Or: The Bare Minimum
Before we start thinking too hard, let’s step back for a moment and make sure we’ve got the basics covered. At the risk of sounding like the guy on tech support who asks you if your computer is plugged in, have you already taken care of the quick and easy items that are on every “save energy” checklist? You know, the stuff that every other home website will tell you about, that your utility company reminds you about when they send your bill, and that your dad has been telling you since you were a kid?
Not all of these are equally important from an energy-saving perspective, but they are all equally easy, so there is no excuse not to be doing them. In no particular order (note that this list includes affiliate links):
- Do you still have any incandescent light bulbs in your house, on your ceiling or in lamps? If so, replace them with LEDs today. Don’t wait for the incandescents to burn out. (But do check to see if your utility offers a rebate on LED bulbs, or even free bulbs.) This was already the right move as long as ten years ago, as the ever-sensible Mr. Money Mustache argued convincingly at the time, and it’s even more true now. At today’s lower bulb prices, LEDs will pay for themselves in electricity savings in no time, and you can get them in just about any bulb type and color “temperature” you want. Compact fluorescent bulbs (the little spiral ones) are efficient enough that you might want to wait for them to burn out before replacing with LEDs; the article in the previous link will tell you how to decide.
- Do you make sure to turn off the lights when you leave a room? The TV? What about fans? Yes, that’s right—fans cool people, not rooms, so make sure to turn yours off when no one’s around.
- Do you turn the heat and air conditioning down or off when you’re not home? Even better, do you own a programmable thermostat so that you don’t have to remember to do this? To the extent possible, do you avoid heating and cooling rooms you’re not using?
- Do you have your water heater temperature set to 120 °F, or is it set higher? Do you turn it down or switch it to vacation mode when you’re out of town? (Important: see footnote—a reader alerted me to some considerations when lowering your water temperature.)*
- Do you use a microwave or toaster oven to cook or reheat individual portions, rather than heating up your whole oven to do it?
- Do you keep your windows and doors closed when you’re using heat or air conditioning? (Yes, this a thing some people need to be told.) What about the damper in your fireplace?
- Do you have any furniture or other objects in front of your heating or cooling vents? (I know, I know; see above.)
I’ll be following up in the future with more in-depth articles about most of the above points. But for now, let me know if there’s anything obvious I missed—again, I am trying to stick to the truly cheap and easy stuff here. Unlike the list from my utility that recommends “turn of the lights” right before “upgrade your appliances.”
Next up: more really easy energy savings. All you need is the right mindset.
*Setting your water heater to 120 °F is standard energy-saving advice, and furthermore it is the default setting on every new water heater I’ve seen in the US. That said, a reader alerted me that 120 °F is not quite hot enough to kill Legionella, the type of bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease—a rare condition that can be fatal, especially to vulnerable groups. After doing some reading, my personal takeaway is that individuals who are elderly or immunocompromised should probably keep their water heaters set to 140 °F. Doing so, however, increases the risks of scalding, particularly for little kids like the ones I’ve got in my house, so I haven’t raised our temperature yet. (There are plumbing solutions to help mitigate the scalding risk.) I would be curious whether periodically increasing water heater temp—say, once a month—would help reduce the bacteria risk, or if it truly needs to be hot all the time. Please read up a bit on the subject and make your own assessment of the risk—see writeup at this water heater safety site and also this Green Building Advisor article, including comments.