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If you feel that energy bills are taking a big chunk of change out of your pocket, you are not alone. Americans spend more than $115 billion each year on fuel and electricity for their homes. On the average, heating and cooling (space conditioning) account for about 45% of the energy a home uses. Water heating consumes about 14%, and appliances and other sources consume about 41%. Though energy use varies among homes, there are many ways to lower your energy bills.
Investments in products or systems designed to save energy can provide a return through future savings from lower energy bills. They also reduce the impact of rising fuel prices and usually help improve the environment. However, poor choices of such products or systems can be disappointing and aggravating. Whether you are buying a new heating system or "tightening up your home," be sure to investigate the options before investing.
Knowing Your Needs
An energy audit is one of the best ways to determine the most cost-effective measures for reducing energy bills. Energy audits can locate areas where energy is wasted and can determine the efficiency of your heating and cooling systems. Energy audits vary in complexity. You can perform a simple audit yourself by examining your home for obvious leaks or ensuring that appliances work efficiently.
More thorough audits can be conducted by "house doctors," who usually work in teams using special equipment such as blower doors, infrared cameras, furnace efficiency instruments, and surface thermometers. This equipment allows them to find inefficiencies that a visual inspection could not detect. House doctors also analyze previous energy bills and implement some energy efficiency measures at the time of the audit. This type of energy audit, however, may be relatively expensive.
Some utilities offer energy audits for free or for a nominal charge. The extent of these audits varies. Auditors from utilities may or may not use special equipment such as blower doors and infrared cameras, and they may or may not check the performance of your heating system.
Determining Your Priorities
Results from the energy audit can direct you to the changes that would be most appropriate to improve the energy efficiency, or "tightness," of your home. Before you purchase an energy-related product or system, though, you should answer some important questions.
What are your budgetary limits? Which areas are causing your greatest energy losses? How long can you wait for the investment to pay for itself in energy savings? How much time and money are you willing to spend on maintenance and repair? Are you investing solely to save on energy bills or are other factors also important?
Many options that improve energy efficiency are available. Although installing caulk, weatherstripping, and insulation may not be as exciting or impressive as a ground-source heat pump, such energy efficiency measures are very often cost effective. Indeed, if you decide to install a heating or cooling system, you should first ensure that your home is properly weatherized. Using energy efficiently reduces demands for heating, cooling, and electricity, thereby allowing a smaller, less expensive system to be used.
Because of the high percentage of your energy bill that goes toward conditioning the air in your home, detecting heat losses and gains is a great place to start when deciding what measures may improve the energy efficiency of your home. Leaky windows and doors, open fireplace dampers, poorly insulated attics and walls, and cracks and holes in the walls and ceiling are all areas where heat can escape in the winter and enter in the summer. Heat can also escape through light fixtures and switches, electrical outlets, and leaky ducts.
Appliances and equipment can also have a tremendous effect on your energy costs. Hot water heaters, stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers,and clothes dryers can contribute to excessively high energy bills when they operate inefficiently. Poorly sized and inefficient heating and cooling systems can lead to high costs for space conditioning.
When you decide to implement energy efficiency measures, you can determine the most appropriate product or system by investigating the options. The energy efficiency projects addressed here are divided into two categories—weatherization projects and energy-efficient appliances.
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