The unusual snow and low temperatures has your furnace working hard and steady. The combination of these cold temperatures and the holiday season activities will impact your electric bill. More time at home and visitors or kids home from college use more hot water, more cooking and more electronics which all increase the usage of a household.
Here are some winter tips from Benton PUD and Franklin PUD:
- Don’t turn up the heat just because you are cold from the outside. If you lowered the temperature on your thermostat while you were gone, turn it back to the temperature you normally keep it and not higher. The house will warm up at the same speed. Leave the temperature as low as you are comfortable and add a sweater.
- Turn ventilating fans off as soon as they have done the job. Fans pull warm air out of the house.
- Turn off lights, TVs and other electronics when not using them. Turn off Christmas lights when you go to bed.
- Encourage family members to take shorter showers.
- Keep space heaters 3 feet away from bedding, clothing, draperies and other materials.
IF there is an outage:
- Turn off appliances and electronics that were on. This can prevent fires and will help as crews get the power restored.
- Stay away from all downed power lines – even if there are no sparks. Call your utility right away.
- If you use a portable generator make sure it is connected correctly through an approved transfer switch that is isolated from the utilities system. Never plug the generator into a wall outlet. This can cause “backfeeding” which is very dangerous to utility linemen working on the outage. Operate it in a dry, open area.
- Never use gas ovens, barbeques, portable heaters or generators indoors (including garages) as they produce toxic fumes that can be deadly.
If there is an outage, call your utilities’ outage line (not 911) to help expedite service. Our crews are ready 24/7.
Benton PUD Outage line: 1-888-582-2176