Block drafts
Step1
Use a lighted incense stick or a tissue on a stick to find any drafts. Move it slowly around windows and doors, even slight air movement will move the smoke or the tissue.
Step2
Check the caulking around your windows. There should be no gaps in the caulking between them and the walls of your house. If there is a leak, remove the old and install new caulking. Checking the caulking every year is a good way to save energy.
Step3
Check the weather-stripping on your doors. Weather-stripping prevents drafts from getting in or cool air getting out. If you have no weather-stripping it's easy to add, lots of it is adhesive- backed and just sticks on to the doorframe or bottom of the door.
Step4
Check around your electrical outlets. Areas behind the electrical outlets and switches are often not insulated, but you can buy thin foam insulation specifically designed to fit under an outlet plate that will block drafts.
Conserve energy
Step1
Install a programmable thermostat to control the temperature in your home. It will adjust the temperature to match your schedule and ensure you aren't heating or cooling an empty house.
Step2
Consider using compact fluorescent lights instead of regular incandescent bulbs. Fluorescent bulbs provide an equivalent amount of light, but use much less energy and don't produce anywhere near the amount of heat a regular bulb does.
Step3
Turn down the temperature in your water heater. Many water heaters are set so high the water could scald someone. Adjust the temperature to 120 degrees.
Step4
Add insulation to your water heater and hot water pipes. Insulating blankets designed to wrap around a water heater and insulating foam tubes to go around hot water pipes are readily available.
Step5
Replace your furnace filters on a regular basis. Blocked furnace filters make your HVAC system work harder and longer using more energy. A clean filter allows the system to work more efficiently.
Step6
Adjust ceiling fans so they will blow warm air from up high in the room down during the winter.
Step7
Consider the energy efficiency rating (EER) of any appliances you are replacing. Modern appliances are much more energy efficient than appliances that are even a few years old.
Adjust your habits
Step1
Use heat-generating appliances (dishwasher, washing machine, clothes dryer) in the cooler evening hours. This will actually help heat your home in the winter and will make your air conditioner's job easier in the summer.
Step2
Turn on your washing machine and dishwasher for full loads only. Washing a partial load wastes both energy and hot water.
Step3
Take showers not baths. Showers use less hot water. Also consider installing water-saving showerheads that will conserve hot water.
Step4
Open blinds and drapes so the sun can come in during the winter and close them to keep the sun out during the summer.
Make Your Home More Energy Efficient
Comments
Schrlau said
on 4/10/2008 Anything helps, Great article, please keep adding to this one!
leatherPamper said
on 4/10/2008 good article someone check out some of mine. please.
Andy said
on 4/10/2008 In the past, I would have agreed with your about the CFL bulbs, they just didn’t give off as much light as old style incandescent bulbs. However, the technology has improved a lot in the last few years and now I can’t tell the difference once the light is turned on.
Re the energy savings, there is no doubt CFL bulbs use less energy to produce light rather than incandescent bulbs. However, some of the extra energy incandescent bulbs use goes into generating heat which in some situations isn’t a totally bad thing. In fact some folks will argue it’s good.
It all gets a little too technical for me, but from my simple point of view, if I can save some money on my energy use AND get a bulb that has a much longer life then I’m going to use it, so it’s the CFL bulb for me.
Blackbear said
on 4/10/2008 Great article...unfortunately I don't care for these types of lightbulbs...I feel like I'm going blind! Is the light bulbs really where we lose a lot of energy to have to even worry about making the switch??