What you can do for under $100 to lower your energy costs

Have you noticed the “fuel surcharge” on your electric bill lately? I am sure you have. Have you also noticed, and read, the little colored inserts in your electric bill each month? My first tip is to not complain about the surcharge without first taking the advice of those flyers. Almost every month GVEA gives us helpful hints on how to lower our electric bill. You can find a complete list on the GVEA site, www.gvea.com, but here are just a few;

1. contact GVEA online or on the phone (452-1151) and schedule a Home Sense audit. For a nominal fee GVEA will send out a technician to evaluate your home’s energy consumption and show you ways to save money with very little, if any, money.
2. change out your incandescent light bulbs with CFLs. These compact florescent bulbs cost more to buy, but they use 1/4 the energy of incandescents, last ten times as long, and over their lifetime will save you many times the cost of the bulbs in lower electric bills.
3. unplug all unused electric appliances when not in use. It is estimated 15% of the average home electric usage is in the “phantom” power used to keep these appliances in a standby mode. We put all our tv, vcr, dvd player cords in one power strip we can turn off after use.
4. according to Jim Lee of Interior Weatherization, the biggest bang for the buck as far as energy savings goes is to install a low flow shower head. For a cost of $30-50 and ten minutes to install,you can save several times the cost each year in lowered electric costs. If your hot water heater is on your furnace, it will save you fuel.
5. wrap your hot water heater with an insulating blanket to keep the heat in the tank.
6. take shorter showers.
7. turn the hot water heater temperature down from the factory pre-set (usually 140 degrees) to 120 degrees.

Now to home heating costs. As with any other form of energy, the cheapest unit of energy is the one not used, so the trick, as always, is first to use less.

1. use the same tips for hot water heaters above if your hot water comes from the furnace.
2. turn the thermostat down one or two degrees, summer and winter.
3. install a set-back thermostat that regulates heat output during different use periods of the day. This is especially helpful in businesses, where nobody is in the building for 12-16 hours a day 
4. weatherstripping and caulking are inexpensive and easy to apply and should be one of the first items to consider when deciding what to do to increase the energy efficiency of your home. Good advice can be had from the folks who sell them.

Don’t forget to also check out some of the other links in the right hand column for more information.