Reduce Your Heating And Cooling Bills

In this article I will present ideas to help you reduce the cost of energy needed to heat or cool your house. Some of them are simple, free, and instantenous, others involve structural changes or replacing your appliances and have longer payback periods.

These are the basics and apply to house heating and cooling alike.

• Insulate your house to reduce heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer
  
• Caulk and weatherstrip your windows and doors.
• Test your ducting for leaks.
• Paint your house with an insulating paint.
• Install double or triple panes with low emissivity; they keep the heat inside in the winter and out in the summer. You may want to consider argon-filled windows.
  

The may incur an upfront cost, but they cost next to nothing to operate and apply to both heating and cooling.

• Install shading devices on the south-facing side of your house, such as awnings, overhangs (they will let the low winter sun in, and block the high summer sun), blinds or shutters (exterior shutters are more effective than interior ones). This will help you control the passive solar gain.
• Grow deciduous trees around your house or deciduous vines on your east and west facing windows. They will shade you in the summer, while allowing passive solar gain in the winter.
  
• Grow evergreen vines on the exterior walls of your house. They cut the amount of sunlight falling on the walls by up to 70% in the summer and reduce heat loss in the winter by up to 30%. Please note that some vines may damage certain types of structures, so choose your vines wisely. Alternatively you can use trellises.
• Increase your indoor thermal mass for higher thermal inertia, which will reduce the diurnal temperature swings. This could be thick walls (bricks with magnesium and water walls are especially good) but you can also use water drums (cheap, portable, no structural changes needed) or even furniture.
• If you live in a warm climate, use a reflective paint and paint the roof in light colors.

You can reduce your cooling bills considerably by changing your habits, the way you use the appliances you already have, or replacing them with cost-effective alternatives.

• At night, ventilate your attic where the hottest air accumulates. To make use of the natural breezes, open high vents on the leeward side and low vents on the windward side, to encourage the warmest air to escape. You can use solar fans to speed up the process.
• Use fans pointed at people instead of air conditioning. A fan won't lower the temperature, but it will add a chilling factor.
• If your summers are dry, use an evaporative cooler - it will actually lower the temperature in your living space, has a higher energy efficiency than a classical air conditioner, and you can use it indoors (ideally located near a north-facing or shaded open window, blowing inside) as well as outdoors. As an added bonus, it will increase the humidity.
• Replace your incandescent light bulbs with CFL or LED bulbs. They emit less heat, and as a bonus have a lower electricity consumption.
  
• Cook outside to prevent the kitchen for heating unnecessarily, e.g. using a barbecue, or build a solar oven to make use of free, green energy.
  

Similarly you can reduce the amount of energy needed to keep the room at the desired temperature in winter:

• If your winters are mild, replace your electric space heaters with air-based heat pumps (a heat pump can also work as an air conditioner). The energy efficiency of heat pumps in such conditions is 2-4 times that of electric space heaters.
  
• Roll down the blinds or close the shutters and curtains at night to reduce heat loss. Open them during the day on the south-facing side when the sun shines for passive solar gain.
• If you have wall radiators, put some reflective foil between them and the walls behind them to reflect the heat into the room. You can use cheap aluminum foil, the shiny side facing out, or buy foil made specially for this purpose at home improvement stores.
• Put cheap plastic sheets on your windows to further reduce heat loss.
  
• After taking a shower, don't ventilate the bathroom. Instead, leave the bathroom door open so the hot steam spreads to other rooms.
• If you have a fireplace, close the damper when you're not using it to keep the heat from escaping up the chimney. In some houses, up to 30% of the heat escapes this way. Also keep the fireplace door shut.
• Set your ceiling fan to blow upwards or use a portable fan and direct it upwards. This moves the warmer air from under the ceiling to the lower parts of the room.
• Only heat the rooms you're using and close off the rest of your house.

To further reduce the costs of heating you may want to consider lowering your thermostat setting by a few degrees. Some ideas that will help you stay comfortable despite the lower temperature:

• Put rugs on bare floors.
• Use personal heaters such as heating pads, seat warmers, etc.
• Wear warm socks.
  
• Turn off the heating for the night and use more blankets.

To further reduce the costs of heating you may want to consider lowering your thermostat setting by a few degrees. Some ideas that will help you stay comfortable despite the lower temperature:

• Put rugs on bare floors.
• Use personal heaters such as heating pads, seat warmers, etc.
• Wear warm socks.
  
• Turn off the heating for the night completely and use more blankets.