Five Ways To Cut Your Home's Utility Bills

With oil prices suddenly racing higher, gasoline isn't the only thing that's getting more expensive. Energy costs for your home are also going up, making it more advisable than ever to take steps to reduce consumption.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) offers dozens of things consumers can do to save energy, but five stand out as fairly easy to accomplish and provide a maximum bang for the buck.

Programmable thermostats

This is probably the biggest no-brainer on the list. Installing a thermostat that automatically controls your home's heating and cooling sources, providing comfort when you need it and removing it when you don't, will provide immediate pay-back.

You can save around 10 percent a year on your heating and cooling bills by simply turning your thermostat back 10 to 15 degrees for eight hours. And with a programmable thermostat, you don't have to remember to do it, you just program it and forget about it.

You can easily save energy in the winter by setting the thermostat to 68 degrees F while you're awake and setting it lower while you're asleep or away from home. By turning your thermostat back 10  to 15 degrees for  eight hours, you can save as much as 15 percent a year on your heating bill -- a savings of as much as one percent for each degree if the setback period is eight hours long.

The percentage of savings from setback is greater for buildings in milder climates than for those in more severe climates.

In the summer, you can follow the same strategy with central air conditioning by keeping your house warmer than normal when you are away and lowering the thermostat setting to 78 degrees F  only when you are home and need cooling. Although thermostats can be adjusted manually, programmable thermostats will avoid any discomfort by returning temperatures to normal as you wake or return home.

The fact that a programmable thermostat saves money in hot weather as well as cold weather makes it an especially good energy-saving investment. However, DOE advises that a programmable thermostat does not work very efficiently with a heat pump.

Update lighting

Known as the screw-in "A" type light bulb, standard incandescent lamps are the most common, but the most inefficient, light source available. These standard incandescent lamps produce light from a tiny coil of tungsten wire that glows when it is heated by an electrical current.

Larger wattage incandescent bulbs have a higher efficacy than smaller wattage bulbs. However, a larger wattage lamp or bulb may not be the most energy, or cost-effective option, depending on how much light is needed.

"Long-life" bulbs, with thicker filaments, are a variation of these A-type bulbs. Although these bulbs last longer than their counterparts, they are less energy efficient.

Many older indoor lighting fixtures trap a significant portion of light inside the fixture. Newer incandescent fixtures are designed to push all their light out into the room. Others use smaller tungsten halogen lamps. Advances in indoor fixture design include brighter reflectors and better reflecting geometry.

Many incandescent lamps also are mismatched to their tasks or application. Some have excessive wattages and therefore create unnecessarily high illumination.

For example, some outdoor fixtures tend to disperse much of their light beyond the intended area, which causes light pollution. This can be corrected by using lamps with smaller wattage.

A-type light bulbs can often be replaced with improved lamp designs, such as reflectors or tungsten halogen lamps. For energy savings of 60 to 75 percent, many incandescent lamps can be replaced by compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). A standard 18-watt CFL replaces a 75-watt A-type lamp. CFLs are especially economical in spaces where lights are needed for longer periods of time.

CFLs are also packaged in the same glass reflector lamps as incandescent lamps. Use CFLs packaged as ellipsoidal reflectors (type-ER) in recessed fixtures. Use reflector (R) or parabolic reflector (PAR) CFLs for flood and spotlighting. Some CFL fixtures have built-in electronic ballasts and polished metal reflectors.

When used in recessed fixtures, standard A-type lamps and reflector lamps waste energy because their light gets trapped. To save energy, you could replace a 150-watt standard reflector with a 75-watt ellipsoidal reflector (ER). Remember, though, that ER lamps are less efficient at delivering light from shallow fixtures, so use reflectors or parabolic reflectors for these purposes.

Artificial lighting consumes almost 15 percent of a household's electricity use. Use of new lighting technologies can reduce lighting energy use in homes by as much as 75 percent.

Tankless hot water systems

This is an example of spending money to save money, but keep in mind a tankless water system might not be efficient for every consumer, because the purchase price is much greater than for a traditional hot water tank.

With a traditional hot water tank, water is held in a large container and is heated to a consistent temperature by electric or gas heating elements. As hot water is consumed, cold water replaces it in the tank, which is then heated to the consistent temperature. Even if no hot water is used over a long period, energy is consumed maintaining the water at a constant temperature. A traditional water heater is a huge energy consumer in your home.

Demand (tankless or instantaneous) water heaters provide hot water only as it is needed. They don't produce the standby energy losses associated with storage water heaters, which can save you money.

Demand water heaters heat water directly without the use of a storage tank. When a hot water tap is turned on, cold water travels through a pipe into the unit. Either a gas burner or an electric element heats the water. As a result, demand water heaters deliver a constant supply of hot water. You don't need to wait for a storage tank to fill up with enough hot water.

However, a demand water heater's output limits the flow rate. Typically, demand water heaters provide hot water at a rate of two to five gallons per minute. Gas-fired demand water heaters produce higher flow rates than electric ones. Sometimes, however, even the largest, gas-fired model cannot supply enough hot water for simultaneous, multiple uses in large households.

For example, taking a shower and running the dishwasher at the same time can stretch a demand water heater to its limit. To overcome this problem, you can install two or more demand water heaters, connected in parallel for simultaneous demands of hot water. You can also install separate demand water heaters for appliances, such as a clothes washer or dishwater, that use a lot of hot water in your home.

However, unless you have a very large family and plan to live in your home for many more years, it might not make economic sense to spend the extra money on a demand system. Adding an insulation blanket to your traditional water heater and reducing the water temperature might be more effective ways to save energy and money.

Adding insulation

If your home was built before the 1980s, chances are it was not constructed with energy efficiency in mind. These days builders add generous layers of insulation to floors, attics and walls, to reduce the impact of outside temperatures.

If your home has little or no insulation, adding it can pay for itself in lower heating and cooling bills in just a few years.

To determine whether you should add insulation, you first need to find out how much insulation you already have in your home and where. A qualified home energy auditor will include an insulation check as a routine part of a whole-house energy assessment.

An energy assessment, also known as a home energy audit, will also help identify areas of your home that are in need of air sealing.

Insulation quality is measured in R values. The greater he R value, the more efficient it is. An energy auditor can tell you the approximate R value of your insulation and whether you should increase it.

How quickly adding insulation will pay off will be determined, in large part, by the climate in which you live. The more extreme the temperatures, the better the investment will be.

Storm doors

Adding a storm door can be a good investment if your existing door is old but still in good condition. However, adding a storm door to a newer, insulated door is not generally worth the expense since you won't save much more energy.

Storm door frames are usually made of aluminum, steel, fiberglass, or wood (painted or not). Wooden storm doors require more maintenance than the other types. Metal-framed storm doors might have foam insulation within their frames, for extra efficiency.

High-quality storm doors use low-emissivity (Low-E) glass or glazing. Some doors have self-storing pockets for the glass in summer, and an insect screen for the winter.

Some have fixed, full length screens and glass panels that slide out of the way for ventilation. Others are half screen and half glass, which slide past each other. Some are removable for cleaning, others are not. All of these features add some convenience and higher costs.

Never add a glass storm door if the exterior door gets more than a few hours of direct sun each day. The glass will trap too much heat against the entry door and possibly damage it.

Storm doors for patio doors are hard to find but they are available. Adding one to a new, multi-glazed, Low-E door is seldom economic. Insulated  drapes, when closed for the night in the winter (or on sunny days in the summer) may end up being a better idea.