Energy bills climbing? Here are three quick fixes
By: Greg Labbe - November 23rd, 2006
You’ve already changed all the incandescent light bulbs to more efficient compact fluorescents, installed low-flow water devices on all your faucets and showers and even fiddled with those pesky wires to install a programmable thermostat (if you have a hot water radiator system, consider www.thesmoother.com instead of a programmable thermostat). Here are few extra—and unconventional—DIY tips that will help save you energy this winter.
Change your furnace filter
The filter is one of those simple upgrades that are often overlooked. That’s too bad because it can really affect the efficiency of your furnace.Two things happen once your furnace filter gets clogged; you consume more electricity and gas and your flow bogs down. Without flow, the heat doesn’t get delivered, and your home gets uncomfortable. To make matters worse, your furnace will stay on longer and work much harder to make the thermostat happy. So even though prices for furnance filters went up 10-fold this summer, change your filter, and check it monthly!
I recommend a simple pleated filter that keeps the big pieces of dust off your furnace fan motor and squirrel cage fan. For more info and recommendations from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, go to www.cmhc.ca/en/co/maho/gemare/gemare_008.cfm.
Seal all trim
Imagine your house is a hot air balloon, which it is in winter. Your goal is to make it float up gracefully. If a hot air balloon has lots of leaks in it, it would never get off the ground. Even it does, the hot air will leak though and make it list lamely.
The stack effect means that most of your energy dollars are lost through the cracks in the top half of the house. (For more information on the how the stack effect works, go to www.oee.nrcan.gc.ca/residential/personal/new-home-improvement and click on How Does Heat Flow?) The taller and older the house, the more so the stack effect applies.
To fix the problem, get out your caulking gun. Wherever two different materials meet and form a crack or seam, seal it with a clean bead of caulking. (Clear latex is most forgiving, and matches everything). All interior cracks are game, including window trim, baseboards and ¼ round.
Consider using removable or strippable caulking on operable windows that leak, so you can peel it off in the spring. If the top half of your house goes really well, why not tackle the main floor?
Decisions, decisions, decisions
Every time you flick that switch, flush that toilet, or open that door you’ve made a decision to purchase energy. Your hands control how much you spend. Take control of your hands, and teach your children, roommates, and loved ones to turn it off, turn it down, and do without.The measures described above, while extremely cost effective, take a little doing. The last suggestion won’t cost you a penny, but will demand you change the way you currently do things.
If you don’t know where to start, check out Green Communities Canada, a national association of non-profit community-based organizations that deliver innovative environmental programs and services (toll free at 1-888-661-0000 or online at www.egh.gca.ca/index.php?en_greencommunities). In Toronto, you can call Green$aver 416-203-3106 (www.greensaver.org). They will send out a knowledgeable consultant to thoroughly check out your home, and make professional recommendations.