By Jordan Watts
Veteran homeowners understand that fluctuations in the weather can have a major impact on your electric bill, especially when temperatures rise or fall to an extreme degree. This means if your home is located in a region with particularly harsh winters, heating your home throughout the colder months may create more expensive energy costs than cooling it in the summer.
At the same time, if you don’t typically experience harsh winters but are now facing unprecedented weather events, such as a snow storm in Texas, you can find yourself with sky high electric bills. Add in winter holidays, which often means increased lights and use of the oven, and it’s easy to see how you could be driving up energy use compared to other times of the year.
To help stretch your budget as far as possible this year, it’s important to reduce your electric bill in winter however you can. Not only will this help you to save on utility bills, it can also help to decrease your overall carbon footprint. To help, we’ve compiled a list of 10 tips to help you conserve energy throughout the coldest months and reduce electric bills during winter.
We’ve also calculated potential savings based on an average energy consumption of 1167 kWh/month and an electricity bill of $170.66.*
The first step in ensuring your electric bill doesn’t climb along with your thermostat is to invest in winterizing your home. Prepare for the harsh conditions of winter by ensuring that you have the proper insulation to prevent heat loss and protect against frozen pipes, as well as ensure healthy air circulation.
Money could be leaking out with the heat right through your doors and windows if they aren’t properly sealed. Doors and windows can allow more heat to escape than you realize, especially in older homes, driving up your electric bill. To prevent warm air from escaping, seal gaps and cracks around your house with weatherstrips and caulk.
You can also install door sweeps and draft stoppers to help seal the space between the bottom of your door and the door frame. Any amount of protection from drafts will help you save money on your electric bill in winter and improve heating efficiency.
Average Savings: According to EnergyStar, sealing windows and doors can reduce your energy consumption by an average of 6%, bringing your energy bill down by $10.24.
Good insulation can be a cost-effective way to reduce your electric bill in winter dramatically. Check your attic, wall, and floor insulation for adequate coverage and damage as heat often escapes through these areas. Pay extra attention to areas surrounding electrical outlets or anywhere else utilities enter your home, as these small gaps may create a lot of energy waste in your house.
Be sure to also pay close attention to insulation around plumbing. Depending on how far water has to travel through pipes in your house, you could be losing a lot of heat (and energy) along the way. Adding insulation to hot water pipes has the potential to raise the temperature of the water by a few degrees – ensuring you don’t expend as much energy or water while you wait for it to heat.
Average Savings: According to the US Department of Energy, upgrading insulation will reduce your energy consumption by an average of 10%, bringing your energy bill down by $17.07.
When furniture or drapes are blocking your heating vents they can drive up heating and cooling bills by blocking warm air from circulating properly. This leaves your furnace working harder than it should. Not to mention that blocked vents can increase air pressure in your ductwork, leading to cracks and leaks over time. By clearing your vents you can ensure that every room in your home is getting good circulation and that your heating system is working as designed.
Before you start cranking up the heat in your home, make sure that you’re optimizing heating and cooling practices. While it might be tempting to turn your home into an indoor sauna during the cold weather, it won’t bode well for your electric bill or your wallet. Instead, try these best practices for finding ideal temperatures at a fraction of the cost.
By lowering your thermostat just 1-2 degrees you can drastically reduce your heating bills in the winter. Experts recommend keeping your home at 68˚ during the day and dropping your temperature to 65˚ at night. These temperatures are designed to strike a balance between warming your home and maintaining an ideal level of energy efficiency. Plus, scientific data shows that reducing the temperature of your home at night can even contribute to better, deeper sleep by helping your body cool down faster.
Bonus Tip: Consider switching to a smart thermostat, which can be programmed to optimize heating and cooling times to help save money and increase comfort.
You can also adjust your water heater’s temperature to save electricity during winter months. For most people, keeping the temperature set at 120˚ will provide plenty of hot water, without constant energy use to heat more.
Average Savings: According to the US Department of Energy, adjusting your thermostat by 1 degree will reduce your energy consumption by an average of 3%, so lowering your thermostat by 2 degrees with bring your energy bill down by an average of $10.24.
While it may seem obvious, scheduling regular maintenance for your heating system is one of the easiest ways to reduce electric bills in winter. Not only will this ensure that your system is clean and running efficiently, regular check-ups can find problems early and save you the inconvenience and expense of a breakdown during the coldest months.
