Energy Saving Tips

Making Your Home More Energy Efficient

Most Hillsboro homeowners work hard for their money. Why sit by while it slips through the cracks? There are simple and inexpensive steps that you can take to make your Oregon home more energy efficient and these solutions often bring big returns. As a bonus, they benefit the environment as well as the family piggy bank. In this article we look at some simple and inexpensive ways to reduce energy consumption in the home.

Cover Windows and Seal Your Doors

Heat lost through windows and doors represents a significant chunk of most heating bills. Some sources estimate that loss through windows alone could account for up to 35 percent of heating bills. If you are tired of watching your hard earned money slip through the cracks, there are things that you can do:

Caulk around the doorway to keep out drafts.
Check around windows and doors with a candle or a light piece of thread on a windy day to determine where drafts are. This will reveal problem areas in need of immediate attention. Remove and replace damaged caulk and weather-stripping. Self-stick foam and rolled rubber weather-stripping are easy to install, and can contribute greatly to your home's efficiency.

An inexpensive method of weatherizing windows involves attaching thin, clear plastic film to the window trim inside of the house using two-sided tape. The film is then stretched taut using heat from a blow dryer to remove wrinkles and creases.

Decorate your windows with efficiency — closed shutters, window shades, blinds, curtains and lined draperies. All contribute to energy savings by helping to insulate windows.

For a long-range solution, consider installing efficient replacement windows, or storm windows and doors.

Develop Practical Energy Conservation

You can reduce your energy expenditures simply by developing energy saving habits:

Showers usually require less hot water than baths. Additional savings can be realized by installing simple water-saving shower heads. This will reduce water consumption, which is good for everyone. The primary benefit is lower heating bills brought about by using less energy to heat less water.

Use heat-generating appliances such as washers, dryers or ovens during the cooler hours of the morning or evening. This reduces the load on your air conditioner in the summer, and actually helps heat the house in the winter.

Electric cooktops are energy drains. Use the appropriate burner for your pan size. Also, flat bottom pots make better contact and conduct heat from the elements more efficiently than pots with warped or rounded bottoms.

Wash only full loads of clothes when possible and clean your dryer's lint filter after every load.

Consider replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Fluorescent bulbs put out approximately four times as many lumens per watt. For example, a 25 watt fluorescent bulb provides as much light as a 100 watt incandescent bulb. Fluorescent bulbs also last about ten times as long!

In the summer, keep drapes and curtains closed on the sunny side of the house. In the winter, open those drapes and curtains on sunny days to take advantage of the sun's heating power. Close all drapes, blinds or shades at night in winter to make use of their insulating properties.

Use an exhaust fan to pull excess heat and humidity out of the kitchen and bathroom in the summer. Be aware, however, that exhaust fans can rapidly pull the heat from your house in the winter.

Perhaps the most often quoted hint for saving energy in the home is to set thermostats at 68° F in the winter and 78° F in the summer.