Affordable Comfort, Inc. is a great organization advancing the greener home agenda here in the United States. Happily, they're also based out of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh to be exact). Home energy contractors and auditors are all familiar with their work and leadership.
On their homepage today is a great downloadable paper on tips for saving energy - but it's not just the easy stuff we've all heard before and that is now even being reprinted in mainstream periodicals, etc. These tips dig into the heart of your home and ask some tough questions! Here's my summary. The complete paper can be downloaded here.
- You've got to identify your priorities for your home. Are your bills too high? Do you have environmental issues like mold or drafts? Set out a rough list of goals you want to achieve with your projects. Then tabulate your energy costs for the past year. Call the utilities (or log on to your account like I do) and get back copies of your bills. It will be an eye-opener, I assure you. Lastly, do a little research on energy-saving by surfing some websites (like my blog) or the Energy Star site.
- If the energy issues seem considerable then perhaps you should hire an auditor to evaluate your home more thoroughly. A local resource would be Tamasin Sterner. Such audits aren't cheap so be prepared to do something with the information you get back!
- Look at your insulation, particularly in the attic. Chances are good that your home will benefit from an upgrade. Another attic issue is poor air sealing. Look into new insulation techniques which are gaining acceptance.
- Find a local contractor and have your heating system tested for efficiency. Be sure it's clean and tuned up as well. The heat system (boiler, heatpump, furnace) is the heart of your home and a poor-performing system is like an unbound wound that continues to bleed (my analogy). I went through this last year...
- Replacing a poor-performing heat system can be a tough decision, but is often a wise decision if the system is old, inefficient or breaking down (or all three, as I experienced in 2007. Read about that story here). The payback time is getting shorter theses days with the rising costs of fuel. Do it!
- Take a critical look at your appliances. Old fridges and electric hot water heaters are notorious energy eaters. Try to avoid buying new appliances which are bigger than you really need. Of course, choose Energy Star-rated units unless you've got a compelling reason to do otherwise. My wife and I are doing this right now...
- Inspect your plumbing system and correct any defects, like dripping faucets (inside and out) and crying leaks (I'm assuming you don't have any major leaks ongoing). Turn the water temperature down to 120 degrees.
- Buy a front-loading Energy-Star clothes washer if you do heavy amounts of laundry or have water challenges in your area.
- Turn off and unplug anything you're not using. Most appliances have constant use of power even when turned off. Use power strips or switched adapters to easily disconnect power from being passed through. If you're really anal here, go out and buy a watt-meter and keep tabs on the energy being used by the various units running in your house. (That would be a good post right there!)
- Change your behaviors to reflect your concern for saving energy. My wife and I pay close attention to the thermostat (especially when my son started pushing buttons on it this week and messed the whole system up! Did you know there's a "lock" button on most digital thermstats? I know that now). Wear warm clothes in the house (in winter). Change the thermostat to reflect when you're not home or don't need the place at 70 degrees...).
These are some great tips and, as you can see,
I've dealt with many of these myself and can speak from experience. Check out the rest of ACI's website and let me know what you think...
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Thanks for the tips and resource I will put it to good use.