10 Ways to Improve Your Home's Energy Efficiency

A great way to save energy in your home is by starting with the windows you look through each day. There are many additional advantages to installing vinyl replacement windows in your home. Old, drafty windows can add dozens of dollars to your monthly heating bills each winter by allowing valuable heat to escape and letting in chilly winter breezes. Additionally, during the summer, a drafty window can allow cooled air from air conditioning to escape, as well as let hot air in from outside the house. You can identify a draft around a window by this simple trick: light a match, a candle, or a lighter, and move it slowly around the edges of the window. If there is a flicker in the flame, you have a draft. A draft is often one of the most significant contributors to lowered energy efficiency in your home. Replacing an old and drafty window with a new, fitting window will do wonders for your energy efficient home.

Excellent choices for replacement windows are:

• Harvey Replacement Windows
  
• Replacement Windows Boston
  

If you're still using traditional incandescent light bulbs in your home, consider switching to either LED lights, compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, to save money and increase energy efficiency. CFLs are essentially miniaturized versions of the long white fluorescent bulbs commonly seen in grocery stores, office buildings, and almost everywhere but in private homes. There's a reason why almost all businesses prefer fluorescent bulbs to regular bulbs-they save money because they use less energy! CFLs offer the same value. Despite a slightly higher initial price, they will quickly pay for themselves by lasting up to ten times longer than regular bulbs and using far less energy in the process. CFLs take far less wattage to produce the same amount of light than a traditional bulb; a 20 watt CFL may provide as much light as a 75 watt incandescent bulb, yet use less than a third of the energy. Try them out!

Top reviewed choices for CFLs on Amazon.com are

• Earthmate EP3057AE 30-Watt Spiral CFL Full Spectrum Bulb, 6 Pack
• 15 Watt Mini Spiral Full Spectrum Compact Fluorescents with Crisp White Daylight Color Tone (4 Pack)
  

Have you checked your home's insulation in the walls and attic lately? If not, you may be missing one of the best ways to reduce energy loss and save money. A house with a well insulated attic and well insulated walls will not only be protected from the cold during the winter, but from the heat in the summer, as well as from air leaks and moisture concerns. You can easily reduce the money you spend on heating and cooling your home and create a more energy efficient environment by ensuring your home-particularly the walls and attic-are properly insulated. Bear in mind that most older homes are not properly insulated; it is estimated that eighty percent of homes that were built before 1980 are poorly insulated. Take the steps to make sure your walls and attic are taken care of; the initial cost may be high, but the savings can be lifelong.

Top guides for insulating attics and walls in your home:

• Insulate & Weatherize (Taunton's Build Like a Pro)
  
• Cut Your Energy Bills Now: 150 Smart Ways to Save Money & Make Your Home More Comfortable & Green

Applying caulk to the gaps around your doors and windows is another simple way to keep energy prices and heating costs in check. Preventing leaks ensures your home will stay at a more even temperature and require less energy to heat it in the summer and cool it in the winter. Caulk is a sealant you can purchase in most hardware stores and apply yourself. When you apply it, the caulk solidifies and can be used to fill cracks, gaps, and spaces where various parts of your home connect-for example, around door and window frames. All homes will require fresh caulking over time, as gaps inevitably appear in different parts of the house, particularly around the doors and windows which are opened and shut frequently. It only takes a few minutes to apply some caulk around your house, but the savings can continue to be felt for years in lowered energy costs.

Excellent resources for home improvement and repair:

• Black & Decker The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair: with 350 Projects and 2000 Photos
  
• Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Windows & Entryways: Repair - Renew - Replace

During World War Two, blackout curtains and shades were used in Britain to enable citizens to use lights indoors at night without being spotted by enemy pilots. World War Two ended long ago, but using modern light blocking shades and blinds is an excellent way to save money on cooling and heating bills, producing a more energy efficient environment in your home. A well designed light blocking shade or blind can help trap heat in the house during the winter and also help keep out heat during the summer. Up to twenty five percent of the thermal energy lost in a house may leave through the windows; well designed shades and blinds can cut into this loss by several percent, which translates to significant savings when you wish to heat or cool your home. Light blocking shades and blinds have the additional advantage of being easy to install and remove from your windows.

