Have you ever gone away for a week or two, enjoyed your holiday away from home, only to come home and find one of the bedroom lights was left on?

And that wasn’t even the worst part of your homecoming — the enormous electricity bill was…

To save you money and stress, we’ve put together a list of holiday hacks to save money on electricity:

Unplug all non-essential devices and appliances 

Many people are aware of this trick and will unplug the most obvious appliances such as tvs and computers. However, kitchen appliances, lamps and smaller devices are often forgotten. Many appliances and devices use a small amount of electricity even when not in use. Aside from essential appliances (such as alarm systems, freezers, fridges, etc), every other appliance/device should be unplugged. The same goes for chargers.

The best way to save yourself some electricity here is to unplug the actual device/charger and then switch the socket off at the wall. It’s also a good idea to do this while you’re home as well. Keeping appliances you don’t use every day unplugged will save you electricity and protect your appliances from surge damage if there’s a power surge. It also significantly reduces the risk of electrical fires.

Adjust your swimming pool pump/filter schedule

If you have a pool on your property you already know how expensive it can be. Unlike your appliances, you can’t switch off the filter completely because the pool still needs to be kept clean and sanitary. A great compromise is to simply adjust your filter schedule. Instead of filtering the entire day, you can adjust the schedule so that it only filters for 4 or 5 hours a day. This will still keep your pool relatively clean while drastically reducing your electricity bill. Also bear in mind that pools generally turn green after you’ve been swimming in them. Since you won’t be home and no one will be swimming in the pool, less filtration time will be enough. 

Switch off your hot water geyser

Hot water geysers can be enormous energy wasters when you aren’t using them. Since you won’t be needing hot water while you aren’t home, you can comfortably turn off the geyser without worrying about consequences. The reason geysers use up so much electricity is because they have to continuously work to maintain the temperature of the water. So in essence, they are always working. By switching your geyser/s off you can avoid that constant energy drain.

To switch off an electric hot water geyser you need to switch it off right at the breaker. Just remember to give it a few minutes to fill up and warm back up when you switch it back on (running a geyser right away before it can fill up can ruin the element and damage the appliance). Run hot water from a single tap to get the geyser going. If you don’t want to wait for the geyser to warm back up when you get home you can also set the geyser to Eco Mode, if it has that option. This won’t save as much energy as switching it off completely, but it will still save you a significant amount.

Adjust your refrigerator’s temperature

When you go away, even if only for a few days, you should leave your fridge as empty as possible to reduce food wastage and the risk of food going off. If you succeed and leave your fridge relatively empty when you leave, you can reduce your fridge’s power to save electricity. Some people opt to completely empty their fridge and unplug it before they leave, but this usually only applies to longer trips. If you’re only going for a few days, unplugging the whole fridge is a tad drastic. Rather adjust the temperature your fridge will run at. You can change the fridge temperature to approximately 8℃ (depending on model) to keep the fridge functioning while still saving electricity.

Install smart lighting 

The first thing many people think of before they leave for vacation is checking that all the lights are switched off. On the other hand, many other people deliberately leave some lights on to make it look like people are home, which can result in an enormous electricity bill. There seems to be a loss on both sides; home security vs electricity sustainability. We want to tell you that you have to compromise and choose only one. The solution is simple; install smart lighting.

You can install programmable lighting and program one or two lights to only switch on when the sun sets, or at a specific time of day. You can do the same with your landscape lighting. Smart lighting also gives you the option to control lighting from your phone, even when you aren’t home. Plus, you’ll get to enjoy the benefits of smart lighting when you’re home from vacation too!

Now you can save money on electricity

So while there may be stress involved in planning for a vacation when it comes to save money on electricity, there are many bright sides! We’re right here to help you save as much electricity as possible! In fact, we offer a wide range of lighting control services and solutions.

Contact us today for all of your smart lighting, energy saving needs. We offer free quotations with no call-out fee.