Pad Your Wallet with Home Energy Savings
Mar 27th, 2009 by admin
By Sylvia Evanson
There’’s nothing like free money, and chances are your house is full of it. Americans waste a tremendous amount of money each year because they use energy inefficiently and wastefully. There’’s a common misconception that if you use energy carefully that you”re necessarily lowering your standard of living. Europeans, who have a standard of living very similar to ours, use, on average, 50% less energy than their American counterparts. Now, think about what you pay the local utility every month. Wouldn”t you like to get 25-50% of it back? Of course you would. Here’’s how you can start reclaiming some of that money today at little or no cost.
The Low Hanging Fruit
We”ll start with the really low hanging fruit. Conservation has the fastest payback period. If you don”t use the electricity in the first place you don”t have to pay for it. Start with the obvious stuff. Turn off lights when you leave a room. Wash your clothes in cold water unless they”re really stained or your washing just whites. Turn off the “heated dry” feature on your dish washer.
Check your water heater and adjust the temperature to 120 degrees if it’’s not already set there. If you have a programmable thermostat and you”re not taking advantage of it, learn how to use. It could save you 5-10% on your heating/cooling bills. Notice that you haven”t spent a cent and you”re already putting money back in your wallet. Also, most of these tips don”t require you to get into a habit. Just optimize your appliances and then forget about it!
Small Investments that Pay Dividends
Now lets move on to some items that are inexpensive, but that can have good paybacks over their life times. Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs) use about 25% of the electricity that ordinary, incandescent bulbs use. As you need to replace bulbs, replace them with CFLs. You”ll not only save on your lighting costs but your cooling costs in the summer. Incandescent bulbs turn 90% of the energy they consume into heat, not light! Next, buy a blanket for your water heater. These usually come in R-8 or R-11 (a measure of how well they insulate). Buy the highest R value blanket that you can find.
While you”re focusing on the water heater, you might want to give a low flow showerhead a try. You”ll use less water, which means you”ll save on your water heating bill. If you don”t already have one, buy a programmable thermostat. They typically cost anywhere from $50-$100 but can save you quite a bit on your monthly heating/cooling cost.
Start putting money back in your wallet by being smarter about how you use energy. These tips are just the beginning, but they can save you plenty if you put them to use.
About The Author
If you”re ever looking to sell a home in Boulder Colorado, be sure to look up Automated Homefinder. http://www.automatedhomefinder.com/boulder-colorado-real-estate-for-sale.php