Re: still must reduce bills
did you clean the refridgerator coils?
i looked at mine this week, and the poor thing must have been working 2X as hard. that compressor motor use a fair ammount of juice, and depending on how many openings the fridge gets, it might run for a long time. especially when the heat on the coils cant depart.
LID on the pan, when cooking, can save as much as 1/2 the power, or increase the speed of things like boiling points very fast. reduces the water evaporation cooling (and other cooling) that occurs.
Microwave calculations (if you have one) a 600W microwave uses actually 1200W of energy to make 600W of waves (read the specs on the back). the stove is more efficient even electric. and lots faster for wet items.
change up a coffee maker with a hot plate, to a coffee maker with a THERMAL caraf, it keeps the coffee hot for 4-5 HOURS, instead of running that 50+W hotplate to keep putting wasted heat back in.
wasted heat in ANYTHING, is also wasted air conditioning, if you are using AC. put 500W INTO the house, the AC will have to take that 500W back out, and it will probably take 1000W to do it.
Florescent (mentioned) not only for reduced consumption, but it drops the heat generated again.
Motion sencors , well for that you have to live with people who are less conscience of your use. like people who dont have to pay the power bill
they say all the loads of wall warts really add up, i find that to be untrue, and i have a LOAD of them.
but i still have them on switches, or surge protector switches anyways. (never turn them off but they are on switches
i find that the major consumers are the major consumers, as simple as that. the 15-1800W stovetop elements. 1500W space heaters, and 10,000W air conditioners.
but along the lines of wallwarts. some appliences not even ON, use 1/2 of thier total power just parked. i have all my VCRs rated, oops make that had. they were about 20W plugged in, clock running, antenna bypass. and 45W when turned on, and a mere pitiance more when actually running a tape with them.
A stereo can use small juice like a wall wart, but crank up the tunes and power is power
and a lot of it is wasted as heat. big sub woofers, and major bass use more actual power than highs, because they have to move more air.
Televisions (like wall warts) can use 4W of power just waiting to turn on. some can have the "quick turn on" switch turned off, but not many.
all that last stuff is like a dripping faucet though, what really spins the wheel is heating elements (shorting the grid
and large motors that have work to do.
HLT cooling, and power management on computers can reduce consumtion of the computers power , making that all work correctally is harder than cleaning the coils on the fridge
but that is one more thing.
computer pereferials, scanners printers, wall warts for devices, can be put on an under the monitor switch. you can then shut them totally off, and of course its cool just for sheer lazyness to have the switches right there.
mabey asking What you GOT, that uses power , would be better, than going through the PG&E list of energy consumables.