Energy Savings

Get Audited (it's a good thing)

I think most of you will agree that rising energy costs are major concern. Here's a breakdown of how we use energy. In the average American household about 45% of the total energy used goes to heating and cooling, 33% goes to lighting, cooking and other appliances, 14% goes to water heating and the remaining 9% goes to refrigeration and other uses. So the question on everyone's mind is "How do I reduce the amount of energy I use, meaning the amount you pay to the utility companies, (and here's the big part) WITHOUT sacrificing creature comforts?"

That's were an energy audit comes into play. Hire an energy efficiency expert to come to your home or business and assess your current energy use, perform tests using tools and techniques such as thermal imaging to measure heat loss, and offer recommendations where you could make improvements. They can be found in your local telephone directory under the heading of "Energy". This is a more thorough evaluation than a self-audit.

A self-audit it just that. An examination you perform yourself. Some of the key places you'll want to look are around windows and doors for air leaks, make sure your attic has the proper amount of insulation, insulate heating and a/c ducts, fix leaking duct work, change out old standard incandescent light bulbs for compact florescent, cold cathode or LED lights.

Seal Those Leaks

First, take a look at your windows and doors. You can perform a simple door test with a dollar bill. Open the door and lay a dollar bill across the doorjamb. Now close the door and try to pull the dollar bill out. If it comes out easily, you need to add or install weather striping. You can also do this test on your refrigerator & freezer doors to see if it's time to replace the seal there. Here's another test for windows and doors and requires two people, a hair dryer and a candle. One person goes outside with the hair dryer and the other is inside the window with the candle. With the hair dryer on high, slowly move it around the outside of the window. The person inside follows the movement of the hair dryer with the lit candle. You can judge amount of air loss by the movement of the flame. Caulking around leaky windows will reduce the amount of heating or cooling you will loose.

Another place to look for air leaks that a lot of people don't even think about is light switches and outlets located on exterior walls. If you hold your hand close to the receptacle or switch and feel a draft, install a specially made insulating pad behind the cover. They are readily available at hardware stores. They are inexpensive and can make a considerable difference.

Insulate, Insulate, Insulate

Next, take a look at your insulation. Only 20% of homes built before 1980 are well insulated. Most US homes should have between R-22 and R-49 in the attic. What this boils down to is, if you have less that 7" of fiberglass or 6" of cellulous insulation you could benefit from more. The ZIP Code Insulation Calculator is a very useful web-based tool. It can be found at EnergySavers.gov and as the name suggests, you enter your ZIP code and it will tell you the amount of insulation recommended for your area. One of the most cost effective ways to make your home more comfortable year round is to add insulation to your attic, since it minimizes both heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer.

Crawl spaces are often overlooked when it comes to insulation. To address moisture concerns, the best type of insulation to use in crawl spaces or similar areas is a bubble wrap type. This type of insulation looks very much like bubble wrap you use when shipping packages, but it has a foil coating on one side. It gets stapled to the underside of the floor joists with the foil side facing up. Not only does it keep cold air from coming up through the floor, it also will reflect any heat that is lost through the floor back up into your living space.

Ductwork that is not insulated and runs through an unheated space, such as an attic, basement or crawl space, and leaky ductwork can be other major sources of heat loss. You can loose up to 60% of heated air before it reaches the register if your ductwork is not insulated and it runs through an unheated space. Sections of duct work that are not properly joined together, I'm talking about both supply and return, will leak heat or air conditioning into unconditioned spaces and pulls unconditioned air into the return duct work. In both cases your HVAC system has to work nearly twice as hard, meaning it uses twice as much energy, to maintain the temperature set at the thermostat. One tip here: Don't use cloth backed adhesive duct tape to repair leaky ductwork. It deteriorates very quickly. Instead use a foil or other heat approved tape.
Other energy savings measures include programmable thermostats, thermal window coverings, compact florescent light bulbs and power strips to eliminate phantom loads.

A programmable thermostat can save 10% per year in heating and cooling cost. Why run your heater or air conditioner all day if you're not home? Lowering your water heater to 120°F can save a considerable amount of energy. Insulated curtains or blinds will minimize heat loss in the winter and block the sun in the summer.

See The Light (LED lighting of course)

There's been a lot of talk recently about LED lights. They are more expensive than traditional incandescent bulbs, but last much longer and use considerably less electricity. Count the total number of light bulbs that are in the most used areas of your home. Now divide that number by 4. The answer you come up with is the number of bulbs you need to replace with compact florescent bulbs to cut the amount of electricity used for lighting in half. (Remember, lighting makes up almost 1/3 of your electric bill). It's one of the fastest ways to reduce your electric bill. Just imagine the savings if you replaced all your light bulbs with LED's. If every household in the U.S. replaced just ONE incandescent light bulb with an LED light, it would eliminate the equivalent of the emissions created by one million cars. If you can't afford to replace all you lights at once, commit to replacing one a month or as the old ones burn out. Need help choosing residential or commercial LEDS? Or for a consultation of how to get your home or business shining with LED lighting, visit The Green Lighting Guys.

Get Rid of Your Ghosts

Another topic you may have heard recently is "Phantom Loads". This is electricity that is being consumed even though an appliance is not in use. Almost anything with a digital display (microwave, toaster oven, DVD player, video game system) and some things that don't (TVs, laptops and cell phone charges) all generate phantom loads. Seventy-five percent of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the product is "turned off". Super thirsty phantoms, we call them vampires, are the power cords with transformers, the little, chunky black box. They use 20% to 50% of their electricity when nothing is pulled into them. Putting this type of equipment on a power strip, and turning the power strip off when not in use, allows you to easily eliminate phantom loads. Go for a "Smart Strip" for your TV and video equipment. It will automatically turn the strip off when you power off the TV.