| There may be some things you need to buy (like insulation), or
you may need to move to a different house. Sometimes you
have to invest money in order to make some money. In this
case, the investment is energy efficiency, the profit is money
that you don't spend on energy. Start saving today to put aside
the money you will need.
Remember, it's not only how you use energy that matters, it's
also how you waste energy. If your home or apartment is not
well insulated, you're piling up hundred dollar bills and setting
them on fire. If you are a renter, the lack of insulation is like
an extra tax added to your rent. Your most effective way of
saving money might be to move to a different house or
apartment that is better insulated, has more efficient heating
and cooling, and is located closer to your work or to public
transportation. Generally, you can get an estimate from your
gas and electric utilities about the energy bills for any address,
so it pays to check.
A refrigerator works best when it is correctly maintained and optimized for efficient use. If it isn't working correctly, it will use energy inefficiently. It needs to be repaired. It won't get better by itself. A manual defrost refrigerator uses less energy than "frost-free" models. If you have a box freezer, use the refrigerator's freezer compartment only for short-term storage and ice. For this kind of minimal freezer use, keep the fridge freezer at 20 to 25 degrees F -- but if you are using it to store meats, the freezer temp needs to be at 10 degrees F. The main compartment of the refrigerator should be in the 37-40 degree range. To measure this, you will need 2 small inexpensive thermometers. Put one near the center in the freezer compartment and one near the center in the refrigerator. After an hour or so, check both temps at the end of any cycle (when it stops humming). Record those temperatures. Then turn the appliance's thermostat up a notch, & check the temperature again at the end of the next cycle. Keep doing this, up or down, until you get the temperatures right. If your refrigerator has an adjustable opening between the freezer and the refrigerator compartments, you can experiment with the width of the opening as part of this regulating process. Make sure there is space around the refrigerator for air to circulate -- at least three inches between the refrigerator and any nearby counters or walls. If your refrigerator is in a constricted space, don't pile things on top of it because that will restrict air circulation even more. |
| The refrigerator is most efficient when it is full, but not
over-crowded (food holds coolness better than air, but air must
be able to circulate around the refrigerator). Freezers work
best when they are full. Fill empty spaces with 2 liter pop
bottles filled about 3/4ths full of water. Try putting bottles of
frozen water in your refrigerator and see if it runs less. Check
the temperature regularly with a thermometer. Don't let the
frost build up -- when it is 1/4 inch deep, defrost the freezer.
Move the refrigerator away from the wall once a year and
vacuum the coils -- they work most efficiently when they are
clean (do this more often if you have a pet that sheds a lot).
Let hot foods cool before putting them in the refrigerator, and make sure that all dishes and foods are covered in airtight containers. Don't hold the door open while you decide what you want to eat, especially during hot and humid weather. Locate the refrigerator away from the stove, out of direct sunlight, and away from any heating ducts. If you use an extension cord to power your refrigerator, it must be the same gauge (thickness) of wire as the house wires, 14 gauge. Ideally, the refrigerator should be on its own circuit (breaker or fuse), with no other appliances or lights using that circuit. If there are additional electrical outlets on that circuit, don't use them if you can avoid it. The freezer should also be on its own circuit. Plug the refrigerator into a "Power Planner" This is a small box that plugs into an electrical outlet, and then you plug the refrigerator into it. If provides surge protection, smoother starting (less wear and tear) and saves electricity. They are available at most hardware and home supply stores. If the door gasket isn't fitting tightly, replace it. If your refrigerator has an automatic ice maker or butter warmer, disconnect it. Thanks to Clarence Yusik at The Fridge Doctor for help with this refrigeration section. |
Your utility bills may seem mysterious, but you are the one who controls the amount of energy you use. To spend less money, use less energy. Your largest use of energy is generally for heating and cooling your living space. The bigger your house or apartment, the more energy you will use and the more money you will spend. One advantage of smaller houses and apartments can be lower energy bills. If there are unused rooms, keep their doors closed and shut off any heating/air conditioning vents in those rooms. If your energy budget is severely restricted, you could heat or cool only one or two rooms in the house. If you own your housing, you will save the most bucks byinsulating and weatherizing. If you are a low income homeowner or renter, there are programs to help you insulate and weatherize your housing (contact a charity or Community Action center for a referral, the waiting list for these programs is long, so get in line right away). If you don't own your housing, start planning now for how you can get into a place of your own. If you are low income, there are programs that can help you achieve home ownership. Sometimes you can "rent to own" a property. A wood stove may be an effective choice for winter heat. Wood can often be found for free, even in cities, it is a renewable and sustainable resource. Consider co-housing -- where two or more families live together. Two or three families could pool resources and buy or rent a large house that could be subdivided, with the families sharing some facilities like the kitchen and living room. The group could save money by cooking and eating together, not to mention the time savings when there are more hands and feet available to do the work and the cleanup. Sharing appliances like freezers also saves money and energy. It is easier to keep your house at a comfortable temperature when you dress for the season when you are indoors. In the summer, go barefoot in the house, and wear loose-fitting light clothes like t-shirts and shorts made from natural fabrics like cotton. In the winter, however. wear several loose layers of clothes while you're in the house. If necessary, you could wear a hat and a sweater or light jacket. People have been known to curl up with fluffy blankets on the couch or a favorite chair. Clean clothes keep you warmer than dirty clothes. |
| Vegetation is one of the most cost effective ways to cut your
energy bill in the summer. Plant trees around your house for
shade, and bushes up close to the house. If you plant fruit or
nut trees, as an added bonus you get an annual high value crop.
