How to Save Money On Energy Usage

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By nsuengineer06
User-Submitted Article

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House

These days its all about the economy and how tight money is. Everyone knows that heating & cooling a home takes a lot of money, but there may be ways to reduce some of that cost! Let's look at a few options available.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Caulk
Weather Stripping
Insulation
Time

Step 1

Insulated Water Heater

Go to your local hardware store and purchase a water heater blanket. I know it sounds funny, but that's what it is called. It is an insulating blanket designed to wrap around a hot-water heater to help retain heat. Installation is simple and instructions are normally included. This item will help the water-heater from running as often, in turn saving money on energy.
Step 2

Caulk

While you are at the hardware store purchase a couple tubes of indoor/outdoor caulk. This can be used to seal up just about any cracks you may find. Do a perimeter walk of your house and use the caulk around windows, door moldings, flashing, etc. If you have bigger cracks (more than 1/4 inch) use an expanding foam insulation. This will help eliminate some of the drafts in your home.
Step 3

Outlet

Also available at some hardware stores are small insulating patches that are used in wall outlets. You would be surprised how much air moves through electrical outlets. Simply remove the face-plate from the outlet and place the pad behind the plate and screw back in place. They are pre-cut to fit most common outlets e.g. outlets, switches, multiple switches...
Step 4

Replace any worn or missing weather stripping around doors and/or windows. Heavily used doors will tend to wear out the weather stripping seal around them.
Step 5

Have an expert give an estimate on upgrading or replacing old insulation in your walls or attic. Commonly a large percentage of heating/cooling loss is lost through the attic due to a lack of insulation.
Step 6

By-far the simplest investment you can make to save money on utilities is to replace regular incandescent bulbs with CFL bulbs. Compact fluorescent bulbs are relatively cheap and last a long time, but most importantly they consume about 1/4 as much energy per bulb. That's a huge difference! You don't have to change all of them at once, you can just pick up one or two when it is convenient and eventually you will replace them all.