Savings for Summer Travel Season (and any day you're at home!)-PART 1

 Summer Travel Season is almost here-and no, this is not a post about how to find the best travel deals. :)  I'll share my thoughts on that later.  Instead, this is a post about how you can save $$ when you are on those awesome trips-and possibly every day you're at home as well!

I have a checklist of things I do before travel, and want to share that list with you.  Everything on this list is meant to reduce my energy consumption while we travel.  I'll provide a few details on each item to help explain..

• Stop ice in Freezer
• Increase Fridge temp to 43 degrees
• Turn on Vacation Mode for Rinnai
• Turn on Vacation mode for HVAC
• Unplug TV, Bed, Alarm Clock, CPAP, Coffee Maker
• Turn off Roomba schedule

Stop Ice in Freezer:  No need to make ice if we're not home to consume it!  It's a small item, but without the icemaker continuing to make ice, we probably save a few pennies every trip.

Increase Fridge temp to 43 degrees:  While we're gone, the fridge isn't being opened and closed multiple times a day, so the temp shouldn't fluctuate like it normally does.  As a result, a setting of 43 (consistently...) is low enough to safely keep food cold without there being any issues.

It's worth noting that for trips of a week or longer, I also make a point of  'eating down' items that might otherwise spoil (eggs, milk, veg, etc..), so what's usually left in the fridge are condiments, sealed drinks, and a few random things that would probably survive a nuclear war.  Doing this not only saves on food waste, but also reduces what's in your fridge for cooling.  Remember:  An empty fridge is cheaper to cool, while a *full* freezer is cheaper to cool.

Turn on Vacation Mode for Rinnai-and HVAC:  While we normally have both our hot water heater and HVAC set to a schedule of off/on, when we travel, we turn off the hot water heater (unless it's dead of winter in Vegas...), and turn off our HVAC (unless it's dead of summer in Vegas).  This absolutely saves us $$ while we're travelling!

Unplug Bed, Alarm Clock, CPAP, Coffee Maker:  You'll note that the list of things I unplug is rather short -because, on any given day, most of our appliances, lamps, TV, etc...remain unplugged when not in use to avoid the leakage of energy due to Energy Vampires.  What remains plugged in daily however, gets unplugged when we travel.  If I could, I'd leave these items uplugged during the day as well, but the resetting of details each time is too time consuming (yes, I do have my limits on how far I'm willing to go to save a $!).  Not only will this tip save you $$$, it will help to reduce the chances of an electrical fire while you travel, so it's a good two-fer!

Turn off Roomba schedule:  If we're not at home-and not bringing in dirt and 'stuff' from the outside, there's not need to have the energy spent on recharging a Roomba in use (or have the wear and tear on an appliance that is cleaning an already clean floor!).  

Then, when we return from our trip, I revert all of the above to our normal life use.  Easy Peasy!

It's worth noting that all of these items (or light variations...) cand be used your day to day living at home (no travel), in an effort to save $.