Although it takes many years to grow a tree, in the meantime
you could plant climbing vines on the sunny sides of your
house for shade in the summer.
Many houses & apartments are poorly insulated & have lots of air leaks. To find air leaks, light an incense stick and slowly move it around doors, windows, baseboards, electric outlets, switches, shelves, and places where pipes and electrical conduits go through walls and cabinets. Most home supply stores have inexpensive products to help plug such leaks. You can get little foam pads to put inside electric outlets and light switches (if you can scrounge a larger piece of foam, cut it yourself to fit your outlets and switches). Use caulk to plug leaks around windows. Wood putty or caulk can be used along baseboards. Read the label to make sure the caulk is suitable for the materials it is being used with. Latex caulk is the cheapest, doesn't give off fumes, and before it dries it can be wiped off with a damp rag. Foam comes in cans so you can spray it around pipes going through walls and fill miscellaneous holes. Weatherstripping helps seal doors tightly -- a 1/4 inch gap at the bottom of the typical door is equal to a 3 square inch hole in the wall! If there are holes in your floors or walls, plug them as necessary. If you have nothing else, fill them with crushed newspaper or styrofoam (packing beads work) and cover with plastic and lathe (strips of wood sold by the bundle, they're cheap) or duct tape. Patch ('tuckpoint") broken or missing mortar in exterior brick walls. Brick mortar is very cheap, just add water, mix, & if you don't have tools, use a kitchen knife to fill the gaps with mortar. There are many different kinds of insulation, so you'll need to give some thought to what you need in your particular situation. Start with the ceiling/roof, and the more insulation you have, the more money will save on energy. "Airlock" your doors that go outside. This requires going through two doors to get inside the house. Don't open the interior door until the outer door is shut and thus cold or hot winds don't blow in the house. It can be a temporary structure made from plastic and 2 x 4 boards and a door you find somewhere, or you could build permanent structures at your doorways (on the porch, or just inside the door). Keep your heating and cooling equipment clean and in good repair. Change the filters as necessary, or wash them (such as the filters on window air conditioners). If the sun hits your air conditioner, rig a shade over it -- but don't block the air intakes. If you are renting, be sure to remind your landlord about this. And if it doesn't get done, that's another sign that you need to look for another place to live. |
The Bottom Line on Energy is. . . You must be brutally realistic with yourself about the resources you have available to pay for energy. The higher the thermostat in the winter, & the lower the thermostat in the summer, the more money you must pay. If you are going to be gone for several hours, adjust the thermostat so that less energy is used keeping an empty house cool or warm.
Stop air infiltration through windows by covering them with plastic held in place with staples and strips of lathe. If the windows are really leaky, cover the inside with plastic also. Hang heavy curtains, quilts, or blankets over the windows at night. These could also be hung over walls to help insulate a room. Mattresses also work for walls, windows, and doors. Fabric stores carry a product called "Warm Window" which is composed of several layers of insulating material and a metal foil liner. This can be easily made into indoor thermal shutters. Another option is to cut sheets of rigid foam insulation to fit the inside of the windows. Put them up at night. Take them down during the day to let the sun shine in. This insulating foam is flammable, so keep these away from open flames. Cover it with some flame-retardant material as a safety measure. A well insulated window would have plastic on the exterior, double-paned windows, indoor thermal shutters of some sort, plus one or more wool blankets or quilts and a heavy curtain. If cold air is coming up through a bare floor, you can improvise "carpet" by putting down several layers of newspaper and covering them with blankets or quilts. (If you do this, have people take their shoes off when they go in that room, and be careful about slips and falls.) Even better, learn to make rugs from rags and cover your floor with something you have created yourself. If you have a waterbed, keep it heavily insulated during the day (a waterbed heater can use more energy than a water heater and refrigerator combined!). Use heavy comforters on top, and also on the sides. Even better, replace the water bed with a regular bed. |
| Recover Heat. If you use an electric dryer, vent it indoors
during the winter (you can't do this with gas dryers due to the
risk of carbon monoxide poisoning). Put some nylon hose on
the end of the exhaust duct (secured with a large rubber band
or duct tape) to catch the lint and dust. When you take a
shower, put the stopper in the tub. Let the water cool before
you drain it. Air dry your freshly-washed clothes inside the
house. Don't pour hot cooking water down the drain, let it cool
first. These practices will add humidity & heat to the inside of
your house that would otherwise go down the drain or out into
the cold back yard.
