How to Save Additional Energy in Your Home

We're all aware of the need to save energy in our homes to save money as well as help preserve the environment. As a result, we're all doing the well-known energy saving things like choosing Energy Star appliances, replacing weather stripping around doors and windows and making sure our furnaces are working efficiently. There are a number of other smaller things we can do, however, that together will save lots of energy as well. Here are some ideas on how to save even more energy around your home.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Dust cloth
• Area rugs
• Sweaters
• LED lights
• Motion detector light fixtures
• Power bar
• Thinking about saving energy

1. Use a dust cloth to clean off your light fixtures and bulbs. Clean bulbs are brighter than dusty bulbs, so you might not need to turn on that second light.

2. Remove your window air conditioner during the winter. Window air conditioner installations don't provide a very tight air seal, and cold air and drafts will work their way around units left in the window.

3. Put area rugs on your floors. Area rugs will make your feet feel warm, which in turn makes your whole body feel warm.

4. Install motion detector light fixtures on the outside of your home to eliminate the need to leave outdoor lights on during the evening and overnight. Anyone coming towards the door will activate the light so they can see, but you won't be burning electricity for nothing.

5. Use LED (light emitting diode) lights rather than old style incandescent bulbs when decorating for the holidays. The LEDs are about 80 percent more energy efficient than older bulbs.

6. Match the size of the pot to the cooking element while cooking in the kitchen. Putting a small pot on a large element wastes power.

7. Keep your fridge and freezer full (just be sure to leave enough space for air to move). A full fridge or freezer can maintain its temperature better with the door opening and closing than one that is only partially full.

8. Check your refrigerator's door seal by putting a dollar bill in the door, then closing it. If the bill stays in place, the seal is fine, but if the bill falls to the ground, the seal is worn out and you should replace it.

9. Schedule your appliance usage. During the day, energy demand is highest and you will be putting more load on the power grid. Running appliances like your dishwasher and washing machine in the evening will reduce load on the grid, and in some areas (where power is priced based on the time of day), save you some money as well.

10. Eliminate "phantom" load. Lots of appliances draw power even when they aren't turned on (see all those little red, green and blue lights). Plug these appliances into a power bar and you can easily turn them all completely off with the switch.

11. Turn off your monitor when you're away from your computer (or have it go to “sleep" after 5 minutes). The monitor consumes more than half of the electricity your entire computer system uses.

Tips & Warnings

• Take advantage of dinnertime to do some teaching about energy savings. Have your kids share a couple of things they did to help save energy that day. Simple things like turning off the light when they left a room or unplugging their cellphone charger can all contribute to home energy saving.