Even if your air-conditioning system is new, small expenditures can reduce the call for cooling.

Install a programmable thermostat that can be preset to lower the temperature before you return home and raise it after you’ve left.

Check the filter each month during the cooling season. Replace when it’s clogged with dust and dirt.

Keep a regular maintenance schedule; it’s best to hire a professional to check your air-conditioning system each spring.

Keep your energy costs down- develop good habits:

Operate appliances (washers, dryers, ovens) during the coolest hours of the morning or evening.

Pull draperies and shades shut over windows and doors that face the sun.

Use an exhaust fan to remove excess heat and humidity from the kitchen and bathrooms.

Find out more about a Home Energy Audit in Knoxville and start saving on your Knoxville energy bill today!

Contact the Energy Detectives. 865-382-4215

The largest energy cost most of us face in the summer months is cooling our homes with air conditioning. There are several things you can do to lower your energy costs.

Tip 1: Make sure you change your filters regularly. Most filter manufacturers suggest changing them every 3 months whether they are dirty or not. The filters break down over time and after 3 months don’t stop as many particles as when new. Clean filters allow air to flow more freely through the unit which in turn helps the unit not work as hard to move the air throughout the house.

Tip 2: Next, consider lowering your thermostat setting a couple of degrees, especially on those very warm days. Most A/C units are only designed to keep the inside air at 20 degrees less than the outside air. This means that if it is 100 degrees outside your unit will be working way too hard if you have your thermostat set at 75. Try turning the thermostat up to 78 or even 80 if you are still comfortable. On a 100 degree day the difference in having your thermostat at 80 vs. 75 could cut the unit’s running time almost in half.

Tip 3: Also, make sure you use fans around your home. 80 degree air which is being circulated around the room actually feels much cooler than 80 degree air which is stagnant. Fans also help your unit to work less by circulating the air more efficiently between the air duct registers and returns.

Tip 4: Drink as much water as possible during the summer as well. Not only is drinking more water good for your health it also helps you to feel cooler. The more water you drink the more hydrated your skin will be. Hydrated, moisture rich skin feels cooler when air flows across it than does dry skin. So, drink up for your health, your comfort level and your lower energy costs.

Tip 5: Pull the shades. We aren’t suggesting that you live in a cave, however caves are very cool, just cut down on the amount of direct sunlight that enters your home. If you don’t like this option because you like to have as much light coming in your house as possible, you can always consider upgrading to new energy efficient windows. Energy Star rated windows with Low E film on them block out the majority of the sun’s direct heat but still allow all the light in. We’ll discuss energy efficient windows more in a later article; please look for it soon.

Tip 6: If you live in an older home and are still using the original A/C unit it may be time to consider upgrading. Units which are manufactured today are many times more efficient than the ones built 20-30 years ago. Yes it is a large upfront cost to replace an A/C unit, but if you choose the right one the savings can easily pay for the upfront costs in a relatively short period of time. You should at least invite a few A/C contractors to come out and give you information and bids for replacing your unit. Most of them will come out for free and should be able to tell you how long it would take to pay for your upfront costs with the savings you’ll see based on the specifics of your home. And, of course we suggest doing all the other tips we’ve given to help reduce your costs as well. Using several money saving tips at the same time will help you recoup your costs even sooner.

We cannot go without saying in any article about saving energy that the best way to save energy is to create your own. It’s actually easier than it may seem. You can find many websites on the net that offer guides to building your own solar panels and wind turbines which you can use to power your home.

More energy saving tips.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-and-family-articles/saving-energy-tips-to-lower-your-monthly-costs-in-summer-months-1930041.html

Older homes in particular can be poorly insulated and when they are, heat and heating bills go through the roof. Even homes in the mildest climates should have about 9 inches of fiberglass insulation. Homes in northern areas- Buffalo, Des Moines, and Duluth, for example- should have more than 12 inches of fiberglass, according to the United States Department of Energy.

Insulating an attic is relatively easy if it has no floor: Simply roll the insulation between the joists. If your attic has a floor, you may want to blow in loose-fill insulation or remove the floor and replace it after insulating. Loose-fill comes as either fiberglass or cellulose. The manufacturers of each type trumpet the advantages of their products, but the tune goes like this: Cellulose provides more insulation than fiberglass. Fiberglass however is less prone to settling, which reduces the efficiency of the insulation over time. Cellulose turns into a gooey mess when wet; wet fiberglass temporarily looses its insulating ability but recovers when dry. Although research supports the contention that fiberglass is not a carcinogen, if you’re concerned about potential health hazards you might be more comfortable using cellulose.

When warm, moist air hits cold, outdoor air, water vapor condenses and collects in the wall or ceiling, where it causes all sorts of problems. Because of this, roll or batt insulation comes with a facing that acts as a vapor barrier. In most parts of the country, install the facing toward the occupied part of the house. In some areas of the south, however, install the barrier facing the home’s exterior. Check local codes. Two vapor barriers are actually worse than one, as condensation can be trapped between the two., so if you’re adding insulation on top of insulation that already has a barrier, use insulation without a facing.

For questions or more information contact your Knoxville Energy Auditor.

Problem:

Tube flickers or lights partially.

Repairs:

1. Rotate the tube to make sure it is seated properly in the sockets.

2. Replace tube and the starter (where present) if tube is discolored or if pins are bent or broken.

3. Replace the ballast if replacement cost is reasonable. Otherwise, replace the entire fixture.

Problem:

Tube does not light.

Repairs:

1. Check wall switch, and repair or replace, if needed.

2. Rotate the tube to make sure it is seated properly in sockets.

3. Replace tube and the starter (where present) if tube is discolored or if pins are bent or broken.

4. Replace sockets if they are chipped, or if tube does not seat properly.

Problem:

Noticeable black substance around ballast.