At Night. . . Turn the thermostat down or the heater off and pile on the blankets. Dress warmly for bed in sweat pants and shirt, socks, and maybe even a cap (depending on how cold it will get and how low you set the thermostat). Adequate nutrition is essential. To help you stay warm, adequate food and water is a must. Drink plenty water and eat frequent meals with lots of carbohydrates. Winter is a good time for comfort foods like casseroles, stews, soups, and home baked bread. Use solar heating whenever possible. Open the shades and curtains on the sunny side of the house. If the sun can shine on some heavy masonry (like a brick or concrete floor or wall), so much the better -- it will soak up the heat during the day and radiate it at night. You could improvise such a heat absorber with buckets or plastic bottles painted black and filled with water (if the bottles are clear, you can use food coloring to darkly color the water). If you're using 2 liter bottles, put them in trays so they don't fall over so easily. Keep your windows clean so the sun's rays aren't deflected. Plans are also available for a solar heater that fits into a standard window. |
| In the HEAT of the Summer. .
.TOP
Don't laugh, but why not try living without air conditioning? People used to do this all the time, a growing number of people are doing it today. It helps if you live in an older house, built before air conditioning became so popular. When temperatures are cool at night & in the morning, ventilate the house. Open doors & windows so you get a good cross ventilation going. Put a box fan in a window on the north side of the house to draw in cool air. On the south side of the house, put another box fan in a window so that it draws warm air out of the house. A ceiling fan circulates air & creates an effect where it seems several degrees cooler. Ceiling fans are very cheap (as low as $15), and are easy to install. For other indoor uses, box fans are inefficient and usually noisy, rotary fans are better. Variable speed fans will help you get the right amount of air. Use a fan (the exhaust fan, if there is one installed) to move cooking heat outside, but be sure to turn it off after the burners cool down, or you'll send your cool air outside. Even better, cook outside in the summer. In the summer, shade is your friend. Keep the sun's heat from hitting windows, doors, walls. Install window shades on the outside of your house. Be creative and you won't spend much money. An inexpensive bamboo roll-up window shade works fine, and there's always aluminum foil and those automobile window shades with reflective surfaces. One or more curtains inside will help, and choose white or another light color (sheets are do-able and cheap, & more is better). Don't forget to shade the doors if you don't have a porch. The best choice for your wall shade is vegetation. Although it takes many years to grow a tall tree, vines grow in just a few weeks. Morning glories provide plenty of shade plus flowers that are beautiful to look at. There are many varieties of pole beans which will climb right up your walls as well as cover windows. Hang some twine down the wall for each plant to assist their climb, or put up a trellis or some cheap chicken wire. Not only do your windows get shaded, but you also get fresh green beans to eat! Keep hydrated. Drink lots of water. Sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and big heavy meals will make you feel warmer. Caffeine and alcohol will dehydrate you, so even if you drink a super big gulp soft drink twice a day, you still need 6 to 8 glasses of water. If you don't drink enough water, you will feel hotter and a lot more uncomfortable. Large amounts of very cold drinks will fool your body into thinking you are cold, so your body's thermostat will try to warm you up. The idea that an ice cold soft drink is the perfect solution for your thirst on a hot summer day is something you have been brainwashed to believe by billions of dollars in advertising. Water is better. |
| If the heat becomes oppressive, take a cool shower or go
outside and dowse yourself with a water hose. Keep a spray
bottle of cool water handy, and give yourself a little spritz
every once in a while.
