10. Find the leaks With incense or a wet finger, check for leaks around windows and doors. Caulk or seal. If you have windows, with frames check for leaks around the frame as well as the sashing. I have never had the hand strength to operate a caulking gun smoothly, but now there are better versions. Newborn Brothers 930 is $16 at Amazon and getting good reviews by women.
Note that energy recommendations have changed for windows: If you have old single pane windows with sashes made of hardwood, replacing them will only gain you 15% over windows+storm windows. In addition, new vinyl windows have an uncertain lifespan. This is important to know since replacing all the windows in your house is one of the most costly energy efficiency upgrades.
Recommendations have also changed for window-coverings. If you have a small opening at the top of a curtain and a small opening at the bottom, you have created a wind tunnel rather than an insulating curtain. The best insulation would be insulated cellular shades that hang inside the casing on side tracks.
If you are using fabric curtains the recommendations are:
- Hang the curtains as close as you can to the ceiling, or install a cornice.
- The curtains should be as close to the window as is practicable and extend to either side of the window.
- The curtains should extend to and touch the floor.
For doors you open and close regularly I’m fond of this product: Stopdraft. Holikme door strips also get good reviews.
9. Replace your light bulbs with LEDs There’s a joke about cars and computers: If auto manufactures keep up with computing we’d be driving $25 cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon and crashed twice a day. Well, LED lights are the real miracle of the energy efficiency world: they use 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs (and they never crash). Even doing a life cycle analysis, you should throw out old incandescents and replace them with LEDs.
8. Stir up the air Stand on a chair and see if the air at your ceiling is much warmer. If you have fans, during the winter leave them on low so that heat doesn't collect at the ceiling. If you don't have ceiling fans installed set a small fan in one corner of your room, or better yet try one of these: Tube Works ( https://tube-works.com/)
7. Refrigerators (plural) are a problem. New refrigerators are much more energy efficient, therefore the electricity used by refrigerators across BC should be decreasing. Instead the energy is increasing. The problem is that people don’t replace refrigerators: when they buy a new refrigerator, they put the old, inefficient, refrigerator in the basement or garage. If you are using a second refrigerator as a beer fridge or as an extra freezer, that’s a whopping part of your energy bill. Your goal is to have a single refrigerator newer than 2001.
6. “Argh!” appliances. In our house they include the hot glue gun and the iron (for quilting, not clothes). You can identify them because when they have been on all day Mom says “Argh!”. In your house they may be different. Track these things down and put them on a timer. You can now buy sophisticated plug that answers to Alexa/Google Home. My favorite is the Belkin Conserve Socket (ships to Canada via Amazon.com). Amazon.ca offers the Simple Touch c30004.
5. Clothes dryers. Dryers (and toasters) are an interesting challenge. Using an electric or gas element to create heat doesn't leave much room for energy efficiency. Here, however, you do have a high tech answer. All heating and cooling is moving toward heat pumps -- air heat pumps, ground heat pumps (geoexchange), and if you own a pool or lakefront property, open-loop heat pumps. Modern heat-pump clothes dryers work at a fraction of the energy. They also have the bonus of being better for your clothes -- rather than baking your clothes to evaporate the water, they dehumidify. They don't need a vent to the outdoors, but the extracted water does need someplace to drain and they can’t do their job if you lock them up in a tiny utility closet. The other alternative is the laundry line, or as a friend said to me “We let God dry”. Let me know when you figure out how to get God to make toast.
4. Clothes washers Appliances have changed a lot over the last few decades. Modern clothes washers and detergents can effectively clean clothes in cold water. Save the hot only for mildew or bodily fluids. Because manufacturers put no effort into energy efficiency until the government mandated changes, your appliances have a use-by date. For clothes washers, that date is 2005.
To leverage you great new appliances you need to stop doing two things:
- Stop rinsing your dishes.
- Stop washing clothes in warm or hot water.
3. Dishwashers I love how Consumer Reports dates your dishwasher:“A big clue that your dishwasher is decades old is if it is olive, yellow or almond colored”.
The reason you need a new dishwasher is not due to energy (although they have dropped from 1.5 kWh to 0.2 kWh per load) but water. There’s a handful of places on the earth where water shortages are going to hurt us long before we get slapped by climate change and unfortunately the Okanagan is on that list. You should replace your dishwasher if it was made in 2003 or earlier.
2. Furnace filter If you have a forced air system, get the air filter out of your heater -- go to the hardware store and buy six of them and mark the change date on your calendar. Normal people need to change furnace filters twice a year. If you have smokers, wildfires, pet hair, or construction dust change them quarterly. Cleaning out the “filter” is just plain good mechanical advice. It applies to your clothes dryer, humidifier, refrigerator (clean the exposed coils), and vacuum cleaner.1. Vampire Appliances The last thing on my list is finding vampire appliances -- appliances that don’t actually turn off, or draw a lot of current when they are in standby mode. Your appliances (mostly electronics) have gotten much better so I suggest you go at it intelligently and worry only about the items listed at SaveOnEnergy
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