Cut Your Energy Bills in Half
With winter coming on, here are five efficiency-enhancing ideas to reduce your home’s energy usage by up to 50 percent
1. Upgrade your equipment
Replacing an entire heating and cooling system is a big, expensive project, but if your system is more than two decades old, in the long term replacing it can save you more money than any other home improvement project.
2. Patch leaky ducts
Even if you have an efficient furnace and air conditioner, if the ducts that funnel hot air or cold air around your house are in bad shape, you’ll still lose way too much energy.
3. Seal the envelope
Small cracks and gaps in your house’s shell can allow about a third of the heat and air conditioning in a 10-year-old house to escape. In the attic, look for gaps around anything that comes through the floor, such as pipes, fan ducts and electrical lines. Use an expanding-foam spray or paint-able caulk to seal cracks.
4. Add insulation
Insulation wasn’t standard for new houses until the mid-70s oil crisis. If your home is older than that, check out your attic floor. None? Add it to the attic and the basement. Even if there’s some insulation there already, you may benefit from adding more.
5. Replace old appliances
Most major appliances more than 15 years old are major energy wasters, likely worth ditching in favor of this year’s models. See for yourself with a gizmo called Watts Up? ($100 for the standard model). Plug any of your existing appliances into it, and it will calculate the machine’s annual electrical consumption. Compare that with usage ratings on new products at energystar.gov and you’ll know whether upgrading is worth the money.
