Tracking how much energy you use can reveal patterns that are easy to miss on a monthly bill. Some days, the story is simple: hotter weather, extra guests or more laundry. Other times, your monthly bill may catch you off guard. That’s where MyREC SmartHub can help. By monitoring your energy use, setting alerts and comparing patterns over time, you can better understand when you’re using the most electricity — and what changes can help make your bill more manageable. Think of these tools as a guide to when, where and how your home uses electricity.
Catch unusual usage early
Increased electricity use often starts days or weeks before the higher bill arrives. MyREC SmartHub usage alerts can help you spot when your home is using more electricity than expected, giving you time to investigate before the end of the billing cycle. A sudden jump could be tied to extreme weather, backup heat, a space heater, guests, an appliance that needs to be fixed or an HVAC system running longer than usual.
Did you know?
A malfunctioning heating or cooling system can drive up usage fast. If a cooling system gets stuck running around the clock, it could add $30 to $40 or more to your bill in just a couple of days — and hundreds of dollars if it goes unnoticed for a full month.
How to make it work for you
Turn on usage alerts in MyREC SmartHub. When an alert comes in, check your daily or hourly graph and ask: What changed? The sooner you spot the pattern, the sooner you can take action to prevent nasty surprises when your bill arrives.
Find what’s driving your usage
Some household activities use more electricity than others. Heating and cooling, water heating, clothes drying, cooking, EV charging, pool pumps and space heaters can all have a noticeable impact on your bill. MyREC SmartHub can help connect your household habits to your usage patterns, especially when you complete your Home Energy Profile and review appliance-level insights and customized tips to save.
Did you know?
An older refrigerator can quietly add to your bill year-round. ENERGY STAR® says refrigerators older than 15 years could cost more than $80 a year to run and that older refrigerators use about 35% more energy than ENERGY STAR® certified models. MyREC SmartHub appliance-level insights can help reveal whether an always-on appliance may be worth a closer look.
How to make it work for you
Complete your Home Energy Profile under the usage menu in MyREC SmartHub, then look for patterns in your usage. Choose one high-use area to investigate first. Try changing one habit — such as drying fewer loads, adjusting the thermostat, reducing space heater use or reducing pool pump runtime — and watch the graph over the next few days to see the difference it makes.
Find your household baseline
Every household has typical energy use patterns. That’s why your best comparison is your own home. MyREC SmartHub even allows you to track external temperatures compared to your usage day-by-day to provide insight into how weather affects your bill.
Did you know?
Two homes on the same street can have very different “normal” usage. Thermostat settings, laundry habits, older appliances, pool pumps, space heaters and each home’s insulation can all affect energy use. That’s why your own past usage is usually a better baseline than your neighbor’s bill.
How to make it work for you
Use MyREC SmartHub to find your home’s normal trends: overnight use, daily peaks, weekend patterns and seasonal changes. Then look for ways to lower that baseline, such as replacing an older appliance, adjusting thermostat settings
or changing everyday energy-use habits.
Prove your savings
Energy-saving tips are more powerful when you can see the results. MyREC SmartHub lets you compare usage over time, so you can test whether a change actually made a difference. Maybe you adjusted the thermostat, shifted laundry to off-peak hours, reduced space heater use, changed pool pump settings or delayed EV charging. Your usage graph can show the before and after.
Did you know?
An American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy review found households saved 4% to 12% when they had clearer feedback on their energy use. For the average REC residential member, that could equal about $85 to $275 a year in avoided energy costs.
How to make it work for you
Whenever you make a change, compare your usage to the week before or to a similar period. When the bars drop, you will have the reward of seeing that the change made a difference.
