How to save energy and money around the home
Technology is a wonderful thing, but sometimes, the best solutions are low-tech solutions. The current financial crunch means that we all need to learn better ways of saving and spending our money. Making home improvements can help with both.
Oil prices have been all over the board lately. Buying gas has become a lot like playing roulette. Can I find gas for my car and secondly, what price will it be?
As cold weather begins to creep onto the scene, another oil related worry arrives as well. Will heating oil be readily available and affordable when I need it? All indicators point to “maybe” and “maybe” coupled with “we’ll see”.
The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that U. S. households will spend, on average, 15.3% more this winter than last winter. Residential energy use accounts for 21% of the total energy consumption in the United States.
By spending a little money on your house to seal air leaks and improve insulation, you accomplish two things: 1. save on your energy costs and 2. cut down on energy use. This is also known as saving cash and going green.
Before heading out to Home Depot or calling a contractor, DOE has some good information for homeowners on where to start, what to look for, and how to go about making the changes necessary to save energy.
Begin with DOE’s Your Home page. There you can find links to other pages like: You’re Homes Energy Use, Home Improvement Tools, The Home Energy Saver, Save Energy with Home Improvements, No or Low-Cost Ways to Save Energy, and Saving Energy in Your Apartment.
DOE’s pages provide information to make the job of discovering the problem areas and improving them easier. For instance, to find where your house is leaking air, use a lit incense stick around doors, windows and other openings. By noting any change in smoke, you know if that is an area that needs improvement. Simple things like using weather stripping around doors can help tremendously.
The information from DOE is both useful and free. A great combination, especially since our tax dollars were used to collect and collate the information provided and to develop the website.
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