Energy Efficiency at Home and on the Road
February 20, 2006 by Maricar
Filed under Frugal Living, General Housekeeping and Homemaking
Environment Colorado offers 30 ideas to reduce increase energy efficiency at home and reduce those power bills.
Some tips involve using compact fluorescent light bulbs, schedulable thermostats, storm windows and energy-saving shower heads. Others involve tasks associated more with keeping house than saving energy, like cleaning the lint screen in the dryer, replacing the furnace filter regularly and cleaning the stove and oven often.
Here are more tips from the list:
- Close vents and doors of rooms you are not using and seal around windows and doors.
- Use smaller appliances like toasters and crockpots whenever possible.
- Use a humidifier during cold months since humidity makes you feel warmer.
- Open your drapes on the eastern and southern windows of your home in the morning and the western windows in the afternoon to get the most exposure to the sun. On overcast days and at night, close your drapes and shades, and keep your northern windows covered.
- Turn off your computer monitor when not in use.
- A full freezer or refrigerator will use less energy. Use plastic bottles of water if necessary to take up space. Don’t over pack them though. This prevents the air from circulating properly.
On a related note, the Alliance to Save Energy is offering a free consumer booklet, Power$mart: The Power Is in Your Hands, “filled with up-to-date facts and easy no-cost/low-cost tips as well as energy-efficiency improvements that can save homeowners and renters hundreds of dollars and reduce the nation’s spiraling energy use.”
A sampling of what’s in the booklet:
- Households that replace existing appliances, lighting, heating and cooling equipment, and electronics with ENERGY STAR-labeled products (symbol of energy efficiency) can cut energy bills by 30 percent, or more than $450 per year.
- Use cold water for laundry to save up to $63 a year-today’s cold water detergents do a good job of cleaning-and wash when you have full loads.
- Obey the speed limit because speeding cuts fuel economy 7-23 percent as gas mileage decreases rapidly above 60 mph.
- Keep tires properly inflated to improve gas mileage as much as 3 percent.
Some more sources of information:
For tax incentives (U.S.):
http://www.ase.org/taxcredits
http://www.energytaxincentives.org.
More tips:
http://www.powerisinyourhands.org
http://www.ase.org/consumers
Free single copies of Power$mart: The Power in Your Hands are available from the Federal Citizen Information Center 1-888-878-3256.
[Sources: Environment Colorado, U.S. Newswire]
