How to Save vigor ($$) At Home, At Work, & in Your Car (And Help safe the Environment)

Are you implicated about rising utility costs? Do you hear a lot about what to do, but don't understand how it works? This record provides straightforward tips to save vigor costs and shows how you get the money savings.

At Home:

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1. Turn off unnecessary lights. A particular 60 watt bulb that is left on 2 hours a day, 5 days a week when it could be turned off will cost you at least .50 per year. Here's why:

60w X 10 hours/week X 52 weeks/year = 31.2 kilowatt-hours X .8815 per KwH = .50. Your cost: nothing.

2. Heating and cooling inventory for about 50% of household utility costs.

(a) Set your thermostat to 68 degrees for heating. Each additional degree of heat will cost you at least 1 to 3% more on your bill. If you commonly set your thermostat to 72, that means your bill could be as much as 12% higher.

(b) In the summer, the thermostat should be set no lower than 78 to 80 degrees. For every degree the thermostat is raised, 4 to 8 % can be saved on cooling costs.

Let's say that your July heating bill is 0 with the temperature set to 72 degrees. At 50% of your utility bill, this means that was spent on air conditioning. At a recovery of 4% per degree, this means that you could save 24%, or .40 on your bill by raising the temperature to 78. The math works the same way while the winter when you lower the temperature. Your cost: nothing.

3. Use an vigor Star rated programmable thermostat. These thermostats are accurate to within +/- 2 degrees, and when properly used, can save you as much as 0 per year on your heating and cooling costs. Your cost: and up, depending on options, a small price to pay in return for such good vigor cost savings.

4. Replace incandescent lights with ageement fluorescents. The results are similar to item #1; by challenging from 60 watts to 13 watts, you're recovery 47 watts, but in this case, you get the same light output. If you use the light 20 hours per week, you will save at least .08 per year. Cfl lights come in a variety of color temperatures; some produce more "white" light than others. If you're implicated about off-white light, try the daylight or hobby type Cfl light bulbs.

47w X 20hours/week X 52 weeks/year = 48.88 KwH X .8815 per KwH = .08.

Your cost: practically .50 to per lamp, a small price to pay for the potential savings.

5. Check for air leaks and drafts at window frames, nearby doors, window or wall mounted air conditioners, attic hatches, baseboards, etc. An easy way to do this is to use a candle or strip of yarn; just watch for it to deflect. Use weather stripping for challenging surfaces (doors, windows and caulking for the rest. This can save you between 5 to 30% on your heating bill.

6. Replace your furnace/ air conditioner air filter every 3 months. Dirty filters cause the blower to work harder and waste energy. Clean filters will save you between 3 and 5% per month of your air conditioning or heating costs. Your cost: to , depending on degree of filtration.

7. Use a water heater blanket and insulate the first 3 or 4 feet of the dismissal pipe (more, if you have easy access). This will reduce vigor use by 10 to 15%. Your cost: about .

8. Use vigor Star rated ceiling fans. The up front cost can be 0 or so for each, but can save over 0 per year when compared to the cost of running an air conditioner.

9. Clean the air conditioner condenser coils and fins when you see grass and airborne debris collected on them. To clean them, take off the top cover and use a orchad hose with a spray attachment. The condenser is the unit surface your house.

10. Fix leaky faucets; this can save you up to per year on heating costs for hot water. Your cost: About for a faucet heal kit, with o-rings and gaskets.

11. Rather than a timer or manual control, setup a photocell to control outdoor lighting. They are much more accurate and do not need resetting as the time of sunset and sunrise changes. Your cost: and up.

12. Clean your refrigerator coils with a soft brush at least annually, more often if you have pets that shed. This makes for a more effective change of heat and cuts the estimate of vigor used. Your cost: nothing.

13. Maximize your clothes dryer's efficiency. take off and replace flexible lint ducting, especially the slinky-type plastic stuff. It holds lint and causes the fan to work harder. Open up the back and lowest of the dryer and vacuum it out to take off additional lint and debris.

14. Lower your water heater setting to 120 degrees F for both vigor recovery and safety. Your cost: nothing.

15. Shade is a great insulator. Maybe there are places where trees or shrubs can be planted on the east and west sides of your house. Leave the southern side more clear to accept the sun's warmth while winter. An added boost is that trees are great for the environment. If trees aren't an option, think window awnings or window film treatments.

16. think using the lowly- but very efficient- clothes line whenever the weather cooperates.

17. Go to the Homeowners section of the vigor Star website at www.energystar.gov and take the home vigor survey. You'll also find more ways to cut vigor costs.

In Your Car:

1. All political jokes aside, you can heighten gas mileage by maintaining tire pressure. Tires will have the pressure range stamped on them, and there will also be a tire pressure listed by your car constructor on a sticker, commonly inside the driver's door. Check the tire pressures when they are "cold" and you haven't driven much on them. Use the pressure listed on the door sticker.

