Script for
Reducing Home Energy and Heating Costs
Part 2
Slide 1. Reducing Home Energy and Heating Costs Part 2
Slide 2. Let’s look at how we can save energy and be more comfortable in our homes this
winter. Some things will cost nothing, some will have a little expense, some ideas will cost
more and some options might be too costly to be able to benefit from the initial expense. If
you will notice the upper left corner of the slide is a marker that will be placed on slides to
indicate this activity or item is appropriate for apartment dwellers as well as home owners.
Slide 3. There are a number of things that can impact how comfortable we feel in terms of
heat or warmth. Human Thermal Comfort is affected by the air temperature, air velocity or
drafts, relative humidity, where too much can cause us to feel clammy and too little can lead
to dry skin. Also clothing, metabolic rate or level of activity and the mean radiant
temperature can contribute to our thermal comfort.
Slide 4. There are a number of things that we can do differently on a personal basis to keep
warm, comfortable and save energy through this winter. Don’t sit around in summer clothes
and think you will be comfortable! Get out your sweaters, sweatshirts, lap quilts, etc. to be
comfortable. Taking short showers instead of baths will save hot water. Remind others in
the home to be sure to shut the door tightly behind them when coming in or going out of the
house. If you have children impress upon them how important it is to try to save energy this
winter.
Slide 5. To keep warm and save energy turn down the thermostat when you leave the house
and at night. Every fall check heating vents to be sure they are clean. Don’t forget to check
the return air ducts in forced hot air systems to be sure they are clean. Also opening drapes
in south facing windows during the day will increase the solar gain in the room, closing
them at night will reduce heat loss.
Slide 6. Have your furnace cleaned and serviced annually. Clean hot air furnace filters
monthly or as often as recommended. If you have ceiling fans be sure to change the
direction of the rotation to winter settings to improve the comfort level in your home. Use
caution when thinking about closing off unused rooms if you have a hot water heating
system. If the temperature gets too cold the pipes may burst causing expensive repairs. This
isn’t a concern with rooms heated by hot air that don’t have any plumbing fixtures in them.
Slide 7. Reducing air infiltration that can cause drafts will give you a big bang for your buck
in terms of heat saved and increased comfort. There are a number of ways to reduce air
infiltration including insulation and caulking and weather stripping. You don’t have to be a
pro to check for drafts in your home. If you have lived in your home through a winter and
experienced the effects of winter winds making your curtains move in the windows, you
know there is a draft problem there. If you sit by an outlet and feel that cool blast of air, you
have a draft problem. You can also use a piece of tissue paper taped to a pencil to detect
1
drafts. Turning on the bathroom or kitchen exhaust fan will make the air movement more
obvious.
Slide 8. To stop drafts associated with outlets there are special foam gaskets that can be
easily installed in your outlets and light switches with the use of a screw driver. First turn off
your power so you won’t get shocked. Unscrew the screw, remove the outer plastic cover,
put the gasket in place, return the plastic outer cover and screw back in place.
Slide 9. Stopping air infiltration will greatly improve the comfort of your home by stopping
the cool drafts that can chill you. Caulking the largest holes first including those around
wiring, pipes and duck penetrations in the attic, under the floor and through walls.
Weatherize your doors and windows with caulk or weather stripping. Installing a vapor
barrier such as a piece of plastic on the warm side of insulation will also help reduce air
infiltration.
Slide 10. How do you caulk? If you have used tube frosting to make a design on a cake you
can use a caulking gun. You lay down a bead of caulk around windows, around the
foundation, or any place that has a gap to the out doors. If it looks a little ragged you can
smooth it with your finger or piece of plastic. Caulking will last several years. There are a
number of different types of weather striping for doors and windows. Caulking and weather
stripping will pay back in reduced heating bills in one year.
Slide 11. Installing storm windows and banking on the house will also help reduce air
infiltration, especially with the old rock foundations. Homes with vinyl siding need to use
something that doesn’t need to be nailed in place like bags of leaves, bales of straw or solid
foam board. Remember do not to cover vents from any propane fired appliances with
banking materials.
Slide 12. Of course if at all possible adding insulation and vapor barriers to the inside of the
basement or crawl space wall of you home will make these improvements permanent and
then you can eliminate the annual fall chore of banking the house.
