Introduction

This is a list that I'm keeping on how to conserve energy and therefore money, adding to it from time to time and posting it online in the hope that it will be helpful to people. Many of these ideas are common sense, others are passed-down knowledge, and a few are the result of my own creative problem solving.

Heating

Two rules of thumb:

1. If possible, don't heat the entire house, heat the room.
2. If possible, don't heat the entire room, heat the person in it.

The person

• The person is what needs to be kept warm, so:
  1. Layer clothing to hold body heat in.
  2. Keep the heat sources close to the body e.g.
  1. Keep an electric radiator on wheels close enough without being a fire hazard.
  2. Use an electric heating pad in bed, on your lap or on your chair.
  3. When safe enough, enclose the heat source and the person e.g. under a blanket.
  4. Get some exercise to heat yourself up.
• Buying extra layers of clothing are a once-yearly cost. Heating is a continuous cost. Aim for the former. Don't be afraid to wear longjohns, sweaters, a poncho, a hat, or even to wrap a blanket around yourself.
• Use an electric heating pad on your chair to heat your back:
  

The room

• Heat only rooms you really use. During the Winter, close off rooms that you don't really need to have heated. Remember that every cubic foot of air takes energy to heat, so you should minimize the volume you're heating.
• Close off heating ducts for the rooms you're not using. You can buy magnetic covers at hardware stores that provide a better seal than just closing the vent.
• In an extreme situation like a blizzard when you've lost power, consider occupying and heating only one room.
• If possible redirect air flow from the heating duct toward where it is most useful to avoid wasting heat.
• Use small portable electric heaters per room instead of central heating. Heat only the areas that matter. The oil-filled electric radiators seem to do a good job, but keep them on the low setting.
• If your heater includes a fan such that it produces a warm breeze, use Shoji screens to hold heat in one area.
• During the Winter, close off north-facing rooms if possible, which are the coldest, and seal the heating duct vents in those rooms. Occupy the warmer south-facing rooms.

Heating water

• Check that your water heater is not over-heating the water, which is wasteful.
• In some countries, it is common to see small electric water heaters next to sinks and showers that only heat the small amount that you will use. This can be more efficient than a larger heater.
• Use a timer or manual switch to switch off the water-heater during the hours when you are not at home. Some utility companies offer a reduced rate on the stipulation that they install a device that does just that.

Woodstoves and fireplaces

• Perform any maintenance of a woodstove, fireplace, or chimney before it gets cold out.
• Save materials during Summer and Autumn for use in a woodstove or fireplace in the Winter.
  • Some good burnable materials include the following.
    1. Extra pieces of wood from projects
    2. Wood chips; bark; twigs
    3. Nut shells: collect them year-round.
    • Cotton clothing (not nylon): if it gets ripped, remember, it's flammable.
    • Tree branches -- keep them on a rack outside to dry.
    4. Stale bread
    5. Non-glossy junk mail (use for starting the fire)
    • Glossy paper is coated with a thin layer of plastic, and plastic should never be burnt.
    6. Leftover french fries or pizza, which are full of flammable oils and carbohydrates.

Use sunlight to generate heat

• If you own your house, remove trees that obscure south-facing windows. Use them as firewood. Plant trees on the north side of your house, to reduce the cooling effect of wind.
• When it's cold out, raise the window shades to let in sunlight to help heat your home. South-facing windows are good for this.

Insulation

• Insulate your water heater.
• You can tape a layer of transparent plastic from your local hardware store or Walmart over windows to create an additional layer of insulation over windows.
• Put insulating face-plates on your electrical sockets, since these are spots where heat is lost.
• Do a thermal analysis of your home.
  • FLIR (infrared) cameras are not longer prohibitively expensive so you might borrow or buy one and use it outside to identify where heat is escaping, and then insulate those spots.
  • Without a FLIR camera, consider using a hand-held infrared thermometer (the kind used by cooks) to look for hot spots e.g. near windows.

Refrigeration

• Check that your refrigerator is not excessively cooling your food, which is wasteful energywise and can damage the food.
• Every time you open your fridge's door, cold air escapes, warm air rushes in, and as a consequence energy will be needed to re-cool the air in the fridge. This is wasteful. One simple way to prevent this is to fill any unused space in the fridge with bottles of water. They serve in two ways:
  1. They reduce the volume of air needing recooling.
  2. They cool the air after the door closes.
• Another way to avoid recooling of air in your fridge is to fool the thermostat. Buy a 3 inch piece of beeswax from your local health food store or beekepper and warm it until it is flexible. Then stick it onto and over the thermostat in the fridge so that the thermostat becomes less sensitive to sudden changes in air temperature.
• In the Winter, put some items outside in the snow or ice, instead of in a freezer -- if it gets cold enough.

- The end -