Minimize the heat you create in the house. Cooking inside during the summer adds a lot of humidity and heat. Use a grill and/or camp stove an cook outside, for example on your porch or in your back yard. If you do cook inside, do so early in the morning while it's cool. You could really go for the gusto and build a simple solar oven and bake bread or cook a roast or casserole using the hot afternoon sunlight (yes, you can really do this, and no, you don't need a degree in rocket science to make one). If you are cooking inside, small appliances like microwaves or toaster ovens are better than an electric stove. Wash dishes by hand, don't use the dish washer. Dress lightly for sleeping, use cotton sheets and a cotton mattress pad (or several cotton sheets if you don't have a pad). Using a damp sheet also helps you stay cool at night, especially if you have a ceiling fan. If you smoke, do it outside. Don't use the dryer; hang your clothes out to dry, especially heavy items like jeans and towels. (No dryer can duplicate that great smell of clothes that have been dried on the line outside, and there's no in-house heat contribution.) Even if you don't abandon air conditioning completely, using these ideas can help you use less air conditioning so you save more money. The more shade you can get on the outside of the house, the less work for the air conditioner to do. You could wait until the heat of the day to turn it on, or you could have one or more "no air conditioning days" each week. If you are low income, you may need to turn the air conditioning off during the day and go to an air conditioned library or other public space to meet your energy budget. Even if you did this only once or twice a week, every week, you would save money, plus you would gain the many advantages of spending time in libraries. It's not for nothing that people say: "Read More, Learn More." |
| TOP
For when there is no electricity or gas due to a utility shut-off or natural or man-made disaster. Keeping warm in a winter weather emergency If the electricity or natural gas is disrupted during the winter, you must take action to protect your family. Don't try to heat the entire house in a winter emergency. First bundle up your body. Then heat a single room. Hang blankets over doorways and use plastic sheets, blankets, quilts, & newspapers over windows. Blankets can insulate floors without carpets. Don't seal the room so tight that no fresh air can get in. Even if it is cold, you need fresh air to stay alive. Layer clothes, in loose layers. Beware of wind and wet. Keep dry. Wet clothing loses its ability to insulate, and can suck heat right out of you. Stay out of the wind as much as possible. Clean clothes keep you warm better than dirty clothes. Make sure your head, hands, and feet are protected. Use newspapers for emergency insulation. They can be wrapped around legs, arms, torso, taped over windows, laid on the floor. The best place for babies is on their mother's bodies. in their arms or using one of the many ways of carrying a baby and still having your hands free. For emergency backup heat, the best choice is wood heat -- IF you have a fireplace or properly installed wood stove. If you don't have one, the next choice would be propane and kerosene. These fuels have been used for indoor heating and cooking for many years. Look for this equipment at a flea market or thrift store; propane bottles are sold in most discount stores. Even when bought brand new, this equipment can be relatively inexpensive. A free-standing natural gas heater can be converted to run on propane. Ventless propane heaters certified for indoor use are also available. Any form of indoor open flame heating requires adequate ventilation. Always place the heater right in front of the ventilation opening (such as a window open 1/4 inch). If you place it away from the ventilation, the fumes will first fill the room before they start to exit from your ventilation opening. If you are in a winter emergency without any backup heat, use candles or "canned heat" like sterno or chafing dish fuel. Even the flame of one candle can generate enough heat to keep a person from freezing to death. NEVER LEAVE CANDLES BURNING UNATTENDED OR WHILE YOU ARE SLEEPING. Make sure there is nothing burnable close to the candles, and that they are secure in a candle holder that can't be knocked over. |
| NEVER USE CHARCOAL BRIQUETS INSIDE A HOUSE
FOR COOKING OR KEEPING WARM IN A WINTER
WEATHER EMERGENCY. People die from carbon
monoxide poisoning when they fire up charcoal briquets inside
the house to keep warm. Carbon monoxide detectors are
cheap; if there is a chance you may be using improvised
heating, get one.
