We all want to reduce our energy usage, utility bills, and our impact on the planet. In the age of the internet, there are plenty of sites offering energy-saving tips and “hacks” to help you do just that, but as we all know, you can’t trust everything you read on the internet. Most of the misinformation about creating an energy-efficient home is harmless, aside from the fact that those tips you’re getting might cost you more in time, effort, and sometimes money. However, Healthy Home 365 is dedicated to helping you find real, eco-friendly solutions for energy efficiency, and so we’ve decided to tackle a few of those energy-saving myths in today’s blog post. Keep reading to learn which of those internet tips may be more harmful than helpful, and explore Healthy Home 365’s wide variety of products to invest in proven ways to reduce your bills and your footprint!

Leave the Lights On

Some people may think that leaving the lights on to retrieve the book you left in the other room or run to the bathroom may be more energy efficient, but that idea is based on a false pretense. Turning on a lightbulb may trigger a small energy surge, but what extra power that may use is negligible compared to what it takes to keep the lights on as you dash around the house. If your goal is to save electricity and money, then you should turn the lights off when you leave a room, even if you’ll only be gone a few minutes.

Use Space Heaters

Logic dictates that only heating the rooms you’re currently occupying makes more sense than heating your entire home. However, if you’re using space heaters to do the job, then you’re not doing yourself – or your utility bills – any favors. Space heaters are one of the least efficient ways to warm a space, and electricity is often significantly more expensive than natural gas, which means that you’re using more power than necessary, and it’s going to cost you. It’s certainly not an effective way to reduce what you spend on heating your home, especially when compared with the method of using a programmable thermostat to adjust temperature “zones” throughout your home and utilizing an updated, energy-efficient heating and cooling system.

Crank the Thermostat

When you come home and it’s a little too hot or cold for comfort, then you have probably felt the urge to adjust the temperature on your thermostat a few extra degrees than normal. The idea is that asking your HVAC system to do more than usual will kick it into gear and encourage it to work faster, but it simply doesn’t work that way. This “hack” or habit is more about your personal comfort than saving energy, but if your goal is energy efficiency and energy conservation, then you should know that doing this has the opposite effect. Your heating and cooling system isn’t going to work any faster because you asked it to move the mercury up or down a few degrees, but it will waste energy achieving a temperature you don’t really want. It will only cause the environment of your home to once again be uncomfortable, and you’ll have to adjust it back to your preferred settings.

Healthy Home 365 is dedicated to helping our neighbors in Dallas/Fort Worth area and throughout the U.S. find better, eco-friendly ways of striving for energy conservation and energy efficiency. Using space heaters to spare your HVAC system the effort of heating your home or leaving the lights on to avoid the energy surge of triggering a lightbulb won’t help you in your goals for an energy-efficient home. In fact, they may raise your utility use and, in turn, your bills. Keep an eye on our blog to learn about more energy-saving myths and turn to Healthy Home 365 for real solutions. From space-age attic insulation to an innovative PROA, our products have been developed help you protect the environment and your wallet in one fell swoop. Explore our site to learn more about what we can offer and call us today to bring improved energy efficiency to your Dallas Fort Worth home!