Repairs:

Replace ballast if replacement cost is reasonable. Otherwise, replace the entire fixture.

Problem:

Fixture hums.

Repairs:

Replace ballast if replacement cost is reasonable. Otherwise, replace the entire fixture.

Contact your Knoxville Energy Auditor with Questions.

1. Replace old faucets and showerheads. Older showerheads are using between 5 and 8 gallons of water per minute, or between 50 and 80 gallons for just a 10 minute shower. Models made as of January 1995 are required to use 2.5 gallons of water per minute- reducing the amount used during that 10 minute shower to 25 gallons. Switching out showerheads and faucets can save your family 17,000 gallons of water per year- or between $60 and $120 on household energy bills.

2. Add a faucet aerator. he simple $2 improvement adds air to your faucet to lower the volume of water coming out. Instead of 2 to 4 gallons of water per minute, you’ll reduce spray to less than 1 gallon per minute, saving 4 to 7 percent on your total water consumption.

3. Consider low-flow toilets. Especially is you are remodeling your bathroom, installing a low flow toilet offers a serious improvement in water and energy use. Where toilets once commonly used 7 gallons of water per flush, low flow models have reduced that to 1.6 gallons per flush.

4. Fix your leaks. A leaky faucet is a big water and energy waster, especially if it’s a hot water faucet.

5. Showers are usually more efficient than baths. Most baths use between 30 and 50 gallons of water- with a low-flow showerhead, you’re likely to use less than that over the course of a shower. Of course, you may want to consider shorter showers, just to be safe.

Installing new windows can decrease energy costs. You might think it’s safe to assume that all your windows are the same size and that if you’ve measured one you’ve measured them all. However, it’s best to measure each rough opening to be sure that the window will fit properly and that you won’t have a hole in your wall while you wait for the correct replacement. Mark the opening and the window to match correctly.

Taking out a window isn’t hard to do, but by hurrying the job you could do damage that will have to be repaired later. Start with a utility knife and cut through the paint wherever trim meets the wall both inside and outside the house. This keeps paint from chipping or drywall from tearing when you remove the trim. Carefully remove trim with a pry bar. To keep from damaging the wall surrounding the window, place a piece of scrap wood under the pry bar. With the interior trim off, you may discover sash weights as part of vintage, double-hung windows. Remove them by cutting the cord. Hang onto the cord and raise the weights to remove them. Fill the voids with fiberglass insulation.

Pry off exterior trim and moldings with the pry bar, using scrap wood behind it to protect siding you may encounter. When that’s done, cut through any framing nails with a reciprocating saw to loosen the window. If the window has nailing fins, pry loose the siding covering them and remove the nails that go into the sheathing. After removing any wooden shims in the frame, slide out the window unit.

Author: Brian Dick

Welcome to the Home Energy Guide series of articles on how to make your home more Green and Energy Efficient. With each article we highlight an important topic in making your home more energy efficient.

This article’s topic is Home Energy Audits. Your home is an energy hog! New homes, old homes, refurbished homes…all are losing energy! They typical American home loses a minimum of 30% of the energy used to heat and cool it. Home Energy Audits are the exact place to start when beginning to make your home more energy efficient. These will highlight all the key areas that affect your home energy performance and most importantly you and your family’s comfort!

Symptoms of a home that is not energy efficient are drafty rooms, moisture around the windows, inconsistent home temperature between rooms, excessive dust and of course high energy bills. A Home Energy Audit can find the source of these issues. This takes out the guess work and allows you to fix what is wrong the first time rather than through trial and error. It’s kinda one of those things where you don’t want to really know how bad it is and it will just make you depressed. But one piece of advice, don’t waste your time or money on an audit if you aren’t prepared to do or get the work done.

So you are ready for a Home Energy Audit? These audits come in two forms: Self Assessment and In Home Audits. A self assessment is one that you, the homeowner, do usually through an online site. You can usually find these on your local utility’s website or through local, state and local government energy websites. The Pros of these types of tools are that they are free and quick to administer. Cons are that the information provided by these home audits is very general (they cannot give specific details about where you are losing energy) and only as accurate as the homeowner enters. In Home Audits are administered by a professional where he uses tools such as a Blower Door, Duct Blaster and possibly an Infrared Camera (an absolute must in my opionion). They will do a series of diagnostics and enter the information into specific software used for Energy Audits that give you accurate information on how leaky your home is and exactly where those leaks are located.

An Energy Auditor should be sanctioned by either RESNET (Residential Energy Service Network) or BPI (Building Performance Institute). These agencies directly partner with the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency. Trust me, you do not want a “weekend” home improvement specialist performing these tests. And you never should take bids to fix the problems from your energy auditor, as that is probably a bit of a conflict of interest, don’t you think? Okay, so pros of this type of audit are that you will get a complete understanding of where your home is inefficient and you will get a detailed report showing you such. The sole con is that these audits usually range from $300 to $500 depending on the size of your home and the exact type of information you are looking to find. But you will usually get this money back after you make the energy saving improvements to your home.

In conclusion, I cannot recommend any more highly the value of a professional home energy audit. You will find out where and how to make your home more energy efficient as well make the world a bit greener as your home will be using less energy.

Stop Wasting – Start Saving!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/diy-articles/your-home-is-wasting-energy-you-need-a-home-energy-audit-now-4011339.html

About the Author

Thank You,

Brian Dick

Brian resides in the United States with his wife and two children. He is a freelance writer focussing mostly on making your home environment as energy efficient as possible. He invites you to visit his informational website HOME ENERGY GUIDE. The mission is to give homeowners the information and tools to make their home as energy efficient as possible. This saves the homeowner money and greatly helps the environment.