Start an Energy Diet: Save Money Around Home

The typical American family spends $1,600 a year on energy for heating, cooling, and lighting. If your electric and fuel bills are not enough incentive to slim down your energy use, consider the growing threat of global warming due to greenhouse gases produced by burning coal, oil, and gas.

Doing your part to reduce energy consumption can save money, even in the short term. There are many ways to cut your home energy bill without shivering in the cold and dark. Some energy improvements are tried and true, but the technology gets better, and often cheaper, with every passing year.

We've identified some "biggest-bang-for-your-buck" starting points:

Lighting the way

To save money on lighting, try to maximize the use of daylight. Use "task lights" to illuminate only the area you need to light. Shut off unneeded lights. The Department of Energy (DOE) suggests turning off incandescent lights when you're not using them. A guideline for fluorescent bulbs is to shut them off when you won't be using them for at least 15 minutes. For both types of bulbs, excessive on-off cycles will shorten bulb life.

Install motion detectors in the garage, basement, bathroom, or wherever you and your family are forgetting to douse the lights.

Finally, stock up on fluorescent bulbs, which are much more efficient than low-price incandescent bulbs. Compact fluorescents bulbs (CFLs) screw into the same fixtures as incandescents, but are three to four times more efficient. CFLs can save big money. The DOE calculates that a CFL that makes as much light as a 100-watt incandescent would save about $63 during the bulb's 4.5-year lifetime�assuming the bulb is on six hours a day.

Follow these guidelines when purchasing CFLs:

Pay attention to the quality of light. The first CFLs produced a ghastly bluish-white glare, but the newer "soft white" varieties are closer to incandescent in quality. In fact, a recent test by Popular Mechanics magazine found light from all eight CFLs tested to be more appealing than light from an incandescent bulb. Remember that CFLs do not work with dimmers.

Appliances on a diet

In general, the appliances that use the most electricity are those that make heat, like toasters, electric clothes dryers, and space heaters. The wattage label on the bottom or back of an appliance details its electricity consumption. High-wattage equipment like toasters, which run only briefly, will not use many kilowatt hours. A 1,000-watt appliance running for one hour will use one kilowatt-hour (kwh).

The newer the refrigerator, the better the insulation. Those built before 1993 almost always are ripe for replacement with a newer, higher-efficiency model.

The federal Energy Star label identifies high-efficiency appliances and electronics when you are looking to buy new equipment, but changes in behavior can produce savings on existing equipment. While in standby mode, TVs, cable boxes, and other electronics consume several watts of electricity. If you plug them in to a power strip, you can shut them completely off when not in use. Shut off your computer and monitor when they will be idle for more than two hours (computer) or 20 minutes (monitor). Air-dry dishes instead of using the heated drying cycle, and fill dishwashers and clothes washing machines before running them. Save hot water by substituting short showers for baths.

Getting warmer, getting colder

Heating and cooling occupy a major line of the home energy budget and here, too, changes in habit and equipment can save energy and money. Install an insulating blanket on an older water heater to retain the heat. Insulate all accessible air ducts and hot-water pipes. Replace furnace filters, and get a tune-up on your furnace or boiler every couple of years.

Programmable thermostats remain one of the best energy solutions. If you set your thermostat "back" (cooler in winter and warmer in summer) for eight hours, you can save around 10% on your annual heating and cooling bills, according to the DOE. The setback period should be unnoticeable if it occurs while you are away at work or in bed.

New home furnaces are up to 95% efficient, compared with the 60% typical of 20-plus years ago. High-efficiency furnaces and boilers are among the many energy improvements on existing homes eligible for a federal tax credit through the end of 2007. Other qualified improvements include insulation, windows, exterior doors, circulating fans, and solar heating and photovoltaic systems. The credit is capped at $500, but some states add similar energy-efficiency inducements on top of the federal credit.

Newer air conditioners have improved efficiency. Although calculating the payback is beyond our scope, you can reduce cooling costs by using natural or forced ventilation where possible and by closing blinds and shades on windows and skylights during the day.

The energy audit

If you've made all the obvious improvements, a home energy audit may show you the way toward greater savings. Energy auditors examine your house with an unbiased eye and two essential technologies: thermographic scans and blower doors. The scans use infrared detectors to find air leaks in the building envelope. Scanning often is more effective when done from the inside, because warm air can travel vertically through a wall, disguising the source of the problem when looking from outside. A blower door fits into an exterior doorway; when the blower runs, the contractor can measure leakage in the building envelope, and then use the infrared scanner to find the leaks.

Finally, the energy auditor should fill out a plan of action, suggesting the cost of each improvement, and how long it will take for energy savings to repay that cost.

Dave Tenenbaum is the author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Home Repair and Maintenance."

Published September 10, 2007