Electric Wall Plate Covers

Although you probably are not consuming more electricity than in the past, the multiple rate hikes have you considering whether you ought to fumble around more frequently in the dark rather than spending more money by turning on a light.

There’s an easier solution than bumping into things in the dark and there are additional methods of reducing your electricity expense, starting with figuring out where your energy dollars are going. You are probably like everyone else in that about half of your energy costs is due to keeping the home comfortable in the wintertime and cool in the summertime.

Although you might believe that is simply something with which you have to live, there are several actions that you can take to cut your expense. To start with, you can adjust the thermostat so that the air conditioner or the heater is not required to run as often.

Next, you can determine exactly what is causing them to run excessively because in addition to the outdoors air temperature, there is the problem of your inside air escaping from the house and this could be the actual cause of most of your high costs.

There are a multitude of places throughout your home from which air may be getting out. You can solve some of the problem by adding insulation to the attic, as this is the source of the greatest energy leakage.

Next, you should examine the sides of the house which you can see. Check out the lights and fan fixtures on the ceilings. Frequently, you will find small grooves or cracks and other types of spaces between these fixtures and the ceiling. Both cooled and warmed air will constantly be escaping from your home through these spaces.

Next, we will discuss a frequently neglected household item but one which can have a large effect on your energy costs, the wall switch plate. Examine the closest wall switch plate. Next, scan the room and count just how many others are located in that room. A majority of the rooms of a house will have one wall switch plate to control the lights, to be utilized as you come into and as you leave the room.

And then there are all the electric outlets, and each and every one will probably have a wall switch plate, or something approximating it, surrounding it. Every single one of these wall switch plates will likely have a gap of some sort between the wall such that air is getting out.

Of course, if you take one single wall switch plate, there is not all that much air escaping, but if you account for 20 or 30 or so for the complete house, there is quite a bit of wasted energy. Fortunately, these are simple to repair by obtaining some rubber gaskets from your local home improvement store and positioning them behind the wall switch plates in order to retain the air where it belongs.