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 The Residential Energy Efficiency Priority Checklist lists energy efficiency measures in order from the lowest cost and easiest to implement to the more expensive and more difficult to implement. These measures will help residents in a community learn how to save energy and money in their homes. This checklist was adapted from Rocky Mountain Institute's publication Homemade Money: How to Save Energy and Dollars In Your Home.
Getting Started
- Collect your fuel and electric bills for the past twelve months. Divide their total by the square footage of your home—but don't include garages and unheated basements. Most annual bills range from 60¢ to 90¢ per square foot. If your bills fall in this range, or are even higher, you have many cost-effective opportunities to dramatically reduce your bills.
- Measure the thickness of insulation in the attic, basement, and walls. Note the age and condition of your home's major heating and cooling equipment, appliances, the type of windows, and if your water heater is wrapped with an insulating jacket. How does your home feel? Is it drafty on windy days? Are you comfortable?
- Call for help. Most state energy offices have useful consumer information booklets, and can refer you to local weatherization agencies and other energy experts who can help you. Many electric utilities offer free or discounted water heater blankets, new showerheads, or compact fluorescent lamps; many also offer financial incentives for the purchase of more efficient appliances or heat pumps.
- You may want to have a comprehensive audit done on your home, in which case the auditor should list, in order of importance, what should be done. Many electric utilities and weatherization agencies will send an auditor to your home, often at no charge to you. Professional audits, including a blower door test, typically cost $50 to $150, but if your home energy bills are high it will most likely be worth it.
- Make a plan of action. The following priority lists are a useful place to start. Feel free to substitute your own priorities, since only you, and the professionals who may be helping you, know your situation.
One principle for every homeowner to know is to go for the best buys first. Often these will be the cheapest, easiest projects that make the biggest dents in the utility bills. Then, with the money saved each month on energy and water, more costly projects can be pursued. To help give you an idea of what sort of projects these are, we have devised a list of projects from the most simple and cheapest to the more complex and costly.
FREE THINGS TO DO THAT SAVE MONEY (AND ENERGY)
- Turn down water heater thermostat to 120°F.
- Turn off lights when leaving a room.
- Set thermostats to 68°F in winter when you're home, and down to 55°F when you go to bed or when you're away (Programmable thermostats do this automatically.)
- Use energy-saving settings on washing machines, clothes dryers, dishwashers, and refrigerators.
- Don't waste water, hot or cold, inside or outside your home.
- Clean your refrigerator's condenser coils once a year.
- Air-dry your clothes.
- Close heating vents in unused rooms.
- Repair leaky faucets and toilets (5 percent of water "use" is leakage).
- Close drapes (and windows) during sunny summer days and after sunset in the winter.
SIMPLE AND INEXPENSIVE:
Things That Will Pay for Themselves in Lower Energy Bills in Less Than a Year
- Install a water-saving 2.5-gallon-per-minute showerhead.
- Install water-efficient faucet heads for your kitchen and bathroom sinks.
- Install a programmable thermostat.
- In the attic and basement, seal the air leaks a cat could crawl through, and replace and reputty broken windowpanes.
- Clean or change the air filter on your warm-air heating system during winter and on air conditioning units in the summer.
- Install an R-7 or R-11 water heater wrap.
- Insulate the first three feet of hot and inlet cold water pipes.
- Install compact fluorescent light bulbs in the fixtures you use most.
GETTING SERIOUS:
Measures That Collectively Will Cost Up to $500 and Have Paybacks of One to Three Years
- Get a comprehensive energy audit, including a blower door test, to identify sources of air leaks.
- Rope-caulk and weatherize all leaks identified by the test. Start with the attic and basement first (especially around plumbing and electrical penetrations, and around the framing that rests on the foundation), then weatherize windows and doors.
- Seal and insulate warm-air heating (or cooling) ducts.
- Have heating and cooling systems tuned up every year or two and determine if a replacement is needed.
- Install additional faucet aerators, efficient showerheads, and programmable thermostats.
- Make insulating shades for your windows, or add insulating storm windows (or, in a southern climate, shade sunny windows or add solar gain control films).
- Insulate hot water pipes in unheated basements or crawlspaces.
GOING ALL THE WAY:
Measures That Will Save a Lot of Energy and Money, but Will Take 3–15 Years to Pay for Themselves
- Foundation: insulate inside rim joist and down the foundation wall to below frostline to at least R-19 in cold climates and to R-11 or better in moderate climates. Remember to caulk first.
- Basement: insulate the ceiling above crawlspaces or unheated basements to at least R-19 in cold climates. If your basement is heated, insulate the inside of basement walls instead to R-19 or more above grade and to R-11 or more below grade. Basement or foundation insulation is usually not needed in hot climates.
- Attic: increase attic insulation to R-50 in cold climates, R-38 in milder climates, and R-30 plus a radiant barrier in hot climates.
- Walls: adding wall insulation is more difficult and expensive, but may be cost-effective if your house is uncomfortable.
- Install more compact fluorescent bulbs. Put them in your most frequently used fixtures, including those outdoors. Consider installing occupancy sensors with these lights to automatically turn lights off when the room is unoccupied.
- Replace exterior incandescent lights with compact fluorescents and put them on a timer or motion sensor if they're on more than a couple of hours a night.
- Convert to solar water heating, and perhaps also supplementary solar space heating.
- Upgrade your water heater, furnace/boiler, air conditioners, and appliances to more efficient models. Newer units are far more efficient. Upgrading is often cost-effective, and definitely so if you need to replace failing units anyway. Also, if you've weatherized and insulated, you'll be able to downsize the heating and cooling system.
- Upgrade to superinsulating or at least low-emissivity windows in cold climates, or low solar transmittance windows in hot climates, if replacement is needed.
- Replace high-flow toilets with modern water-efficient toilets that use 50–80 percent less water.
- Install awnings or build removable trellises over windows that overheat your home in the summer.
- Plant a tree to shade your largest west window in summer. You won't save any money for years, but you'll get an A+ for long-range vision.
www.rmi.org/HEB
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