You could start 2012 with $150 off your heating bill
News Room | Columns by CUB's Executive Director | You could start 2012 with $150 off your heating bill
Read the entire article on the Southtown Star website.
December 16, 2011—If "saving money" is your new year's resolution, you're in luck. The Citizens Utility Board's free online service, CUBEnergySaver.com, has been showing consumers how to cut their electric and natural gas bills by an average of $130 a year. It recommends hundreds of energy-saving actions, as simple as unplugging unused appliances and turning off the coffeemaker after brewing. ComEd customers who use the tool to create a cost-cutting plan get monthly reports detailing the money and energy they've saved.

Now, CUB Energy Saver can help get you off to a running start in the new year. CUB's giving away a month of free heat, up to $150, to one lucky consumer who correctly answers CUB's Winter Energy Quiz, below.

All you have to do is circle the correct answers and mail your completed quiz, along with your name and phone number, to: CUB Energy Saver Quiz Contest, 309 W. Washington St., Suite 800, Chicago, IL 60606. All entries must be received by Jan. 30. (You have to be an Illinois resident, at least 18 years old. See complete contest rules at CitizensUtilityBoard.org.)

You don't have to be an energy efficiency expert to cut your bills or to win CUB's prize — all the answers can be found at CUBEnergySaver.com. Just sign up (it's free) and browse the tool's money-saving recommendations.
1. Which of the following actions is likely to cut your heating bills the most?
a. Hand-cleaning your oven.
b. Reducing your home temperature from 70 to 62 degrees for eight hours at night during the winter months.
c. Lowering the thermostat from 70 to 55 degrees while on a two-week winter vacation.
2. How much can you expect to save by replacing six 100-bulb strings of incandescent holiday lights with LEDs (assuming lights are on eight hours per day, 40 days per year)?
a. $0
b. $8
c. $16
3. Air infiltration (air leakage) accounts for roughly how much of a home's energy usage?
a. 5 percent
b. 25 percent
c. 35 percent