Cheap and easy(ish) things to do to save on energy?

[puglogic]

I'm starting a little list of the things I can do myself, and which don't cost anything/much so are 'no brainers,' to help our energy bills during the long, cold Colorado winter.

Here's my little list so far:

--Get a cover for our whole house fan (blocking where it enters the house)
--Build an insulated hatch for our attic door with heavy plywood, foam block, and weather stripping
--Vacuum the refrigerator coils more often (they get horrible)
--Turn down the water heater at least a degree or two
--Shut down our guest room when we don't have guests, turning off the heat vents
--Change my furnace filter
--Develop a pattern of opening/closing the sunny side of the house to let the bright sunshine in
--Create or buy something to seal off our fireplace when not in use (and we rarely use it)
--Install foam insulation seals inside switches and outlets on the exterior walls of the house
--Reprogram our thermostat to be a little cooler at night, and add an extra blanket to the bed (it's currently at 58)

Do you have any small things you do to help your energy bills, cool or hot?

[catherine]

I cover some of the draftier windows with that plastic you can get at Home Depot. You tape up the plastic and then blow it with the hair blower until it's tightened up. It really does help.

I keep the thermostat lower than I'm generally comfortable with, but I have an old warm plush robe that I put on during the day over my clothes.

[puglogic]

Oh dear, I have one of those robes too! :D I also often wear a down or fleece vest, and on very chilly days I have a loose-weave crocheted wool hat that I wear. I am always amazed at how much warmer I stay when I have a hat on.......

[SteveinMN]

We heat where we are, when we are. We call it "local heat". There's a passive electric heater in the bathroom that we switch on when we go to bed; by the time we shower in the morning it and the furnace make the bathroom toasty for showering and dressing and we don't have to heat the entire floor to that temperature. DW even has a light jacket and socks which plug in to heat her instead of the room. Drinking hot liquids helps.

Other little things we do: if we're using the oven, we leave the oven door ajar after cooking so the oven heat radiates into the kitchen. The default for setting our programmable thermostat is to set it low. For example, we've set the thermostat so the daytime temperature is 60 degrees. If I happen to be home, I'll kick it up to 63 or 65. But if I'm working or running errands, the temp can fall to 60 and I don't have to remember to push down the setting. Window coverings on the colder sides of the house help keep the cold out; we can always open them for solar energy.

Can't think of any others ATM.

[try2bfrugal]

We cut our energy bills by more than half but we weren't very energy conscious until recently so it wasn't that hard. All of the ideas were pretty simple and most came from the book The Home Energy Diet, plus going around the house with a Kill A Watt. We get reports from the electric company by the hour so we really sat down and analyzed those.

We started turning off lights more, cooking with small appliances, using drying racks, unplugged a spare fridge, and put LED bulbs inside. Outside we put in solar lights and LED motion sensor lights than run on batteries that can be recharged in a wall or solar charger. I replaced most of the batteries with rechargeable ones. We bought solar Christmas lights for outside. We sold an old, energy hog, big screen TV and replaced it with a new energy efficient model. We let the dishwasher dishes air dry and are installing low flow shower heads. DH weather stripped doors.

We didn't do any major projects but all these little things added up. We still have a lot more ideas we have not had time yet to implement.

[Greenway]

If you have a whole-house cooling system that allows you to draw in air from outside without cooling it, use it to draw in warm air at times in the fall and spring when it’s warmer outside than in. (Just set your thermostat to a very low temperature and the unit will faithfully keep importing outside air to try to reach that unreachable low.) If you have a way of warming the air around the cooler like draping it loosely in black plastic or sheltering it from wind, even better.

For the dry Colorado climate, these may work well too:

Leave water in the bathtub after bathing (or showering) until it is cold. The heat from your bath or shower water will dissipate into the house instead of into the ground. (Of course, in summer drain it immediately so it does the opposite.)

If you use the dishwasher, don’t use the “dry” setting, turn it off and open the door. You will save electricity and the warm steamy air will come out into the room.

[lac]

Good ideas!

Since I work from home, I use a space heater to warm the room I stay in all day so the rest of the house can stay at 64 degrees. Sometimes I use a small electric blanket I got at Costco to warm me up on super chilly days.

[ApatheticNoMore]

With very minimal success ...

I wondered which color curtains would keep the apt cooler in summer 1) dark curtains because they block light 2) light curtains because dark curtains attract heat from the sun outside. I had dark curtains, I bought white curtains. The dark curtains keep the apt cooler, unlike the light ones they kept it cool all morning (I do have flimsy light blinds outside the curtains but they came with the apt and light goes right through them). I bought white curtains for nothing. With very minimal success ... yea, but an experiment for your benefit :~) - dark curtains are better for cooling. And that's not even speaking of the thermal curtains I actually returned to the store because they stunk so bad.

I have hung material that you would make an outdoor shade for over the outside windows to create shade over the windows, in theory this should make the place cooler. Though I have noticed no difference. I also have also a wooden matt hung over the inside of one window (not all of them because I need some light).

I am using 1/2 LEDs, I may prefer the old fashioned light bulbs though. No doubt the LEDS use less energy.

I periodically say I'm going to buy a toaster or convection oven or something to cook with in summer, I never do. I'm not sure it's even net saving anything when you think about the full lifecycle cost of the product (unless I happen to find one at the thrift store I guess - but then it might be old and not particularly energy efficient .... ).

At a certain point, these apts aren't well insulated, but then it's not a big space, the weather doesn't always need modification so .... utilities aren't that much either. The refrigerator coils I clean only when I remember and the foam insulation seals I could try.

[bae]

Put on a sweater.

http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/jimmy_carter.jpg

[Tussiemussies]

Good ideas!

Since I work from home, I use a space heater to warm the room I stay in all day so the rest of the house can stay at 64 degrees. Sometimes I use a small electric blanket I got at Costco to warm me up on super chilly days.

Hi lac,

Just a thought...electric blankets emit electromagnetic pollution...just for your FYI. Chris