2. Rotate your tires commonly (around every 10,000 miles). This gives the tires longer life and helps ensure they wear evenly.

3. Check and if needed, replace your air filter every time you get the oil changed. Ignore the dirt on the prominent edges of the pleats; use a flashlight or shop light to see how much dirt and oil has penetrated straight through the whole thickness of the filter. Replace them when 50% of the light is blocked by debris.

4. Get quarterly oil changes and use good potential oil and filters at the manufacturers recommend interval. If you don't do the oil change yourself, be sure to go to a reputable assistance provider.

5. Turn off the car rather than idling while at banks, Atms, and other drive up windows.

6. reduce air conditioner use when driving at low speeds in warm weather. At 50 mph and above, the engine load due to wind drag from open windows becomes more costly.

7. Go to the Drive Smarter Challenge to learn about ways to save fuel. You can also download coupons from ExxonMobile and AutoZone. It's at www.drivesmarterchallenge.org.

At Work:

1. Ensuring all air conditioning and heating equipment is performing according to specification will save you from 2 to 11%. think the age of your equipment, its remaining assistance life, cost of repairs and maintenance. You may find it cheaper to upgrade to new more vigor effective equipment. The best way to do this is with a life-cycle cost analysis.

2. Calibrating thermostats to ensure their settings equal the actual space temperature can save up to 3%.

3. Heat office buildings to 68° when occupied, 50 to 60° degrees when unoccupied. Interior spaces tend to gain important amounts of heat from lighting, equipment, and people.

4. If you have galvanic reheat units, turn them off while cooling season except in areas where equipment requires humidity control.

5. Preheat buildings so that they reach 65° by the time occupants arrive and complete warm-up while the first hour of operations. In the evening, cut off heating an hour before the building is concluded and let the temperature drift down to the nighttime setback temperature.

6. If you have a central plant with multiple air compressors, operating one at full load is more effective than operating two or more at a reduced load. Set them up in a lead-lag configuration and rotate the lead compressor on a weekly basis.

7. Wasted lighting consumes about 24% of total lighting usage. reduce janitorial services lighting use by having these services performed while work hours. Ask the assistance to do team cleaning, where each floor is done at one time rather that cleaners spread throughout the building. It can save up to 8%.

4 hours wasted per building per day X 7.2% of total building vigor wasted x mean cost of per Sf for cleaning X .09 per KwH will save 160,000 KwH per year or ,400 per 100,000 Sf of space. It will cost you nothing to implement this, and the potential of the work done and tenant delight ordinarily will improve.

8. Turning off equipment, harvesting daylight, implementing an vigor awareness program, using work center task lighting, and installing computer power administration software can save between 3 and 15%.

9. I can't say sufficient about the cost benefits of an active preventive maintenance program. Although the up-front costs in implementing such a program can be expensive, the increased assistance life and reduced frequency of catastrophic equipment failure more than make up for it. Want proof? touch me, and I will send a copy of "Thinking Like a Cfo: diagnosis Shows stoppage Pays to you as a Pdf file.

10. Everybody is plagued by a lack of time. think the cost of delay; given a enterprise with an yearly vigor cost of ,000 and an upgrade program that could save them 30%, this could be as much as 00 per year. Assuming that the improvements would pay for themselves in 3 years, delaying the upgrade is equivalent to forfeiting a low risk venture opening at 27%. The savings will continue for the life of the equipment, commonly an additional 7 to 13 years or as much as ,500.00.

Now Let'S Look At The Environmental Impact:

1. Say No to plastic grocery bags! A plastic grocery bag will last practically 1000 years in a landfill without breaking down. We go straight through 380 billion of these things, at a cost of 1.6 billion gallons of oil every year, and less than 6% get recycled. Please, please use paper sacks or bring a cloth shopping bag with you when you go shopping. You might even get a cash credit for each bag you bring with you.

2. Recycle, Recycle, Recycle. Cardboard, white paper, aluminum, tin, and plastic. And don't forget to save drink cans and bottles for the deposits. You could even save money on your trash dismissal costs.

3. Curtail unnecessary driving and carry out an vigor upgrade program at home and at work. This will cut down on yield of greenhouse gases (Co2, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons, and hydrocarbons). In the atmosphere, these greenhouse gases act much as the roof of a greenhouse, creating atmosphere changes on a worldwide scale. Even if you do not believe in the existence of global warming, use of sustainable practices and green technologies will provide you with lower operating costs and a healthier environment.

If you take performance to heighten vigor efficiency, there is good news. In 2004, Americans reduced U.S. Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 20 million cars off the road and saved over billion on their vigor bills. Let's all keep up the good work!

How to Save vigor ($$) At Home, At Work, & in Your Car (And Help safe the Environment)

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