Eight Easy Things You Can Do to Save Energy and Money at Home

One of the nice things about saving energy is that it not only reduces pollution, but it can also save you money. At the same time that your electricity and heating bills are going down, you can think about all the extra coal, oil, and natural gas that would have been burned if you hadn’t taken steps to save energy.

Among the many ways to save energy, here are eight easy ones that are guaranteed to save you money:

If you wash your clothes in cold water, you will find that they still end up clean. Most modern liquid laundry soaps are designed to work well in cold water as well as hot. Hot water is generally only necessary for heavily stained clothes. By washing your clothes in cold water, you will eliminate the majority of the environmental impacts, since 90% of the energy involved in machine washing clothes goes to heating the water, not to running the machine.

A microwave only uses one-third the energy of a conventional oven. It therefore allows you to cut down on your consumption of electricity or natural gas. Because it throws off less heat into your kitchen, you will also keep your kitchen cooler and save on summer air-conditioning costs (if you have an air conditioner). The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (www.aceee.org) has estimated the relative costs and energy use of different methods for cooking the same casserole. What would take an hour in a 350-degree electric oven takes only one-quarter of that, or fifteen minutes, in a microwave. The difference in energy used and expense is even greater–2.0 kilowatt-hours and 16 cents versus 0.36 kilowatt-hours and 3 cents. Other options–a crockpot, a toaster oven, a frying pan, a gas oven, and an electric convection oven–are also better than the large electric oven, but they are all two to nearly four times worse than the microwave.

Let’s imagine you live in a household where there are five people who each take a seven-minute daily shower. If you have an old-fashioned shower head that uses five gallons of water a minute, your household will use about 64,000 gallons of water a year for shower. The federal government requires that new showerheads use no more than 2.5 gallons per minute. By converting to one of these, you will save 32,000 gallons of water a year and will need to heat much less water in your home’s water heater. You will save money on both your water and energy bills. And, you can even find showerheads that use less than the 2.5-gallon standard. If you are handy, you will find it easy to replace that old showerhead with just a wrench.

Of course, you will save the most electricity if you don’t use an air conditioner at all, but if you are going to use one, you can make sure it is operating efficiently. An air conditioner won’t have to work as hard if the outside part is in a relatively cool place. Try to place the air conditioner in a shady location. It’s best if it can be on the north side of the building, away from the summer sun. However, note that there needs to be good air flow around the air conditioner, so don’t put it in the middle of some bushes. Use a Little Weatherstripping and Caulking

Most lighting in homes consists of ordinary incandescent light bulbs, which convert electricity to light by heating a filament. The technology has not changed much since Thomas Edison. They are horrendously inefficient, however; only about 10 percent of the electricity used produces visible light, while the rest goes into heat. Since the 1980s compact fluorescent lighting has provided an alternative that is three to four times more efficient. Replacing just one 75-watt incandescent bulb with an 18-watt compact fluorescent will save about 570 kilowatt-hours of electricity over the fluorescent’s 10,000-hour lifetime. That means, if the mix of fuels used to produce the electricity is typical, just one compact fluorescent will eliminate the burning of 300 pounds of coal. And, because fluorescents last longer, you won’t have to keep changing the bulb. Over the life of the compact fluorescent, you’ll probably save between $5 and $15 per year.

Many people have purchased halogen torchieres because they are inexpensive to buy. But because they use lots of electricity, they are expensive to operate. A single halogen torchiere used 8 hours a day can cost $70 in a electricity each year. And halogen torchieres are a fire hazard. According to the Alliance to Save Energy (www.ase.org), "The heat produced by these lamps is extreme–reaching 1,000 F, hot enough to fry an egg on top of the fixture. Curtains and scraps of paper can be easily ignited by the heat these lamps produce. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has cited these cheap lamps as the cause of 189 fires and 11 deaths since 1992." So, choose a different sort of lighting. A compact fluorescent torchiere will serve the same purpose but will be safer and much kinder to the environment and to your pocketbook.

Even when they are not in use, many appliances like televisions and VCRs continue to use small amounts of electricity for things like their clocks and remote controls. If you have a rarely used appliance, such as a TV in a guest room, pull its plug and then plug it in on those rare occasions when it is going to be used. In a similar vein, turn off your computer and other home office equipment when they are not going to be used for extended periods of time. You are just wasting money and electricity by keeping a computer printer, for example, on 24 hours a day 7 days a week. [Yes, we know it’s better to avoid turning computers repeatedly on and off, but neither do most people need to have them on all the time.]

For more suggestions on saving energy at home, see "Power Smart: Easy Tips to Save Money and the Planet" on the web site of the Alliance to Save Energy (www.ase.org) or read the more comprehensive book, The Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings by Alex Wilson et al. The most recent edition of this handy guide was published in November 1999.