...some tips. SAVE ALL RECEIPTS AND CHECK FOR 2008 ENERGY TAX CREDITS which Bush extended this year. For more information:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_tax_credits

Put your savings in a jar or the bank and use for trips to Negril!

Before we get started, if you have unusually high energy costs, consider having a professional who specializes in assessing your home's efficiency. Check with your local utility companies and other sources who provide such at little to no cost. Many low income people can get this done for free!

Here you go:

- go around the house and caulk all open gaps especially around windows and doors.

- check your insulation in your attic. For the appropriate insulation requirements for your area, see: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home_sealing.hm_improvement_insulation_table.

- If you have older windows, then:
- check to make sure the window putty is intact and tight. Replace if necessary. Check tightness where window meets frames and between windows. Put weather strips in if necessary. If severe, replace or put plastic over them.

- Check your doors. If you see light, put in weather strips. Use a match or kleenex to check drafts (do this on colder days when the heat is on to get a good reading). Inspect all of the weatherstripping around hte sides top and bottom and replace if necessary. If you have a storm door, check the weatherstrips there too.

- If you have storm windows, makes sure they are all closed properly. Check caulking where the strom window frames meet the interior and exterior. Caulk or replace if necessary. If replacing, be sure to remove old caulk.

- Check places where central air lines or other electric lines, etc. and pipes enter the house and seal if necessary.

- Check where building structure meets the foundation and seal any cracks and holes to prevent vermine and insects from entering and warm or cool air lost.

- Have a dirt basement foundation? Consider sealing to reduce moisture, improve the air and get up to a 15% decrease in heating and cooling costs. There are various methods to doing this.

- Insulate pipes (especially hot water lines and anywhere you get condensation especially); insulate ducts and water heaters for maximum efficiency and minimum energy loss.

- Have a garage? Consider insulating the interior area if not done so or insufficient) and make sure the garage door is tight. You can buy kits to reduce drafts.

- Use the match test or the kleenex test to see if air is blowing through anywhere areas feel drafty. Drafts kill the bill. As the warm air rises and goes through the roof, it will pull in the coldest air from any gaps. In some cases, it may be worth pulling off the trim around windows and doors to see if the installers insulated properly around the windows. If not, use door and window foam to tighten the windows doors and reduce drafts.
This can be a huge area of energy loss. Sometimes people think they need new windows, but actually they just were not insulated correctly.

- Have window or wall air conditioners you do not take out. Wrap them up on the outside and the in to reduce drafts. If you can remove the window units, do so.

- Wall outlets and switches make holes in your insulation barrier. Consider plastic covers you can install under the plates to reduce drafts and maybe caulk around the area between the boxes and the walls. Sometimes these areas are very drafty...do the kleenex or match test.

- Old heater? Consider replacing with a high energy efficient furnace. Better yet....look into geothermal systems which can cut heating and air conditioning costs by as much as 75%! The upfront cost is more, but well worth the investment and can be installed in homes who have as little as a 10 foot by 10 foot outdoor land area. Some upfront tests will be required and check with your local zoning board about requirements in your area. These systems use the deeper earth (as little as five eight feet deep in some cases) where temperatures remain steadily in the fifties year round. The temperature is transferred from the earth to the house by a typical raidation method where fluid is pumped though tiny pipes and air is blown through the tubing. The air then only needs to be adjusted up or down by a lesser amount using less energy and sometimes sufficient alone in summer.

- Getting new siding? Consider a house wrap and taping the wrap around openings such as windows and doors. Also consider adding a layer of foam insulation over the wrap and designed for this purposes (will have a foil reflecting barrier on it). This can tighten the house and reduce drafts and well worth the added cost.

- Other tips....consider solar electric panels or thermal panels which heat water and small wind energy systems as well. Some places will require your utility companies to buy back excess produced energy - check your laws and provider first. These too have a higher upfront cost but fix a portion of the energy bill. Efficiencies of solar panels have improved dramatically. (This could be a big difference depending on what you do ...check you trasmission and distribution charges on your energy bills...these charges are a significant component in many areas.

- Installing new lighting? Stay away from dimmers which don't allow the new flourescent bulbs. Replace every bulb you can with new fluorescent bulbs...I saved dramatically here.

- Unplug all unused appliacnes to prevent "phantom electricity use". This can save energy dramatically. Here's are some aditional tips for that issue:

There are a few simple methods to reduce standby power. The easiest way to do that is to simply unplug the unused devices. To switch off several devices that are often used together such as a PC, a monitor and a printer it is advisable to use a switchable power bar or surge protector with multiple sockets. Another alternative is to consider buying energy saving devices or devices that offer a real off switch. Replacing battery powered devices, such as cordless phones or rechargeable razors with corded alternatives not only cuts down on the standby power required to charge the battery, but also reduces energy lost in battery charging and discharging inefficiencies.

Switching devices on or off can be automated. Timers can be used to turn off standby power to devices that are unused on a regular schedule. Switches can turn the power off when the connected device goes into standby (e.g. Standby Plug[18]), or that turn on/off other outlets when a device is turned on or off are also available (e.g. USB Eco Powerstrip[19], Mini Power Minder[20], SmartStrip[21], IntelliPanel[22]). Switches can turn on/off based on activity sensors (e.g., Wattstopper[21]). Home automation sensors, switches and controllers can be used to handle more complex sensing and switching. However, many of these devices in their turn require standby power (for instance, the SmartStrip uses 0.28 watts in standby.[citation needed), as well as requiring energy and resources to make and recycle the device, so care should be taken to assure reduction in power use.

switchable multiple socket
a socket which automatically switches off when it detects a device has gone into standby

Some devices that use standby power may not turn on when power is removed and then reapplied by means of an external switch. A capacitor connected in parallel with the power switch can act as a momentary contact switch to turn on such devices when power is applied.[23]

Some computers allow reducing of standby power by turning off components that use power when in standby mode. For instance, disabling Wake on LAN[24], wake on modem, wake on keyboard or USB may reduce power when in standby.[23] It may be possible to disable such features that you do not use in the computer's BIOS setup.