{"id":43377,"date":"2025-07-25T16:07:35","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T21:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/?p=43377"},"modified":"2025-07-25T16:52:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T21:52:05","slug":"we-asked-cub-supporters-their-best-energy-efficiency-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/blog\/2025\/07\/25\/we-asked-cub-supporters-their-best-energy-efficiency-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"We asked CUB supporters for their best energy efficiency tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Man<\/a>This month, we asked email subscribers to submit their best energy efficiency tips and we got many creative answers outside of <\/span>CUB\u2019s standard energy efficiency tips<\/a><\/strong>. Here’s a few of our favorite submissions:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Victoria:<\/strong> \u201cI spent some of my early years in Atlanta, GA in the 1940s and learned from neighbors there that when the heat of the day was at its peak we should close all blinds and shades and utilize fans (often handheld) to maintain coolness for our bodies. Splashing cool water on our skin was also helpful. With our current rash of heat waves it helps to keep old strategies along with new ones in our toolbox of adaptations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Linda:<\/strong> \u201cI have only a window air conditioning unit in my bedroom. When it is excessively hot, I close the door and turn on the AC unit for about 2 hours before bedtime. I turn it off when I turn the light out for sleep rather than run it all night. The AC cools the room and removes the humidity which makes the room a lot more comfortable. In very warm weather, I try to do laundry around times that are not general office hours. I also sometimes hang clothes up (until they are) about half dry and pop them in the dryer for a shorter time, using less gas and electricity but still getting rid of wrinkles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Eric:<\/strong> \u201cWe turn our air conditioner off at every opportunity and open the windows. We have a few small fans we use to move through the house by putting them in windows blowing out to draw air from other windows across the room or house. If the temperature outside is below 78, we are cooling with outside air and fans instead of the AC.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Susan:<\/strong> \u201cI’m retired, so I signed up for <\/span>ComEd Hourly Pricing<\/a><\/strong>. I keep the <\/span>Five-Minute Prices link<\/a> <\/strong>active and make sure that I run my dishwasher, laundry, etc., at low-cost times.\u201d (<\/span>CUB note: Hourly Pricing<\/a> <\/strong>is a special electricity pricing program that charges customers a market price that can change hourly. Susan is talking about a page Hourly Pricing participants can visit to say the latest prices. Ameren has a similar program, which the next consumer, Ron, discusses below.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Ron:<\/strong> \u201cI have solar panels, <\/span>Ameren’s Power Smart Pricing program<\/a><\/strong> (Time of Day rate), and a Volt plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Most of the time I drive on sunshine (solar power). I use very little gasoline, hence reducing my carbon footprint. June was hot and sunny, so I produced a record amount of solar electricity (1335.8 KWH). This was 153 KWH more than I used. Solar and a plug-in hybrid EV are very energy efficient.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kiersten:<\/strong> \u201dKeep working on replacing your lightbulbs with LEDs!\u00a0 There are so many homes and commercial buildings still using incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs\u2026 Solar LEDs with motion sensors are so much better!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard:<\/strong> \u201cMake sure your <\/span>air conditioner condenser<\/a><\/strong> is clean after all tree flowers have dropped. A dirty condenser really lowers efficiency.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mel:<\/strong> \u201cIf you own your home, check your attic for plenty of insulation. Adding extra insulation keeps heating and cooling in the house and keeps indoor temperatures more consistent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks for submitting great tips! For more information on energy efficiency, make sure to check out <\/span>CUB\u2019s Clean Energy page<\/a><\/strong>. If you\u2019d like to stay in the know with all things CUB, <\/span>subscribe to our newsletter<\/a><\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month, we asked email subscribers to submit their best energy efficiency tips and we got many creative answers outside of CUB\u2019s standard energy efficiency tips. Here’s a few of our favorite submissions:\u00a0\u00a0 Victoria: \u201cI spent some of my early years in Atlanta, GA in the 1940s and learned from neighbors there that when the heat of the day was at its peak we should close all blinds and shades and utilize fans (often handheld) to maintain coolness for our bodies. Splashing cool water on our skin was also helpful. With our current rash of heat waves it helps to keep old strategies along with new ones in our toolbox of adaptations.