Slide 13. During cold nights hot air from the ceiling of a room will move to the edge of the
room and start going down the wall. If this warm air passes over a window (even with
drapes closed) it is immediately cooled and will fall to the floor causing a draft. Curtains are
more effective if they have a header board or cornice at the top of the window to prevent the
precious warm air from moving down next to the cold window and causing a draft at the
bottom of the window.
Slide 14. Window treatments need to be portable and easy to use to really be effective. We
can use heavy curtains, roman shades with fiber fill and plastic sheeting, rigid Styrofoam
board or you can make your own tight fitting window shutter out of cardboard, aluminum
foil, duct tape and foam weather stripping. UMaine Extension has factsheets that outline
how to make these window treatments.
Slide 15. With a little cloth and foam pipe insulation or sand, you can make door draft
stoppers or window draft snakes to reduce air infiltration and make you more comfortable. If
you are not a crafty person you can stuff a few plastic bags inside another plastic bag and
2
use to seal a window. This door draft stopper will stay with the door when it is opened and
closed. Again UMaine Extension has a how to factsheet on making these items.
Slide 16. Heating water takes a lot of energy and we keep a big tank of hot water ready all day
long for the few minutes that we want to use it. Turn down the temperature on your water
heating system whether it is oil, gas or electrically powered to 110 or 120 degrees. Annually
drain a few gallons of water out of the bottom of your water heater to remove any rusty
deposits to increase the longevity and efficiency of your heater. Installing low flow
showerheads and stopping any faucet leaks will reduce your energy use. Insulate any hot
water supply pipes with the foam pipe insulation material. Also, some hot water heater
themselves can be insulated.
Slide 17. Did you know that many televisions are not off when we turn them off? They
continue to draw power to be ready to turn on instantly when we want to watch television.
All the other electronics connected to the television, satellite, video player, cable box, etc.
may all be drawing power 24/7. Plug these things into a power strip and flick the switch off
when you are done watching your favorite shows. Compact florescent bulbs are more
expensive than our incandescent light bulbs so start to replace the lights you use most often
with compact florescent bulbs first. And of course, if you aren’t in the room, turn the light
off.
Slide 18. When we think about lighting energy use there are two things to consider. The
energy used and the light produced. Energy used is expressed as watts. We used to like a
75 watt incandescent bulb to read by since it would produce over 1,000 lumens of light. But
a 20 watt compact florescent bulb can give us this same amount of light at a quarter of the
amount of electricity. Also, they will last 10 times longer than our old incandescent bulbs.
There are some cautions that need to be followed when these bulbs break since they have a
minute amount of heavy metal in them.
Slide 19. Holiday lighting has a new energy efficient light source, “Light Emitting Diodes” or
LEDs. As you can see it will pay to replace your holiday lights with this new product. In
this example the homeowner is using 500 feet of different lights for 6 hours each night for
40 nights. Of course you could reduce the hours your lights are lit or you could change from
the very old C7 bulbs that would cost over $500 a season and the common mini
incandescent bulbs that would cost over $100 a season to the new LED at $11 a season.
Look for LEDs to be used in the home in place of the compact florescent bulbs as the next
generation of lighting technology.
Slide 20. Refrigerators and freezers use the most energy in our kitchen because they are on all
the time. To make them more efficient clean their coils, remove any frost if you don’t have
a frostless appliance. To check the gaskets, place a dollar bill on the gasket of the
refrigerator, close the door and try to pull the dollar out. If it comes out easily, you are
losing energy, replace the gasket. Also, keeping the refrigerator or freezer filled is more
efficient. You can fill soda bottles with water to take up space in your freezer.
Slide 21. We have a variety of ways we can cook foods for our families. We each have a
favorite method. As you can see some methods are more energy efficient than others.
Before you turn on your large oven to bake something consider cooking other items in the
3
oven at the same time or consider using the toaster oven if possible since it uses about half
the energy of the large oven. The microwave is the most efficient method of heating foods
but might not be appropriate for every recipe.
