Local IBEW 725 Pres. gives green advice

TERRE HAUTE, Ind (WTHI) - Monica Cain is a stay at home mom. When she moved into her current home she made some adjustments.

"We put the programmable thermostat in because we knew that would help with the electric bill and we wrapped the water heater," Cain said.

Monica always wanted to do more, that's were Todd Thacker with the local IBEW 725 comes in.

"I thought we could go over some improvements and see what you have already done here," Thacker said.

"As you know the kitchen is probably where most of your energy is used," Thacker said.

"If you are looking at this refrigerator and you are looking at the size you have and you go to compare you can save at least 10% on your appliance cost by just going with an energy star," Thacker said.

"Something that we see here on your counter is that you don't have any of your appliances plugged in at this time using what we call phantom energy. If you shut it off you still have some usage, so that is a really good one," Thacker said.

"I see you have a programmable thermostat. I do see that it is on 70 degrees. Now if you were to make that 67 during the winter months and 73 during the summer months on a 10 month period you could save 100 dollars in a 10 month period."

"On this television, DVR and Wii if you decided you wanted to, you could have a power strip that would allow you to have surge protection and also allow you to shut it off for any extended period of time so you can save on that phantom power."