Top Ten Ways To Save Money and Energy

HomeDepot.com released a very helpful page that gives readers a very simple and easy to follow approach towards saving money and energy in their home. This really hit home for me because many of these items on the list are very simple to achieve.

Here is a summary of the list:

1. Install a Programmable Thermostat: This makes sense because I can’t fall asleep if it is hot in my room, so I set my thermostat really low so it gets very cold. However, once I am asleep, nothing will wake me up. I can easily program my thermostat to a higher temperature in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t know any differently.
2. Change To CFL Light Bulbs: These bulbs work. Don’t get scared of the expensive price. I haven’t converted every single bulb in my house; however, the ones I have, I haven’t changed them in two years. A 25 Watt CFL bulb performs no differently than a 40 Watt.
3. Purchase Only Energy Star Qualified Appliances: Very true, this makes a huge difference. Check out this post that talks about the EnergyGuide Label.
4. Upgrade Your Exterior Doors: This makes a huge difference. Our home is an older home and we changed out our exterior doors a few years ago. Prior to doing so, I could just feel the heat coming in through the cracks and radiating in over the metal.
5. Upgrade The Windows In Your Home: That is next on our list of To-Do-Items. Double Pane windows or high rated windows are for sure worth the investment. Just like exterior doors heat and cold can come right through the glass and more energy will be needed to keep your home to a comfortable temperature.
6. Install Dimmer Switches and Motion Detectors: That totally makes sense. There are times when I would love to have my lights dimmed. The only choice I have is Off or On and sometimes neither are a comfortable lighting situation for me.
7. Install a Ceiling Fan: A typical ceiling fan consumes around 45 watts of power per hour. A typical window air conditioner unit consumes around 1500 watts per hour. Need I say more? A ceiling fan typically has two rotation setting. You can choose to circulate air up towards the ceiling or circulate it down towards the floor.
8. Change Filters on Central Heat / Air Unit: I totally agree with this. An air conditioner unit will work harder towards sucking in outside air if the air filter isn’t clean.
9. Seal Off Home From Heat / Cold: Very true, there are all kinds of little cracks and holes that can be filled. An example is when our cable installed installed cable and had to drill a small hole in our floor. Since then our cable has been replaced with a different service and the hole remained in the floor. I have since filled that hole.
10. Update Insulation In Home: This is extremely important and in many ways should be #1 on the list. Poor insulation in your home is, in my opinion, the number one cause of wasted money and energy.

With that said, here is my little contribution to the list. I am a geek and so are you! So here are the top five ways a geek can save money and energy!

Top Five Ways A Geek Can Save Money or Energy:

1. Turn your computer off at night. Even a computer on standby mode consumes energy. If you don’t use your computer, then there is no need to have it remain turned on.
2. If you don’t turn off your computer at night, then at least turn off your monitor. I can understand reasons why you don’t want to turn your computer off; however, there is absolutely no reason to keep your monitor on when your computer is not being used. Look at the label on the back of your monitor and you’ll be surprised to see how much energy it consumes.
3. Turn your television off at night. Same thing as your computer and computer monitor. A television consumes a ton of energy. Unlike a computer, a television doesn’t have a standby mode, so the option to reduce the power consumption isn’t there. Most all televisions come with a sleep timer. Also, if you have a big TV, indeed check the back of the unit and look at the label. You will be shocked to see how much power it consumes. My 60 Inch television takes up 650 Watts / hour.
4. Charge your mobile devices while driving. Instead of charging your cell phone, PDA, GPS systems, etc.. in the house using AC power, simply charge them while driving your car. Granted, we aren’t talking about a lot of savings here, but if one million people did this, it would make a big difference.
5. Reduce the Brightness on your laptop screen. Doing so preserves the life of your battery and reduces the number of times you’ll have to plug in to wall to recharge your battery.

* BONUS TIP FOR GEEKS!

As a bonus here is one extra tip that will help you save money and energy. Geeks love to eat cooked frozen pizza because it is easy to cook and buys them time to continue doing their geeky things on the computer. I don’t know about you, but it seems like 9 out of the 10 times I cook a frozen pizza, I end up burning it.

Cook your frozen pizza at a lower temperature than what the box says to. You are going to forget about it anyways, and instead of burning it, it will be cooked very nicely and not burned and you would have saved money doing it. If the box suggests to cook the pizza at 450 degrees, cook the pizza at 400 instead.

It takes more energy to heat your oven and maintain it to 450 degrees compared to 400. Also, an awesome way to save energy is to NOT cook your frozen pizza in your conventional oven. Use a toaster oven instead. A typical toaster oven consumes 1500 Watts of power while a conventional oven consumes around 3500 Watts.

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