home energy program – Save Money Cutting Your Home Energy Bill – free article courtesy of ArticleCity.com
Save Money Cutting Your Home Energy Bill
by: Dr. Deepak Dutta
Heating bills are rising up in every part of the country and the trend will continue because of World energy demands. The average US household expense on energy bills is estimated at 6% of the income in 2005, compared to 4% in 2003. Owners of efficient new houses spend considerably less than the people living in old houses. Financial burden due to increased energy expenses can be reduced by weatherizing and conserving.
Your house can be energy deficient in plumbing, insulation or heating. In many old houses, the biggest problem is not the cold air coming from windows but the air filtration from the basement due to floor joists and the structures supporting the floor. In an average American home, 50%-70% of the energy used goes to heating and cooling. If your house is built before 1980, it may no have adequate insulation. While most owners focus on attic insulation, they should not ignore the basement ceiling. Fiber glass is not a good insulation material as air flows right through it. Use spray foam or cellulose as an insulation materials for proper insulation.
Caulk and weather-strip all doors and windows that leak air. Look for all plumbing, ducting and electrical wiring the penetrates through exterior walls and seal those to prevent hot air leaking out. Keep the flue damper tightly closed when the fire place is not in use. If you are planning to change windows in your house, shop for insulating windows and install them as tight fitting as possible. You can use heavy duty clear plastic sheet to the inside of your window and seal them properly to prevent any leak.
Another areas where home owners can focus to reduce their energy bill is conservation. If you have an old thermostat, replace it with a new electronics control thermostat with digital readouts.. An electronics control thermostat is more precise than an dial type thermostat. Better, yet, is a programmable thermostat that you can program for the different hours of the day and night. Replace air filters regularly. If your house has a hot water radiator, bleed it once or twice during the winter season. If you don’t know how to do this, search in the Internet or get the help of a professional.
When you buy new appliances, look for the “Energy Star label. Energy Star labeled appliances are certified to be energy efficient. Most appliances now display a bright yellow and black Energy Guide label. These labels will tell you the average energy consumption cost of the appliance. While shopping for any appliance, do not forget to take into account this cost as another factor to evaluate before you make your final decision. You can find more energy tips at www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/tips.
About The Author
Dr. Deepak Dutta is the creator of http://www.semanticbay.com - an interactive social network website based on user shared text and picture contents on any topics. Website creators, publishers, and maintainers can promote their website at SemanticBay.com using website articles. Users can join for free, invite friends, maintain buddy lists, rate contents, comments on contents and earn points.
The energy prices have gone up in the last few years all over the country and people have been starting to ask about alternative energy solutions. This is one of those things that must be done. Energy efficient solutions must be applied in every home.
This could be also looked upon as a business decision since a house that is more cost efficient will get a better price on the market. This means that any investment you will now make into your home and into more efficient energy solutions will be something you can benefit from later on.
The US government has already created an energy efficient home ranking program and this will help citizens save money and also protect the environment by using alternative energy solutions. This energy efficiency testing program will grade homes on some strict energy guidelines. This way, an owner will have a clear certificate that states his home is energy efficient. The house will have a bigger value on the market.
If you imagine that energy saving solutions means renovating the entire home, you are wrong. There are small steps you can do and they do not cost much. For example, you can start by replacing, one by one, the appliances in your home and get better ones, which save energy. Did you know that by using energy efficient appliances you can save up to 30% from your energy bill? It is true. Even a small change like using a compact fluorescent light bulb instead of an incandescent one can make a difference.
Studies show that this small move will save you $60 in 8 years. And this is just by replacing one bulb and not all of them. The incandescent bulbs are using 4 times much more energy than the fluorescent ones and the government is trying to get people to give up on them.
Kathy Price-Robinson has stated that in US there are about 500.000 homes that were submitted to the energy efficiency test and by the end of 2010 there will be 2 million homes rated. "That is a small step in comparison to the over 128 million homes in the United States today that are not rated; however, it is surely a step in the right direction," Price-Robinson added.
This program will not solve the problem with our increasing bills but it will give us an idea about how to act and how to find energy efficient solutions.
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