If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

While this blog is normally reserved for wine related topics I wanted to share a money saving tip that Tom (one of my readers) recently shared with me that I thought was definitely worth passing on.

Here’s what he suggested:

Would you be interested in saveing up to 30.00 a month on your electric bill??I’m sure you would and here’s how to do it … go to Walmart and buy an outdoor timer that’s rated for at least 1,200 watts.  Make sure to get the outdoor unit as those cheap indoor timers while they’re rated to handle the load don’t have that 3rd ground prong on the plug … the timer is less than $15.00 … take the timer and plug it into the wall where your referigerator is plugged into … now plug the refrigerator into the timer … now set the timer so that the fridge will stay off for 4 hours during the middle of the night when you’re not useing it (say between 1 and 5 am) … don’t worry, as long as you do’nt sit up all night opening the fridge, your milk etc won’t spoil, but you can open it once or twice while it’s off with no problem..

Next if you have the standard 220 volt electric water heater, go to a building supply like Lowes or Home Depot … buy a 220 volt appliance timer (around $25 o $50) . If you have a 110 volt waterheater like I do you can get the cheaper 110v outdoor timer..in either case, just make sure the timer is rated to handle the load of the appliance plus a few hundred watts..you can find out how many watts your heater uses by looking at the label on the heater…also the higher priced 220v timers can be programed for multi events so you can turn the heater off at night and during the day while you’re at work as well..the key is learning not to use the heater during the times when its off.. in the case of a 220v heater, you will need to hard wire the timer into the heater from the power supply.. now set the timer so that the heater is off during the times when you don’t normaly use it … say 10:00 pm to 6:00 am and sit back and watch for your next electrical bill that should be lower..I found living alone that I was only using the hotwater during the evening hours of 3pm to 9pm so I set mine to stay off for the other 18 hours of the day.. 

Your savings should pay for the timers in the first month or 2..after that its like free money in your pocket..I am currently using 200 kw less every month than before I installed the timers.

I hope you will share this idea with as many as you can..even in your blog..if everyone did this..can you imagine just how much less coal, natural gas etc would be going into our air??

I’ve tried it and am living proof as I’m now saving a good $30.00 a month on my bill!!!

- Tom

I personally have been starting to implement Tom’s ideas starting with our cable boxes for our TV’s (which are always on so “steal” electricity when you don’t use them, but will also be looking at adding them to our fridges as well.

Our hot water tank uses natural gas so it won’t apply in our case but there are lots of household items we use each day that suck energy that we can certainly cut down on.

Let me know what you think. Is this something you have done or plan on doing? If you do try it out let me know how it has affected your electrical bills by leaving a comment below.

Thanks!

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”