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Resolve to Reduce & Save: How PG&E’s Home Energy Checkup Can Help

As a busy mom who is perpetually racing against the clock, I’m always trying to find quick and easy ways to be more energy-efficient and stretch my family’s monthly budget. Yet it always seems to take more time than I can afford. So, in the spirit of the new year, I, like many others, made a few resolutions. Among them: make more meaningful improvements in my home’s energy efficiency, so I can save money and help the grid and planet.
It's a fitting resolution as we get into the heart of winter, with chilly temperatures typically leading to an increase in energy use.
After finding success — and savings — building an Energy Efficiency Do-It-Yourself Toolkit last year, I wanted to know how much I was spending on home heating, hot water, appliances, and lighting. But with a lack of billing history at my family’s new home, I didn’t qualify for the PG&E supported HomeIntel or Budget Billing programs. Was my resolution failing after a few short weeks?
After logging into my PG&E account, the Home Energy Checkup tool helped flip the script on my savings setback.
By answering a few simple questions about my home and how I use energy, the free online audit tool was fast and user-friendly. Following a series of prompts, it produced a customized report breaking down my home’s energy use, along with tips and products to help me save time, energy, and money. The entire process took five minutes.
The results were eye-opening:
- 36% of my energy use comes from gas-powered water heating.
- 24% is due to gas-powered heating, and 13% comes from electronics.
- The remaining 27% of my home energy consumption comes from cooling, lighting, refrigeration, appliances, laundry, and EV charging.
Different tabs allowed me to review seasonal tips, access rebates, and identify more energy-efficient appliances to invest in. One of the most helpful tips? When away for extended periods of time, turning off my water heater or setting its thermostat to “vacation mode” can save a considerable amount of energy and money.
Since my home analysis, I’ve implemented 13 energy and money-saving recommendations from my report, including using light dimmers, running full loads of dishes in the dishwasher, and unplugging electronics when not in use. I’m eager to see the impact these changes will have on my future energy bills. With this momentum, I’m feeling much more confident I can keep at least one of my New Year’s resolutions and turn it into a lasting habit.
If you’d like to take better control of your monthly energy bills, learn more about the Home Energy Checkup here, or log into your PG&E account.
About the author
Adrienne Moore joined PG&E’s Marketing and Communications team in 2023. A busy mom of two boys, she is passionate about helping customers save energy and money, sharing energy efficiency tips and tools, and making bill support programs easy to understand and accessible for all. Her goal is to ensure customers feel supported when managing their energy needs.