Living in the northeastern part of the country means dealing with a harsh climate.
My local area is well-known for especially long, snowy and freezing cold winters.
It’s not unusual for the outside temperature to drop down to negative twenty-five degrees. We pile up snow in multiple feet and the wind-chill is downright dangerous. The summers bring conditions in the high eighties or low nineties with brutal humidity. In-between, the spring and fall seasons tend to be chilly, rainy and windy. Either the furnace or the air conditioner run just about non-stop, and the cost of heating and cooling adds up to around fifty percent of household energy expenses. I am forever searching for new and better ways to trim energy consumption and monthly utility bills. I’ve caulked, insulated and weatherstripped. I’ve upgraded to Energy Star rated windows and exterior doors. One of the most worthwhile investments was implementing a smart home automation system. This single system provides accessibility and control of all of our most important household appliances and equipment. The automation system includes a smart thermostat that has learned my family’s schedule and preferences. It intuitively adjusts temperature settings so that I’m not paying to heat or cool a bunch of empty rooms. We have smart window blinds that open or close according to whether sunshine through the windows is beneficial to heating or detrimental to cooling. Our lights now turn on and off when we enter or exit a room after sunset. All of these minor adjustments contribute to significant cost savings. I also use the automation system to monitor our energy usage and pinpoint areas where we can be more conservative.