Tips to Save Energy Today

Easy low-cost and no-cost ways to save energy.

• Set your thermostat comfortably low in the winter and comfortably high in the summer. Install a programmable thermostat that is compatible with your heating and cooling system.
  
  
• Use compact fluorescent light bulbs.
  
  
• Air dry dishes instead of using your dishwasher's drying cycle.
  
  
• Turn off your computer and monitor when not in use.
  
  
• Plug home electronics, such as TVs and DVD players, into power strips; turn the power strips off when the equipment is not in use (TVs and DVDs in standby mode still use several watts of power).
  
  
• Lower the thermostat on your hot water heater to 120° F.
  
  
• Take short showers instead of baths.
  
  
• Wash only full loads of dishes and clothes.
  

Heating and cooling

• To save energy, set your thermostat as low as is comfortable in the winter and as high as is comfortable in the summer. You save 3 percent on the day’s heating or cooling costs by setting your thermostat back one degree (higher for cooling, lower for heating) for that 24-hour period. Maintain those settings and you save 3 percent all season!
• Clean or replace heating and cooling filters once a month or as needed. If your filter is in a cardboard frame, it needs to be replaced monthly during the heating season. If your system doubles as a central air-conditioning system, also clean or replace the filter monthly while the cooling system is in use.
• Clean air registers, baseboard heaters, and radiators as needed. Make sure they're not blocked by furniture, carpeting, or drapes.
• Bleed trapped air from hot-water radiators once or twice a season. If in doubt about how to perform this task, call a professional.
• Use kitchen, bath, and other ventilating fans wisely. In just one hour, these fans can pull out a houseful of warmed or cooled air. Turn fans off as soon as they have done the job.
• During the heating season, keep the draperies and blinds on your south-facing windows open during the day to allow sunlight and heat to enter your home.
• Close drapes at night to help reduce heat loss.
• During the cooling season, keep the window coverings closed during the day to prevent the sun from heating your home.
• Make sure drapes don't block registers and air returns.
• Close off unoccupied rooms.
• Install individual room controls to heat and cool rooms only when you use them.
• Have your heating and cooling systems serviced once a year to ensure peak operational efficiency.

Laundering

• Wash with cold water whenever possible.
• Wash and dry full loads to maximize efficiency.
• Don't overload dryers. Overloaded dryers use more energy, cause clothes to wrinkle so they may need to be ironed, and wears out clothes more quickly.
• Use suds savers and front-loading washers for maximum efficiency.
• Always adjust the water level to fit load size. Overloaded washers don't clean clothes as effectively so they even may need to be rewashed.
• Clean the lint filter after each drying cycle to maintain dryer efficiency.

Energy-efficient lighting

• Use task lighting to target work and leisure activities. This lets you reduce your overall room lighting levels.
• Use energy-efficient compate fluorescent bulb—especially in fixtures that operate more than two hours a day. They cost more initially but use 75 percent less electricity and last about ten times longer than incandescent bulbs.
• Open shades and blinds to take advantage of natural light.
• Select bulbs carefully. Look for the highest lumens at the lowest wattage. Wattage is the power needed to make a bulb work. Lumens measure brightness.
• Long-life bulbs emit less light than standard incandescent bulbs of the same wattage. Use long-life bulbs only in hard-to-reach places.
• Keep light fixtures clean to gain the most illumination.

Refrigerating

• Test the tightness of the door seal on refrigerators and freezers. If the seal doesn't tightly hold a dollar bill when the door is closed, it's probably time to adjust or replace the gasket.
• Replace old refrigerators. A 1980s-era refrigerator will cost up to 75 percent more to operate than a new super-efficient model.
• For greatest efficency set refrigerators at 40º F. and freezers at 0º F.

Cooking

• Use your oven instead of your cook top to cut cooking costs. Surface units heat continuously, but an insulated oven normally heats one-third of the time it's in use.
• Don't peek. Cooking temperatures can drop as much as 50º every time the oven door is opened, causing the oven to reheat.
• Use the oven's self-cleaning cycle only for big cleaning jobs. Start the cycle while the oven is still hot from baking.
• Use small appliances such as crockpots, electric frying pans, toaster ovens, and microwave ovens to save when cooking.
  

If you know anymore energy saving tips, please let me know!