One of the questions our residential electrical services technicians most frequently receive is, "How can I save electricity?" Most people want to lower their electric bill and want to help to save energy to be a little more environmentally friendly. We have a few favorite tips on how you can save big money each year on your bill by just taking a few easy steps.

Buy Energy Star Appliances

Whenever you buy a new appliance, you should go out of your way to purchase appliances that have the Energy Star label. These appliances have been evaluated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that they meet certain energy-efficiency guidelines. The Energy Star website claims that the average household can save around $600 each year by switching all of their appliances to Energy Star appliances ? but you don't have to switch all of your appliances out at once. Even switching one old appliance to a new Energy Star model can give you significant savings on your yearly electric bill.

Kill Energy Vampires

Put away your wooden stakes ? energy vampires are appliances that use power when they're turned off. For instance, your TV and video game system will typically have a little red light running to let you know they're off, and that means they're using electricity all day. In fact, the Department of Energy claims that 75 percent of the electricity used by your home electronics happens when they're "off."

The easy way to keep these vampires from sucking electricity and money out of your wallet is to keep them on a power strip and turn off the power strip when you are not using them. This will not harm any of your electronics as long as you turn them off properly before flipping the switch, and you can save up to $100 a year.

Change Your Air Filter Regularly

Your HVAC unit has to suck in air in order for it to heat and cool your home, and having a dirty air filter can make this significantly harder for it to do. That means your HVAC has to work harder to heat or cool your home properly, which means your electricity bill will naturally go up. You can avoid all of this by changing your air filter every month ? and you'll save up to $60 a year. As an added bonus, clean filters will help to reduce the number of allergens that are circulating through your home.