Whether it’s simply a matter of changing air filters to improve efficiency or replacing old insulation, annual checkups help to increase the lifespan of your system and lower electric bills during winter.
Your home could be using more energy than you realize, driving up the electric bill– not just through heating and cooling. Ensure that your home is energy efficient and your maintaining best practices to reduce unnecessary energy usage by reviewing devices and appliances and taking advantage of natural heating and cooling.
You certainly don’t need to upgrade appliances on a yearly, or even every-other-year basis, but it is wise to replace old appliances with energy-efficient models as needed. When shopping for new appliances, especially refrigerators, dishwashers, and clothes washers and dryers, keep an eye out for the ENERGY STAR label which identifies energy saving models.
Make sure you’re taking advantage of energy-saving modes on these devices and appliances, otherwise you won’t actually see any significant savings.
Bonus Tip: If you want to see peak energy efficiency in your home, you can invest in a home energy assessment. This will involve inspecting each room of your house to identify usage and ways to help reduce your electricity usage throughout. While this is a great step to identify solutions that will impact your home the most, it can also be costly depending on size.
Average Savings: According to EnergyStar’s Refrigerator flip calculator, upgrading your fridge model from 2000 to a newer, post-2020 version can bring your energy bill down by $2.90, or about 1.7%.
Avoid letting energy vampires run up your electricity bills in the winter by unplugging devices not in use. Many devices, including chargers, computers, and televisions, continue to draw energy even when they’re off– creating more bills for you. To combat this, consider using power strips to plug in electronics so they can all be turned off with a single switch. Or, upgrade your home with smart plugs to control device usage.
Average Savings: According to the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, unplugging devices not in use (especially those that draw high amounts of energy, like TV’s) can reduce your energy bill by 10%. This will save you about $17.07 per month.
Opening and closing curtains strategically can help you save dramatically on your energy bill this winter, letting warmth in during the day and holding onto heat at night. Sunshine streaming through your windows can help significantly when heating up a room, so it’s smart to take advantage of that natural light.
On the other hand, at night, warmth can easily escape out your windows, so it’s smart to close the curtains and reduce heat loss. You can even go one step further by making a relatively small investment in thermal curtains or drapes which act as another layer of insulation. By closing curtains at night your home will retain heat better– allowing your heating system to relax too.
Average Savings: According to the US Department of Energy, closing your curtains at dusk to keep heat in can reduce your energy bill by 10%. This will save you about $17.07 per month.
There’s always room for improvement, even when you’re already maintaining best practices to reduce electricity bills during winter. Continuously monitoring and adjusting your strategies to conserve energy, heat efficiently, and save on energy bills will ensure that you’re never wasting money.
By monitoring your energy bills over time, especially comparing energy usage to the same time in previous years, you can begin to identify areas for improvement. For example, if your energy usage spikes from one January to the next it might indicate reduced efficiency or problems with your heating system. Tools like EnergyBot’s Bill Comparison are great for tracking energy usage trends in your area over time, providing you with insight into usage habits for your area over time.
Smart meters are also a great way to track your energy usage in real-time, allowing you to adjust energy consumption immediately to reduce your bill. You can also use your ESID number to view energy usage online without installing a smart meter. Look up your ESID number and compare potential plans here.
Although your electricity bill will always depend heavily on consumption, by periodically shopping around for the best energy provider you can drastically reduce your electric bill in winter months. Since providers will offer unique rates and plans at different points throughout the year, it can be helpful to compare rates several times a year.
Pro Tip: You can take advantage of rate drop alerts with notifications from EnergyBot by signing up here.
Average Savings: On average, EnergyBot customers save 20% compared to the average electricity rates in their area by shopping for the best plan and provider. This would save you just over $34 on your next winter electricity bill.
Be sure to read through all the fine print before committing to switch electricity companies. While rates might appear to be low, many providers offer tricky and confusing plans with time-sensitive rates, early termination fees, and more.
By reducing your electric bill in the winter through increased energy efficiency, proper winterization, and optimized heating and cooling, along with shopping for the best plan and provider, you’ll ensure that you’re maximizing savings this winter.
*Savings have been calculated off the average energy usage and electricity bill of a 2,000 sq. ft. home in Texas in January 2025. Average cost of electricity is set to 0.1462 cents per kWh.
