Tips for Making Energy Efficient
Changes to Your Home

Easy steps to make an existing
home more energy efficient

-Make sure all of your home’s doors and windows are properly sealed.
Reducing air leaks with proper weather stripping, caulking, and sealing, is an inexpensive and fast way to cut down your heating and cooling expenses.  The Insulation and Weatherization page of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Saver guide is a great resource for this.

-Take measures to properly insulate your home.
One of the best ways to save energy in the home is to properly insulate it.  This may cost just a few hundred dollars, but the benefit that such an investment can yield can save you much more over time, as well as greatly increasing the comfort of your home.  If you experience problems with summer heat or winter cold, proper insulation can help by making the temperature in your home more uniform and easier to control.  To find out what sort of insulation is recommended for the climate you live in, visit the U.S. Department of Energy’s insulation page.  This page will gather information about where you live and the existing insulation values of your home, and then make recommendations on how to improve your insulation.

-Purchase energy star appliances.
Appliances with the Energy Star label have been identified as the most energy efficient in their class.  A high efficiency rating means that the appliance will cost you less to operate it over the seminar of its lifetime. 

-Use compact fluorescent light bulbs.
Compact fluorescent light bulbs consume one quarter the energy of incandescent bulbs, and last about eight times as long.  Replacing 25% of the light bulbs in your house with compact fluorescent bulbs will cut your lighting energy bill in half.  These light bulbs are available at most department and hardware stores.  The Consumer Energy Center does an excellent job at illustrating the advantages of these bulbs.

-Use trees to provide shading and windbreaks.
By shading your house from the sun and wind with well-placed trees, you can reduce your heating and cooling bill by up a quarter.  Plant deciduous trees to block the sun in the summer and allow it through in the winter.  Plant coniferous trees to block the wind in the winter.  The U.S. Department of Energy offers a very helpful guide to energy efficient landscaping (PDF). 

-Wrap your hot water heater.
Wrapping your hot water heater will cost you very little, but it can reduce the amount of heat you lose through the walls of the tank by 25-40%.  The wrapping process is fairly simple, and instructions can be found at powerhousetv.com and homestore.com.    

-Install aerators and low-flow showerheads.
These devices reduce the amount of water you use, and thus the amount of water you need to heat.  Eartheasy tells why you should install one of these devices, as well as how to do it. 

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