Excellent choices for custom light blocking shades and blinds are:

• Hunter Douglas Blinds and Shades
  
• Redi Shade 1817205 Black Out Pleated Shade 48-by-72-Inch, 6-Pack
  
• Boston Blinds
  
• Roller Shades
  

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average U.S. household will spend more than $2,200 this year on energy bills. Almost half of that money will go toward heating and cooling the household. However, the Department of Energy also states that more than $180 can be saved each year if homeowners make use of a properly set programmable thermostat. Installing a programmable thermostat, therefore, is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce energy consumption in the home. A programmable thermostat can be used to automatically reduce the levels of cooling and heating in the home during the hours when you don't need as much of either. Typical pre-programmed settings will adjust temperature settings four times a day (at 6 AM, at 8 AM, at 6 PM, and at 10 PM). Once installed and programmed, the thermostat takes care of the temperature by itself, leaving you to profit from the reduced energy costs and savings.

Top-rated programmable thermostats on Amazon.com:

• Honeywell RTH8500D 7-Day Touchscreen Universal Programmable Thermostat
  
• Hunter 44550 Auto Save 7-Day Programmable Thermostat

Planting a shade tree (or several) around your house is an easy and cost-effective project that will reap numerous benefits for you, including increases in the energy efficiency levels of your home. Besides the inherent aesthetic and increased property values of trees, a shade tree is also an extremely efficient means of cooling a house. According to the Department of Energy and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, you may use your air conditioner between 7 and 40 percent less if you have shade trees around your home. In fact, the temperatures of shaded walls in a home may be between 9 and 36 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than they would be without the presence of shade trees on a hot day. It is best to plant such trees to the west and southwest of your home if you are in the northern hemisphere. Try it today!

Excellent resources for choosing and caring for shade trees:

• Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs: An Illustrated Encyclopedia
  
• Taylor's Master Guide to Landscaping
  

Replacing an old furnace with a high-efficiency system is another relatively simple way to decrease energy costs and increase the energy efficiency of your home. Telltale signs that your old furnace may be ready to be replaced include if the furnace itself is more than fifteen years old. If you replace it with an energy star qualified furnace, you may save fifteen percent in energy bills each year, as a high efficiency system may be fifteen percent more efficient than a non-high efficiency furnace. Additional signs you may benefit from a new system include uneven heating in your home, which may be a result of malfunctions in your furnace. Increasing energy bills each year despite relatively constant energy prices may also indicate your old furnace no longer performs as efficiently as it once did. You can easily research your current furnace online to determine its age and potential need for replacement.

Great resources for learning about high-efficiency heating systems:

• How Your House Works: A Visual Guide to Understanding & Maintaining Your Home
  
• The Homeowner's Handbook to Energy Efficiency: A Guide to Big and Small Improvements

Another way to improve the energy efficiency of your home is by improving the efficiency of your hot water system. This may be done by installing a tankless, on demand system. A tankless water heater is also known as a demand heater, or an instantaneous water heater. They differ from storage water heaters through their method of supplying hot water. Demand heaters will supply hot water only when you need it. Storage water heaters, which are still in use in many homes, use a storage tank to produce a standby supply of hot water, which requires considerable amounts of energy, and results in considerable standby energy loss. A demand heater delivers a constant hot water supply by use of a gas burner or electric heater to heat cold water whenever a hot water pipe is turned on. The savings may be worth the replacement cost.

Fantastic resources on ways to make your home more energy efficient:

• Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings: Save Money, Save the Earth
  
• Residential Energy: Cost Savings and Comfort for Existing Buildings

The air filter in your air conditioner serves a valuable function of trapping dust and particles, keeping them from recirculating through your house and ventilation system. However, like filter in a vacuum cleaner or in a car's engine, an air conditioner filter needs to be checked and replaced frequently to ensure optimal performance. The more clogged the filter becomes, the more difficult it is for air to flow through the ventilation system, and the more work your air conditioner will have to do to cool or warm your house. Greater levels of work translate into greater energy use, which translates into more money taken from your budget. The Department of Energy recommends checking your air filter each month, particularly during months where it is used more frequently (such as the summer and winter months). Change the filter if it looks dirty, and do it at least every three months. You will have a more efficient conditioner!

Top-rated air conditioner filters on Amazon.com:

• 20x20x4-MERV 12 A/C Furnace Air Filters by Nordic Pure (Box of 6) - (16.45 ea.) Free Shipping
  
• 18x25x1 Standard Capacity MERV 8 Pleated Air Filter (Case of 6)