your home, draw in cooler air to replace it. Other options include using an in-house vent to move air through the upper floors and out via the whirlybird.

 

These innovative little units draw air through your house whenever there is a breeze, so the air continues to flow regardless of the time of day. This can lead to a cooler ‘starting point’ for your houses temperature in the morning, as it will be less likely to retain heat from the prior day’s onslaught from the sun, keeping it cooler throughout the day. They aren’t a cure-all, but if you’ve found your house in Sydney to be less comfortable than you would prefer, whirlybirds can be an inexpensive and efficient solution.

Read More:

• To Whirlybird or not to Whirlybird
• Don’t vent if you haven’t got proper ventilation
• How Much Does a Solar Power System Save and is Solar Worth It?