Tips at Home

If you own or rent a home, chances are you use a lot of energy for heating and cooling, appliances, water heating, and lighting. In fact, the average North American house produces six and a half tons of carbon dioxide every year from the energy it uses in these areas.

Home heating and cooling in the USA accounts for 60% of the energy used in the home. By doing a few little things to improve the energy efficiency home heating, we can make a dramatic impact on our personal savings and reduce the demand for energy production that contributes to pollution. But, there are other easy things you can do that will put dollars in your pocket and benefit our communities. Look at the chart below to see how we use energy to help you find other places at home where you can save energy.

Space Heating and Cooling

Go automatic with a programmable thermostat.

This little gizmo turns the heat up and down automatically. It can be set lower for times when you are sleeping and set to heat up just before you get up in the morning - and set to a lower temperature when you head out of the house. By installing one in your home your family can save 10% or more of its heating costs.

Don’t let your furnace choke you out of savings.

While this isn’t a job for you, a properly tuned furnace burns cleaner and saves energy.

Seal a deal at the door.

You can reduce your heating bills by a whopping 25 % by putting proper weather stripping in your house where it leaks and caulking doors and windows.

Go undercover.

Use drapes or blinds to cover your windows at night, in winter and during the day in summer.

Who says money doesn’t grow on trees.

Trees and shrubs near patio doors and large windows help insulate during Winter and provide shade in Summer.

Appliances

Appliances account for about 7% of household electricity use. By choosing energy efficient appliances, a lot less electricity is required. Using less electricity means that less manufacturing of energy is required. That means lower energy bills and less pollution.

Is your refrigerator running? You’d better go catch it.

These use the most energy of any home appliance. Make sure the refrigerator isn’t sitting in direct sunlight or any other heat sources. If you buy a new refrigerator, look for the Energy Star label when you’re shopping and unplug your old one. By replacing ten-year-old refrigerators with new Energy Star models, you could save enough energy to light your home for over three months. Use the EnerGuide Appliance Directory to choose an energy efficient model. Visit http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/appliances.

End the washday blues.

Front-loading machines also use one-third less water, one-third less energy, and one-third less detergent.

These appliances:

• clean clothes using 50% less energy than standard machines;
• use 72 - 100 litres of water per load for a full size washer instead of 160 litres;
• extract more water from clothes during the spin cycle, reducing drying time and saving energy and wear-and-tear on your clothes.

Get unplugged.

Many appliances use power even when they are switched off, and some of them use as much power as when they are turned on. A large number of electrical products – from air conditioners to VCR’s – can’t be completely switched off without unplugging the device. These products draw power 24 hours a day, often without us even realizing it. Use power bars to turn them off when not in use.