Lower Energy Bills
Hints and tips on reducing your monthly expenditure on home energy.A warmer winter may mean lower heating costs
According to Consumers Energy, heating the home accounts for approximately 40 percent of household energy consumption.Reducing drafts, or air infiltration, can reduce heating costs by 5 to 30 percent yearly, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The most likely places for these leaks are around windows and doors, outlets, light switches, light fixtures, wires and pipes. Make sure that these are all insulated properly.
It is suggested to turn off combustion appliances like furnaces and water heaters, close all doors and windows and turn on any exhaust fan in the home. This causes the existing air in the home to be pulled out, which is in turn replaced by air seeping in from the outside through cracks and gaps.
Once gaps or air leaks are located use caulk or weather stripping to repair the leak.
Next, it is advised to check outside the home and to inspect all areas where two different building materials meet. There may be a gap in any of those places. If not properly sealed, use calk or insulation to seal the gaps. Additionally, regular furnace maintenance can ensure that the equipment is running efficiently.
Comments
It's quiet in here...Add your commentCombined Heating and Power (Co-generation)
Combined Heating and Power (Co-generation) This is actually a pretty old concept. It's immensely logical to be efficient in how one uses energy. Why use Energy source A) to heat your house and Energy Source B) to put electricity into ... (more)
Heating Oil Prices
Heating Oil Prices Reduce the amount you spend on your home heating oil. It's not too hard, provided you do a bit of homework and make a few changes. Understand Heating Oil Know how heating oil fits in your home; read the home heating ... (more)
Energy
Energy We're a bit on the ecofreak side (okay, being honest, we're A LOT on the eco-freak side). And energy usage is a big part of human impacts on the planet. So thinking global but acting micro-local, we spend a lot of time thinking about ... (more)
Feed-in Tariffs explained
Homeowners with spare cash and a desire to help meet UK carbon emission targets have been through some tumultuous times. As with all new technologies, solar electricity needs financial assistance from the state, and how this is determined ... (more)
UK Government backtracking on FiT cuts?
Has the Government backed down on its feed-in tariff cut? On 29 December 2011 it published a report (for the benefit of the EU) entitled "First Progress Report on the Promotion and Use of Energy from Renewable Sources for the United Kingdom ... (more)
Could oil be the magic ingredient for solar power?
In what seems to be an ironic twist of fate for that environment bad-boy, oil, the next big thing in solar cell production may depend on oil itself. Two US-based research teams - at Florida and at Texas - are applying plastic technologies ... (more)
Cloudflare for Better Web Performance?
There is a company that offers a firewall service fir your web hosting, and it does this using the so-called 'cloud'. Furthermore, its starter package is free! The company is CloudFlare Inc. So, what do you get? There is monitoring for ... (more)
Waterproof clothing and Biological detergents
One of John's cycling jackets says "Do not wash in biological detergents." Why? The jacket is a soft polyester fleece that has been coated with a fluorcarbon chemical that gives it a durable water resistant (DWR) finish. As a result, ... (more)
Our Windsave Wind Turbine is No More
After four years being mounted on the end of our house, the Windsave 1kW wind turbine has finally been taken down. It was dismantled by crew that installed our solar PV system, and we took that opportunity to have it removed because of its ... (more)
How Good are Low Energy CFL Spotlights?
We have had all sorts of problems with a pair of B&Q low-energy kitchen lights that we bought back in February 2011. To save other people the bother of buying lights that keep failing on them, we're documenting the issues here. Light ... (more)
Solar PV expected and actual generation
Will update this section as the numbers roll in. For now, to get started, here is a plot of two sets of expected Solar PV generation compared to actual input, over the period 9 Nov 2011-8 November 2012. Notes: The graph displays daily expected ... (more)
Beware of Non-standard Heating Oil Payment Methods
There is some consternation over a website offering discount heating oil prices, as long as you pay for it using relatively unknown payment methods. The website in question is heatingoildelivery.co.uk, a plain affair with a payment page ... (more)
Our Leap into Solar PV
After a lot of procrastinating and fretting over the initial costs, we decided to go for it and install solar electricity panels on the roof of our house. The prices of the solar panels had fallen considerably in the 18 months between quotes ... (more)
Checklist for a Solar PV Installation
Getting a solar electricity system installed in the UK is a fantastic idea, but there are many things you need to be aware of. Here is a checklist that you may find useful when evaluating the feasibility of solar micro-gen and when getting ... (more)
