One of the biggest challenges in keeping your heating bills low is all the holes in your house. Makes sense, right? If it isn't the warm air getting out, it's the cold air getting in — and that's always through some sort of a hole in your house. This could be a door, a window, a tiny crack where a pipe pokes through a wall — or your attic access.
We may not tend to think about the attic access as a "hole in the house" because it is so clearly inside the house, but if you don't have it properly insulated then your attic access is costing you big money. First of all, you need to have it properly weatherstripped around the edges.
This is not enough, however, because almost all attic access doors are made out of un-insulated plywood (which has a non-existent R-value). I first noticed this when we moved into this house and there was a cold spot in the hallway under the attic access. That's when we invested in one of these:
Here's a couple more pictures. The first one shows how the lid — we call it the lid — works, you just swing it to one side when you go up the stairs:
Here's how it looks from inside the attic:
These units cost around $100 and provide R-9 insulation. Admittedly this is far less than the R-35 insulation that enery experts call for in your attic these days — and far better than the R-0 insulation you had before you bought one.
We don't tend to actually
see our lightbulbs. Light is what we see with — and looking directly at the light can be uncomfortable or even painful. Lightbulbs tend to be hidden behind lampshades or glass fixtures or set way up high where we can't easily see them. What we need to do then is actually stop and
think about our lightbulbs once in a while. Why? Because having energy-efficient lighting is
not just about which lightbulb you choose.
When did you last dust your lightbulbs? Clean lightbulbs deliver a lot more light.
When did you last clean the dust and dead bugs from your ceiling fixtures? Lightbulbs in clean fixtures deliver a lot more light, too.
Do you have multiple small lightbulbs or one big lightbulb? One big lightbulbs delivers the same amount of light more efficiently than multiple smaller bulbs with the same wattage.
Do you leave your lights on for security purposes? Having your lights on a timer gives you the security you are looking for without spending so much on electricity.
Note: these tips work equally well regardless of what kind of lightbulb you are using. Of course, by switching to an compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb, you can save 2/3 on your lighting bill ... but then you already knew that, right?
The leaves are turning and if your lawn isn't covered yet, it will be soon. This year, try something different — use a rake instead of an an electric- or gasoline-powered leaf blower. (Or get your kids to do it.) It's good to get your heart pumping!
Disclaimer: Energy Watcher is not responsible for sweating, light-headedness, heart palpitations, or having a great big piles of leaves to jump into.
It's such a chore to get the kids to wash their own clothes, I always thought that getting them to pay attention to energy savings was asking for too much. Things changed, however, when our daughter went off to college and had to start paying for laundry out of her own pocket! So here's a few energy- and money-saving tips to pass on to the little ones:
- Always wash full loads of clothes. Washing and drying two half-loads of clothes uses twice as much energy (and money) as washing one full load of clothes.
- It is not necessary to wash every article of clothing after each use. Use common sense: if it's dirty or smelly or stained, then wash it; otherwise, it can be worn again.
- Towels can be used more than once. 'Nuff said.
- You don't need to dump half the bottle of detergent in the washer. It can actually stain your clothes and you will just need to use an extra rinse cycle to get all of the detergent out.
- If you pull your hanging clothes out of the dryer while they are just a little bit damp, and hang them up immediately, you won't have so many wrinkles.
It was rainy and cool in Atlanta this month. There was serious flooding south of us and we even had 12 heating degree days (HDD) — although obviously we did not turn on the furnace. The big news, however, is that we turned off the air conditioner around the beginning of the month and used about half as much electricity this month than we did in September 2008. It was not significantly cooler this year than last, but by turning the thermostat up to 75° this summer we conditioned ourselves to be comfortable at higher temperatures. All told, this saved us nearly $80 this month!
We turned the sprinklers off around the middle of September, with an additional savings of $80. You know, I'd like to find whoever decided that having a green lawn makes your house more valuable and explain the concept of "cost-benefit analysis" to him or her. You might think, with irrigation water going for three gallons for one cent ($0.01), that keeping your lawn green wouldn't cost so much — and you'd be wrong. We spent around $35 per month this summer to make the lawn grow tall and green, so we could spend $100 per month this summer to have it mowed.
September 2009 Data
| Electricity, in kWh | Cost / Unit | Gas, in Therms | Cost / Unit | Water, in CCF | Cost / Unit | BTUs / Ft2 |
| 1,383 | $.107 | 9 | $1.86 | 11 | $2.84 | 1,606 |
Who doesn't love a roaring fire on a cold winter's night?
Energy watchers!
A chimney is a device that we install in homes with fireplaces with the express purpose of pulling hot air — and smoke, and carbon monoxide — out of the home. People who are interested in
keeping hot air in their homes do not have chimneys and therefore do not have fireplaces. I know, I know, there are gas fireplaces that don't have chimneys. We have one in one or our rental houses. I don't trust them to remove enough of the carbon monoxide and don't use it. Normal fireplaces (with chimneys) suck hot air up and out of your home.
If you don't use your fireplace,
block it off.
If you do use your fireplace, keep the damper closed whenever you are not using it. You'll know if you forget and you leave the damper open — you'll think you left a window open near the fireplace.
If you do use your fireplace, keep the glass doors on your fireplace closed, including whenever you have a fire in the fireplace. A roaring fire in the fireplace will
suck the hot air out of the
rest of your house. If you don't have these doors, add them.
And if you
really love a roaring fire on a cold winter's night, invest in a
proper wood heating system so you can get some value from your fireplace (other than the romantic).
It's officially fall, so it's time once again to change your furnace filters! While you're at it, consider getting your furnace a tune-up. With the cost of natural gas higher than ever, it only makes sense to make sure that your furnace is operating at peak efficiency. You can always call the HVAC guys to come in and do it for you, or you can follow these instructions.
By the way, I think you should use the good filters if you can possibly afford it. They last longer, filter better, and actually save you money in the long run.
Things do not change; we change.- Henry David Thoreau
