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Top 10 No-Cost Ways to Reduce Energy Costs in Your Home
When the cost of using energy in your home gets uncomfortable, you can do a lot to control how much energy you use in a southern climate. The LSU AgCenter recommends the following energy-saving ideas:
1. Set your thermostat lower:
It sounds obvious, and it should be, but the lower you keep your heat the less energy you will use. Lowering your thermostat even a little will save you energy and dollars. Every degree you lower your thermostat reduces your energy use by 4% (on average). If you have a programmable thermostat, set it lower at night while sleeping and have it warm up before getting home from work. With a little planning, you can reduce energy use by 10-15% with almost no effort.
2. Don’t heat the whole house:
Who says you have to keep all of your home warm? If you have the ability, shut off guest rooms and other side rooms that are not used often. Heating the whole home and only living in 75% of it means you are wasting a lot of energy keeping rooms no one lives in warm. Always heat rooms with water pipes in them.
3. Wash clothes with the Cold/Cold setting and use full loads:
With the proper detergent, washing clothes on the cold/cold setting will save a lot of energy and get clothes very clean. Much of the energy used while doing laundry comes from heating up the wash water. Use full loads to get the maximum use out of each batch of water.
4. Adjust water heaters down to 126 degrees:
Many hot water heaters are set at very high temperatures. Not only is this a scalding danger, but it wastes a lot of energy keeping water hotter than you will be able to use comfortably. Setting water heaters thermostat to 126 will ensure hot water, without having the temperature go low enough that there is danger of bacteria (some common bacteria can survive in up to 125 degree water). Adjusting your water heater is simple and will only take 5 minutes, but can save you a fair amount of energy dollars.
5. Unplug computers, TV’s, Cable boxes, and other “energy vampire” appliances when not in use:
You may not know this but many things in our home continue to use energy even when they are “off.” In fact anything that has one of those tiny boxes attached to the cord continues to use energy as long as it is plugged in. TV’s and anything else with a remote also use energy even when they are off (VCR’s stereos, etc). Unplugging them will make sure they don’t use energy while you are not using them. If you don’t want to constantly be plugging and unplugging things you can place all these energy vampire devices on a power strip and simply turn that power strip off when you are done with them. Also remember things like cable boxes, cable modems, DSL modems, and routers use energy 24/7, the question is do you use the Internet 24/7? Using very low cost timers, turn these devices off at night while sleeping.
6. Turn off the lights when leaving the room:
Another no-brainer. Lighting can account for up to 30% of the homes energy usage. The simple act of turning the lights off when leaving the room can dramatically reduce the amount of energy used for lighting. Also use CFL, LED’s or other efficient light sources. Try using natural sunlight whenever possible.
7. Take shorter showers:
Do you find yourself spacing out in the shower and before you know it you have run through all the hot water? That’s energy and money running down the drain. Get in, wash, get out. Turn the water off while shaving or washing your hair. There are also new low water use shower heads that are great. They fix many of the problems older low flow shower heads had. Pick one up; you will not be sorry.
8. Trim those bushes on the south side of your home and open the shades:
Trim the bushes on the south side of your home so that sunshine can get in and warm up your house. Natural sunshine can help warm your home and provide nice lighting. The best part is it doesn’t cost anything.
9. Clean baseboard heaters and refrigerator vents to maximize performance:
Baseboard heaters and appliances with air intakes like refrigerators and some others with condenser coils need to have clean vents in order to function properly. Why pay money to have the compressor or heater run harder when you can just wipe the dust off, or vacuum them clean?
10. Cook more efficiently:
While cooking, use the correct size pot for the burner you are using (does not work as well with gas stoves). Using a large pot on a small burner will take longer to heat up food, using more energy. Cover pots while boiling water. Don’t allow heat to escape food; it will cook faster, and water will boil faster. Use the microwave instead of the oven to warm things up. Microwaves use much less energy than stoves do. If you can’t use the microwave, consider a toaster oven instead of a large oven. If you do cook something and its cold out, upon finishing crack open the oven door and allow that heat to enter the home. Do not attempt to use your stove to heat your home; this is dangerous.
These are very simple, and free, ways to save energy. Adopting all of them will show a significant reduction in energy use. A reduction in energy use means smaller energy bills, and less impact on the global climate. Little things do matter.
For related family economics and consumer topics, contact Margaret at the LSU AgCenter Office located at 511 Roussell Street in Houma or call (985) 873-6495. E-mail questions or comments to MBurlew@agcenter.lsu.edu. In addition, log onto the Family and Consumer Sciences section under the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service at the LSU AgCenter website: http://www.lsuagcenter.com
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| Last Updated: 2/2/2009 3:55:32 PM |
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