10 Easy Ways to Save Energy in Your Home

Posted by on Oct 22, 2010 in General, home improvement | 0 comments

Most people don’t know how easy it is to make their homes run on less energy, we want to change that. Drastic reductions in heating, cooling and electricity costs can be accomplished through very simple changes, most of which homeowners can do themselves. Why make your home more energy efficient? Here are a few good reasons: It saves money. It costs less to power a home that has been converted to be more energy-efficient. It increases indoor comfort levels. It reduces our impact on climate change. Many scientists now believe that excessive energy consumption contributes significantly to global warming. It reduces pollution. Conventional power production introduces pollutants that find their way into the air, soil and water supplies. 1. Find better ways to heat and cool your house.  As much as half of the energy used in homes goes toward heating and cooling. The following are a few ways that energy bills can be reduced through adjustments to the heating and cooling systems: Install a ceiling fan. Ceiling fans can be used in place of air conditioners, which require a large amount of energy. Periodically replace air filters in air conditioners and heaters. Set thermostats to an appropriate temperature. Specifically, they should be turned down at night and when no one is home. In most homes, about 2% of the heating bill will be saved for each degree that the thermostat is lowered for at least eight hours each day. Turning down the thermostat from 75° F to 70°F (25° C to 21°C), for example, saves about 10% on heating costs. Install a programmable thermostat. A programmable thermostat saves money by allowing heating and cooling appliances to be automatically turned down during times that no one is home and at night. Programmable thermostats contain no mercury and, in some climate zones, can save up to $150 per year in energy costs. Install a wood stove or a pellet stove. These are more efficient sources of heat than furnaces. At night, curtains drawn over windows will better insulate the room. 2. Install a tankless water heater. Demand water heaters (tankless or instantaneous) provide hot water only as it is needed. They don’t produce the standby energy losses associated with storage water heaters, which will save on energy costs. Demand water heaters heat water directly without the use of a storage tank. Therefore, they avoid the standby heat losses required by traditional storage water heaters. When a hot water tap is turned on, cold water travels through a pipe into the unit. Either a gas burner or an electric element heats the water. As a result, demand water heaters deliver a constant supply of hot water. You don’t need to wait for a storage tank to fill up with enough hot water. 3. Replace incandescent lights. The average household dedicates 11% of its energy budget to lighting. Traditional incandescent lights convert approximately only 10% of the energy they consume into light, while the rest becomes heat. The use of new lighting technologies, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), can reduce energy use required by lighting by 50% to 75%. Advances in lighting controls offer further energy savings by reducing the amount of time lights are on but not being used. Here are some facts about CFLs and LEDs: CFLs use 75% less energy and last about 10 times longer than traditional incandescent bulbs. LEDs last even longer than CFLs and consume less energy. LEDs have no moving parts and, unlike CFLs, they contain no mercury. 4. Seal and insulate your home. Sealing and insulating your home is one of the most cost-effective ways to make a home more comfortable and...

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