OCTOBER 8, 2009 ISSUE
Helpful Tips for the Long Winter Ahead
Winterize Your Home Now To Save Money, Energy
Repair broken windows around your home to help prepare for the drafts of a cold winter.
The cold weather is coming and now is a good time to think about preparing your home for the winter season.
There are plenty of ways to save energy and money by doing some quick tune-ups and fix-it projects around the house.
From caulking and weather stripping, to changing air filters and lowering the thermostat, there are solutions to making your home warmer and more energy efficient.
“Some of the energy we use is wasted due to inefficiency,” said Renee Whitener, director of public relations for Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation (BREMCO). “There are a number of ways to be more energy efficient and many are simple, low-cost steps most homeowners can take right away take to get ahead of the colder weather. Even small steps can make a big difference.”
Some of those small steps include: checking your home for broken windows, loose siding and missing trim and then repairing those problems; sealing leaks between a door and its frame; installing a programmable thermostat to limit the times that the heat is on; and making sure unnecessary devises aren’t plugged in to use electricity.
“Winter is the time many in the High Country use the most energy due to heating needs,” Whitener said. “We also spend more time inside the home using more hot water, more lighting and more appliances doing activities such as cooking, watching television or other indoor hobbies that suit the colder winter months.”
So it makes sense to do the small things to make your home more winter ready before the cold weather has engulfed the area.
To be more efficient, the Watauga County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service will offer a workshop on weatherizing your home at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 17, at the Watauga County Agricultural Conference Center in Boone.
The workshop will give tips on weatherizing your home, but there’s also a deal to get a subsidized professional energy audit.
“That will give you a good place to start,” said Margie Mansure, the office’s family and consumer education agent, about the audit. “It gives you a lot of information [about your home].”
The cost of the audit would be $100 to the homeowner, as the state’s energy office would pay for the remaining amount, about $250. Even if you don’t want the audit, you can attend the workshop and learn simple solutions to winterize your home.
Philip Hull, technical program manager for Building Performance Engineering, the company that oversees the workshop and conducts the audits, said that an audit “zeroes in on the real problem and not the perceived problem.”
Hull said that homeowners have ideas of how to save money that might not be cost effective in the long run. An energy audit will help find simple, low-cost solutions and will help find the greatest benefit to the homeowner for the money.
Hull said that homeowners needed to be careful when trying to do some of the repairs.
“What a professional auditor can do that an average person can’t do is test the house for safety,” he said.
For more information, click to www.blueridgeemc.com/energy-tips and www.e-conservation.net.
Quick, Easy Steps To Winterize Your Home
- First, survey the condition of the exterior of your home. Repair any broken windows, loose siding or missing trim before you do anything else. You can lose a lot of energy through leaks such as these.
- Next, find and seal air leaks inside and around the exterior of your home. Check around fixtures that penetrate walls, such as exhaust fans and electrical outlets. Look for unfilled gaps near dryer vents, chimneys and faucet pipes. Always follow the sealant manufacturer’s specifications when applying.
- Also seal leaks between moving parts with weather stripping, such as between a door and its frame. Caulk cracks between windows and walls, as well as around doorframes.
- Once any leaks are sealed, enhance your heating by having your furnace checked by a professional to make sure it’s operating safely and at its optimal level. In addition, change your furnace filters according to manufacturer’s instructions.
- To further energy efficiency, have a programmable thermostat installed to automatically raise and lower home temperatures for energy savings day and night.
- Survey your incandescent lights for opportunities to replace them with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). CFLs can save three-quarters of the electricity used by incandescent light bulbs. The best targets for energy savings are 60 to 100 watt bulbs that you use several hours or more a day.
- Check around the house to see if devices are unnecessarily plugged in. Cell phones, iPod chargers and appliances are still drawing power when not in use. Be aware that plasma TVs and entertainment systems are drawing power even when they’re off. Also switch computers off or use the computer’s power management settings to allow standby mode when it’s not needed.
- Consider purchasing a water heater jacket if your hot water heater needs it. Installing low-flow bathroom and kitchen faucet aerators are also a good idea to help you use less hot water and be more efficient.
- Replace any single-pane windows. When shopping for new windows, doors or skylights, look for ones with the Energy Star label. Upgrading to more energy efficient windows can help control temperature and air infiltration in your home.
- Make sure attics and flooring above unheated areas, such as crawl spaces and the garage, are properly insulated. Attics can be great sources of heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer.
Source: Blue Ridge Electrical Membership Corporation
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