Slide 22. Other energy saving techniques in the kitchen include using the smallest pot on the
smallest burner. Don’t use your tiny pot to boil and egg on your large burner. It can
damage the handle of the pot as well as waste a lot of energy. Use the lid on your pots to
conserve heat. Don’t be peaking into the oven all the time checking on the progress of your
meal. The oven has to reheat all the cool air that you let into the oven when you open the
door.
Slide 23. If you have a dish washer run it only when full, don’t pre-rinse since they are made
to wash all that sticky food stuff off your dishes. When washing by hand don’t leave the
faucet running all the time, wash the dishes, put in a dish rack and then rinse them all at
once.
Slide 24. We now have detergents that will work in cool water. Unless you have extremely
dirty clothes, you should be using cool water wash and rinse. Wait till you have a full load
to wash before starting up the washer. Also, don’t over dry your clothes or better yet why
not hang them out on a nice day to dry in the sun. Drying clothes in the home during the
winter can add humidity to the dry air in your home while saving some energy.
Slide 25. Next we will move into some suggestions for energy saving that may cost a little to
install but will give big returns. If you have a fireplace remember your damper may not
block off the air leakage up your chimney so installing a tight fitting set of doors will help.
There are new fireplace inflatable plastic pillows that will seal the fireplace when not in use.
Be sure to check the chimney before you start a fire since wildlife may have set up
housekeeping in your chimney.
Slide 26. Many times we start the winter planning to turn the thermostat up and down based on
when we are in the home. In reality, we tend to forget to turn the thermostat down when we
don’t need to heat the home at night or when we are away at work. The answer is a
programmable thermostat. Set it to come up to a comfortable temperature before you get up
in the morning or home from work. The cost is between $50 and $100 and can return 1% of
your annual heating bill for every degree you set back for eight hours.
Slide 27. Homeowners with forced hot air heating systems need to be very aware about leaks
in the air ducts of their systems. Yes, duct tape was originally made to hold the air ducts
together, but the foil backed tape lasts longer and does a better job. You can also add
insulation to the ducts that run through unheated air spaces to conserve the heat they carry.
Slide 28. If you are ready to make a more significant investment in energy saving items
consider insulation your first investment option if your home isn’t up to the recommended
R-values. You know which windows and doors leak the most. Consider replacing one or two
a year until they are all done. If you have an old heating system it may be time to upgrade or
supplement with a different type of system. This slide shows how to calculate the cost and
benefit of installing some insulation in an attic space to bring it up to an R-47. The 15%
savings in heating costs would be paid for in two and a half years in this example.
4
Slide 29. One caution about insulating your attic space. To prevent ice dams be sure you have
enough insulation and ventilation to keep your roof cold. You don’t want to heat the roof,
you want to keep the heat in your living space. Passive ventilation is achieved through
proper sizing of vents at the eaves and roof. This can help reduce the formation of ice dams.
Slide 30. There are a number of certifying organizations that rate the relative efficiency of
appliances, heating or cooling systems, and building materials. Look for these ratings when
you shop for replacements for your home.
Slide 31. You can use the Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency rating of your old furnace and
compare it to the AFUE rating of a new furnace the figure out how much money you can
save per $100 of annual fuel costs. In this example the old 65% efficient furnace is replaced
with a 90% efficient furnace so the home owner would save $28 per $100 of fuel costs per
year.
Slide 32. You can calculate your return on investment in a new heating system by taking the
annual savings of the new system divided by the initial cost of the system and multiply the
result by 100 to get the percent return on investment. If you spent $3,800 per year on fuel
you would save $1,064 per year with the new heating system. In this case the family will
receive 21% return on their investment in a new heating system. With banks paying less
than 1% for your savings dollars it makes sense to invest in a new heating system.
Slide 33. To help give you incentives to implement these energy conservation techniques there
are a number of programs available. The Home Energy Loan program assists low income
people with energy efficiency improvements. If you go to buy a compact fluorescent bulb in
the stores you get an instant rebate from efficiency Maine. And finally the federal
government will allow you to take up to $1,500 in energy conservation improvements at the
rate of 30% of the improvements for the next two years combined.
Slide 34. If you have access to the internet here are a couple web sites to visit.
Developed for 2008 UMaine Cooperative Extension Energy Initiative Training by Donna Coffin
and Kathy Hopkins, Extension Educators.