\u201d Linda: \u201cI have only a window air conditioning unit in my bedroom. When it is excessively hot, I close the door and turn on the AC unit for about 2 hours before bedtime. I turn it off when I turn the light out for sleep rather than run it all night. The AC cools the room and removes the humidity which makes the room a lot more comfortable. In very warm weather, I try to do laundry around times that are not general office hours. I also sometimes hang clothes up (until they are) about half dry and pop them in the dryer for a shorter time, using less gas and electricity but still getting rid of wrinkles.\u201d Eric: \u201cWe turn our air conditioner off at every opportunity and open the windows. We have a few small fans we use to move through the house by putting them in windows blowing out to draw air from other windows across the room or house. If the temperature outside is below 78, we are cooling with outside air and fans instead of the AC.\u201d Susan: \u201cI’m retired, so I signed up for ComEd Hourly Pricing. I keep the Five-Minute Prices link active and make sure that I run my dishwasher, laundry, etc., at low-cost times.\u201d (CUB note: Hourly Pricing is a special electricity pricing program that charges customers a market price that can change hourly. Susan is talking about a page Hourly Pricing participants can visit to say the latest prices. Ameren has a similar program, which the next consumer, Ron, discusses below.) Ron: \u201cI have solar panels, Ameren’s Power Smart Pricing program (Time of Day rate), and a Volt plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Most of the time I drive on sunshine (solar power). I use very little gasoline, hence reducing my carbon footprint. June was hot and sunny, so I produced a record amount of solar electricity (1335.8 KWH). This was 153 KWH more than I used. Solar and a plug-in hybrid EV are very energy efficient.\u201d Kiersten: \u201dKeep working on replacing your lightbulbs with LEDs!\u00a0 There are so many homes and commercial buildings still using incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs\u2026 Solar LEDs with motion sensors are so much better!\u201d Richard: \u201cMake sure your air conditioner condenser is clean after all tree flowers have dropped. A dirty condenser really lowers efficiency.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Mel: \u201cIf you own your home, check your attic for plenty of insulation. Adding extra insulation keeps heating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":null,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"default","_twitter_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type":"default","_pinterest_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"default","_medium_share_type":"default","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[757,320],"tags":[152],"class_list":["post-43377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cub-tips","category-efficiency-2","tag-energy-efficiency"],"cp_meta_data":{"_facebook_share_type":["default"],"_twitter_share_type":["default"],"_linkedin_share_type":["default"],"_pinterest_share_type":["default"],"_instagram_share_type":["default"],"_medium_share_type":["default"],"classic-editor-remember":["classic-editor"],"_edit_lock":["1753480329:5"],"_edit_last":["5"],"_wp_page_template":["default"],"borntogive_page_header_show_hide":["2"],"borntogive_pages_title_show":["1"],"borntogive_pages_Choose_slider_display":["2"],"borntogive_pages_select_revolution_from_list":["3"],"borntogive_pages_slider_pagination":["yes"],"borntogive_pages_slider_auto_slide":["yes"],"borntogive_pages_slider_direction_arrows":["yes"],"borntogive_pages_slider_effects":["fade"],"borntogive_pages_body_bg_wide":["0"],"borntogive_pages_body_bg_repeat":["repeat"],"borntogive_pages_content_bg_wide":["0"],"borntogive_pages_content_bg_repeat":["repeat"],"borntogive_pages_social_show":["1"],"borntogive_strict_no_sidebar":["0"],"borntogive_sidebar_columns_layout":["3"],"borntogive_gallery_slider_pagination":["yes"],"borntogive_gallery_slider_auto_slide":["yes"],"borntogive_gallery_slider_direction_arrows":["yes"],"borntogive_gallery_slider_effects":["fade"],"_wpb_vc_js_status":["false"],"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":[""],"_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":["off"],"_wpsp_is_facebook_share":["off"],"_wpsp_is_twitter_share":["off"],"_wpsp_is_linkedin_share":["off"],"_wpsp_is_pinterest_share":["off"],"_selected_social_profile":["a:0:{}"],"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":["757"],"_yoast_wpseo_content_score":["90"],"_yoast_wpseo_estimated-reading-time-minutes":["3"],"_wpb_post_custom_layout":["default"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43381,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43377\/revisions\/43381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}