Great Tips To Start Saving: Part 15

Published January 1, 2011

Your Daily Savings Tips

This post is Part 15 of our original 21 part money saving series designed to help you find ways to spend less and save more. For more ideas see our Great Savings Tips page with a complete list of all our tips. Here are today’s tips you can put to work immediately:

45) Heat the room you are in, and turn down the furnace. If your home has rooms that can easily be closed off from each other and ceilings that aren’t too high, portable space heaters can help you save energy and keep you nice and warm. Turn down the thermostat for your entire home to a level that won’t cause your pipes to freeze. Settle on a temperature that is quite cool, yet one you can live with—say, fifty to sixty degrees. Put space heaters in each room that you use the most. When you enter a room, turn on the space heater. When you leave the room, turn it off. Excellent heaters for this purpose are the small electric, forced air types that blow a lot of air. These are low in cost, efficient, and quickly heat up an entire room. For a large room, use two if needed.

The way space heaters enable you to save energy is let you to keep most of your home quite cool, except for the room or two that you are using. The amount of energy it takes to heat a home is based on the difference between the inside air temperature desired and the actual air temperature outdoors. Therefore, by keeping the temperature in most of your home lower, your furnace doesn’t need to work as hard and your overall energy bill goes down.

Note: This tips only works if you’re heating a room or two at a time. It would not pay to heat your whole house with space heaters, because you would be heating it with electricity—your furnace is likely to use gas or another more efficient fuel. As a general rule, electricity is costly for heating an entire building.

Warning: Follow all safety precautions when using space heaters. Keep your heater away from flammable objects. If your electric heater dims the lights when you turn it on, you may be overloading an electrical circuit. Find another outlet or turn off other electrical appliances on the same circuit. Also, most kerosene or natural gas heaters are NOT recommended for indoor use. Without proper ventilation, they can cause indoor air pollution, which may pose a serious hazard to your health. No matter what kind of heater you use, it’s a good practice to buy a carbon-monoxide alarm to monitor your indoor air quality. You can find these at a local hardware store or online at Amazon.com.

Replace more of your lights with compact fluorescents.

46) Go to 100% fluorescent light bulbs in your home. It is likely you are already using some compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL’s) to save energy. What you may not be aware of is how much money you will save by going to 100% fluorescent lighting throughout your home. Lighting is one of the main electricity costs for a home, and fluorescent bulbs slash lighting costs to about a quarter of what they were before.

Here are some figures. An ordinary 60 watt light bulb kept on for 16 hours a day costs about $3.46 per month in electricity (based on typical power cost of 12 cents per kwhr).

By replacing that bulb with a 15 watt fluorescent that is equally bright, the cost of electricity drops to $.86 per month. This means that for every often-used 60 watt bulb you replace with a fluorescent, you’ll cut your power bill as much as $31 per year! For every often-used 100 watt bulb you replace with a 27 watt fluorescent, you’ll save up to $50 per year. Replace all of your bulbs, and your savings can become huge.

Fluorescent bulbs also save you money by lasting seven to ten times longer than ordinary bulbs. If you are not satisfied with the light output from a fluorescent bulb, be aware that it depends on the manufacturer. Watch for the number of “lumens” on the package—higher is brighter. Purchase a bulb as bright as you need in order to see well. (Note: do not use a fluorescent bulb in a circuit controlled by a dimmer switch unless the package specifically says you can. Also, fluorescents may not be appropriate for certain recessed lighting outlets.) For all the answers to your questions on CFL’s click here.

How good are your seals?

47) Seal your home from air leakage. Air leakage throughout a home may result in a 35% energy loss. That’s a huge waste and holds true whether you are heating or cooling. That is, in winter cold air leaks in and warm air leaks out. In summer, the reverse happens. You can’t see all of the many cracks and holes in your home that are allowing air to seep through. However, put them all together and they can add up to having a two or three foot wide hole in the wall.

Where does air leak in and out of your home? It leaks through cracks under doors, and all around doors and windows. It leaks through electrical outlets, and around plumbing vent pipes. It leaks through exhaust fans that don’t close up tightly when they are turned off. It leaks through recessed lights exposed to the attic. It leaks a between floor joists when the space is exposed to the outside. It leaks up the chimney, around the attic access door, and many other places. Click here for an excellent introduction to finding and sealing air leaks. For example, you can use better weather-stripping for the doors and windows, caulk cracks both inside and outside, use foam pads behind electrical outlet covers, and so on.

Important note: a building can become sealed so tightly that it creates air quality and moisture problems. There is considerable air pollution released by cooking, as well as from carpets, furniture, chipboard, and other synthetic materials. Homes with basements or exposed to the ground can acquire natural radon gas, which causes cancer. A furnace or gas appliance can release carbon monoxide. When you seal your home, have a heating and cooling technician check your home and its equipment for safety, and consider purchasing a carbon monoxide alarm. A sealed home also does not allow moisture to escape, so it can build up inside. To prevent these problems in a well sealed home, an air-to-air heat exchanger can be installed. It uses a fan to exchange inside air with outside air, while keeping all of the heat or cold where it belongs. It typically costs $200 to $500, and can be installed in a few hours. For some basic information on air-to-air heat exchangers from one seller of equipment, see smarthome.com. Or here is a complete and detailed introduction, a PDF file from North Dakota State University.

By Bill West