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11.17.14
5:15 am
Community
Hampton, NH
The holidays are here! It’s a season filled with family gatherings, holiday parties, big, delicious meals, and decking the halls with sparkling lights. With the arrival of these joyful festivities come shorter days, plunging temperatures, and often a greater than average use of electricity and gas due to holiday entertaining. To help residents keep costs down, Unitil offers tips and tools to track, manage, and reduce energy use in the kitchen and around the home.
“The holiday season is a wonderful time of year, but we also know that it can create hardship for some families who struggle with keeping costs down,” said Alec O’Meara, media relations manager for Unitil. “By following some of these easy energy saving tips, we hope that residents can reduce their energy use and save money this holiday season.”
Here are six simple steps for energy efficient entertaining:
- Match the pan size to the element size. For example, when using an electric cooktop, a 6” pan on an 8” burner will waste over 40% of the heat produced by the burner.
- Wash only full loads in the dishwasher - and use the shortest cycle that will get your dishes clean. If operating instructions allow, turn off the dishwasher before the drying cycle, open the door and let the dishes air dry.
- Set your refrigerator between 36-40 degrees Fahrenheit. The freezer can be set between 0-5 degrees. Check that the energy saver switch is in the ‘on’ position. Defrost your refrigerators and freezers before ice buildup becomes 1/4-inch thick and causes the appliance to work harder to keep cold.
- Keep your stovetop clean and shiny. Believe it or not, when burner pans become blackened from heavy use, they can absorb a lot of heat, reducing burner efficiency. You want them to remain shiny so they reflect heat up to the cookware.
- Limit your light usage. Plug your indoor and outdoor lighting displays into a timer set to run during the earlier evening hours. If you don't use timers, unplug your lights when you go to sleep or leave home
- Try LED lights for your holiday display. Old, incandescent holiday lights are very inefficient. This year, save money by replacing them with ENERGY STAR® qualified LED light strands.
For more energy saving tips, visit www.unitil.com/energy-efficiency and follow Unitil’s updates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Unitil.