Pregnant women and unborn babies are particularly at risk for carbon monoxide poisoning. While using any kind of inside heat with an open flame, if the room seems "stuffy" and you begin to feel headachy and lethargic and/or your vision gets blurry, get everyone out of the room and ventilate it with fresh air immediately. With all forms of alternative open flame heating, beware of the fire danger. Place a fire extinguisher where it can be quickly used if necessary. If you don't have a fire extinguisher, get a couple of large boxes of baking soda. |
Cooking and Hot Water TOP If you are stuck with a big energy hawg of an electric stove, turn off the burners before the cooking is finished. It will continue cooking as the burner cools. Crockpots, roaster/toaster ovens, and electric frying pans are more efficient than full size electric stoves. Large ovens don't cook small meals efficiently, so use those small appliances. When you do heat up the oven, cook several dishes at once; alternate their placement in the oven so that air circulates easily. Minimize pre-heating. Glass or ceramic oven pans are the most efficient. Make sure the flame on a gas stove is blueish, a yellow flame indicates the gas isn't burning efficiently. Pressure cookers use less energy for stove top cooking because foods cook in less time. Uncovered pans can use 3 times as much energy as a covered pan to cook the food. Defrost frozen foods before cooking them. Use the smallest pan that will fit the recipe, and match the burner to the pan if possible (use a small burner for a small pan). Keep the metal splash guards under the burners clean so heat reflects upwards, blackened guards will absorb, not reflect, cooking energy. The microwave oven is generally an energy efficient appliance, but don't use it to thaw frozen foods -- that is a waste of energy when the same task can be accomplished in your refrigerator. |
| Hot Water TOP
Use less by installing low-flow shower heads and faucet aerators. This can cut your hot water requirements as much as 50%, saving 14,000 gallons of hot water/year/family of 4. Insulate the hot water pipes. Insulate the hot water tank with a special "jacket" made for the purpose (typically $10-20 at home supply stores), or wrap it with insulating materials. Do not cover the top or the bottom, the thermostat or the burner compartment of the tank. Lower the temperature on the water heater to 120 degrees or less. Take quick showers, not baths. You can make a simple solar heater: get a 5 gallon plastic
bucket with a tight fitting lid, and paint it black. Fill it with
water and set it in the sunlight. Voila, easy and free five
gallons of hot water. Pay attention to details. Lights. Your grandfather was right: Turn off the lights when you're not using them. Compact flourescent bulbs work in regular light fixtures, last longer and use much less energy. They cost more ($10 for the 60 watt equivalent), but they use 75% less energy than regular bulbs & last for 1000s of hours. Use less electrical lighting during the day when natural light is available. Use more "task lighting" -- smaller lights focused on what you are doing, rather than the entire room. TOP Washing Clothes. Whenever possible, wash clothes in cold water. Wait until you have a full load, don't do small loads. Instead of using the dryer, air dry your clothes. Get some racks to use for indoor clothes drying when its raining or too cold outside. Wash small amounts of clothes by hand. TOP Dishwasher. The best thing to do with your dishwasher is disconnect it and sell it to somebody else. Washing dishes by hand should be a family affair -- when many hands pitch in, the work is less tedious and gets done faster. TOP Small batteries. Avoid spending money for small batteries. For $30 or less, you can get a solar powered battery charger and some rechargeable batteries, and go solar. Or you could use a recharger that runs on household current. Small batteries are expensive -- the fewer you have to buy, the more money you have for other things. TOP |
| Learn how to read your meters. This will help you
manage your energy expenses, because you can tell exactly
how much you will owe at any given time. The electric and gas
utilities can tell you how to do this and calculate your bill as
you consume the energy. If necessary, read it every day and
adjust your energy use to meet your budget. Stop wasting
energy, and you will start saving money. You will also give
planet Earth a break from the pollution. TOP
Gadgets and Ghost Loads. Many modern appliances and gadgets have "ghost loads" -- they use power all the time, even when you think they're "off". When an appliance isn't in use, make sure it is turned completely off, unplug it if necessary -- especially the television (which consumes lots of energy and generates lots of heat). One way to deal with this is to plug them into an extension cord that has an on-off switch. Use the extension cord switch to turn it off and on, and you will avoid wasting power via the "ghost loads" in the appliance. Be wary of bringing more electrical gadgets into your house and scrutinize what you already have. Do you really need all that stuff? If you have a water bed, drain it and replace it with a regular bed (a waterbed heater can use as much electricity as a refrigerator. If you have a computer and printer, don't leave it on when it isn't being used. Instead of an electric blanket, use more regular blankets or quilts (and never leave the electric blanket on during the day). Never use the television for "background noise" while you're doing something else; a radio consumes less power. Sell your garbage disposal, or don't use it. Compost your vegetable food scraps for your garden. Sell or don't use your garbage compactor. TOP Wood Heat. For many people, a wood stove may be an effective choice for winter heat. Wood can often be found for free, even in cities. A wood stove can be a very cost effective source of heat and hot water. For a cheap wood stove, kits are available that allow you to turn two steel barrels into a wood burning stove. |
|
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
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Defend the lowly and the fatherless, render justice to the afflicted and needy. Rescue the lowly and poor, deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Psalm 82, 3-4 Love is a fruit that is in season at all times. -- Mother Teresa Originally published to cyberspace on the feast of St. John Bosco, the 31st of January, AD 2001, at http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/energy2001.htm , A.M.DG The BETTER TIMES ALMANAC OF USEFUL INFORMATION FOR POOR PEOPLE is a print publication published annually and distributed free of charge by the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House, 1524 NW 21st, OKC, OK 73106, Robert Waldrop, editor. (S) Shareright 2001 by Robert Waldrop, this information may be redistributed in any free format. |