Energy Savings Tips

Lowering Overall Consumption: A Snapshot

There are some sim­ple steps you can take to cut your ener­gy con­sump­tion in every area of your home.

  • Set the tem­per­a­ture in your refrig­er­a­tor between 38° and 42° F; your freez­er should be set between 0°F and 5°F.
  • Keep them full. It takes less ener­gy to cool a full refrig­er­a­tor than an emp­ty one.
  • Twice a year, clean the con­denser coils that are locat­ed on the bot­tom or the back side of most mod­els.
  • Check the seals and replace any that are cracked or worn.
  • Open the refrig­er­a­tor door less.
  • Let food cool before stor­ing in the refrig­er­a­tor.
  • Always cov­er every­thing. Humid­i­ty escapes from uncov­ered foods, which caus­es the com­pres­sor to work hard­er.
  • Replace worn out or inef­fi­cient appli­ances with Ener­gy Star® mod­els.
  • Use your microwave for most cook­ing. A microwave does small and medi­um cook­ing jobs more effi­cient­ly than an oven or range top.
  • Choose the right pan for the job. When using the range top, remem­ber that pans with flat bot­toms heat more effi­cient­ly than those with­out.
  • Wash only full loads in the dish­wash­er.
  • Wash clothes in cold water on the econ­o­my cycle and always have a full load.
  • Don’t over dry clothes in the dry­er. Use air dry clothes on the light­weight loads. Hang clothes on a dry­ing rack or out­side in the sum­mer.
  • TVs, VCRs, DVD play­ers com­put­ers and print­ers, stere­os, microwaves, cof­fee machines, and recharge­able pow­er tools use elec­tric­i­ty around the clock. You think they may be off, but they are still run­ning.
  • Unplug appli­ances direct­ly from the wall out­lets when not in use. To make the job eas­i­er, plug your elec­tron­ics on a pow­er strip and switch off the pow­er strip after you are fin­ished using them.
  • If you are not going to be using your com­put­er for a while and don’t want to shut it down, sim­ply turn off your mon­i­tor. Screen savers do not reduce the amount of ener­gy used.
  • Install ener­gy-effi­cient show­er heads and faucet aer­a­tors.
  • Heat water to the right tem­per­a­ture (120°F). Some dish­wash­ers require the tem­per­a­ture to be slight­ly high­er.
  • Repair leaks at once.
  • Insu­late hot and cold water pipes.
  • Turn your water heater off when you plan to be away for more than five days.
  • Take a show­er instead of a bath. The aver­age bath uses twice as much hot water as a five-minute show­er.
  • Do not leave the faucet run­ning while you wash dish­es, brush teeth, or shave.
  • Apply weath­er strip­ping to stop drafts around doors and win­dows. Beneath doors, install draft guards avail­able at most hard­ware stores.
  • Caulk small­er cracks. Most homes have cracks and leaks that are equal to a 2’x2’ open win­dow. For large cracks with­out mov­ing parts, such as in walls, floors or foun­da­tions, apply spray foam insu­la­tion.
  • Dou­ble insu­late win­dows. An eco­nom­i­cal alter­na­tive is plas­tic sheet­ing.
  • Use drapes to insu­late. Keep drapes closed to keep warm air in. Keep them open to allow the sun’s rays to help warm chilled rooms.
  • Switch to LED (light-emit­ting diodes) bulbs in the light fix­tures used often. Tra­di­tion­al incan­des­cent bulbs are not ener­gy effi­cient.
  • If you’re not in the room, you don’t need the light on. Try to get into the habit of turn­ing off the lights.
  • Use low-wattage bulbs where applic­a­ble like clos­ets.
  • Dust off light bulbs.
  • Paint and dec­o­rate in light col­ors, Dark col­ors absorb light, light col­ors reflect light.
  • Install dim­mers in areas where dimmed light­ing makes sense, like the din­ing room. And bed­room.
  • Use task light­ing. If you’re work­ing dili­gent­ly at a desk or work­bench, oth­er lights in the room could be turned off or dimmed.
  • Keep the ther­mo­stat between 65° and 68°F.
  • Add extra insu­la­tion.
  • Clean or replace fur­nace fil­ters month­ly. Shake reusable fil­ters out­side or spray them with a gar­den hose. Make sure they are dry before replac­ing.
  • Close your chim­ney damper as soon as you are sure the fire is com­plete­ly out.
  • Use sweaters and blan­kets. Throw an extra blan­ket on the bed.
  • A ceil­ing or portable fan run­ning at a very low speed can help dis­trib­ute warm air more even­ly and reduce the desire to turn up the heat.
  • Keep drapes and blinds closed.
  • Check heat ducts for leaks. Any you find should be sealed tight­ly using mas­tic. Ducts in unheat­ed areas should be insu­lat­ed.
  • Keep heat­ing vents unob­struct­ed.
  • Air con­di­tion­er fil­ter should be cleaned or replaced once a month dur­ing use.
  • Keep an unob­struct­ed air flow.
  • Main­tain 78°F. For every degree you low­er the tem­per­a­ture, the ener­gy costs rise by 6%. A tem­per­a­ture set­ting of 75°F costs 18% more; a 72°F set­ting costs 36% more.
  • Use a pro­gram­ma­ble ther­mo­stat.
  • In the sum­mer, prop­er amounts of insu­la­tion in walls, attics and crawl­spaces helps keep warm air out­side.
  • Plant shade trees that lose their leaves in the win­ter. Not only will shade trees absorb the radi­ant heat before it hits your roof, plant­i­ng trees helps clean the air too.
  • Install a ceil­ing fan above the area where you spend most of your time.

Conserving Energy: A Closer Look

Appliances

Lighting

Water

Water Heating

What stays on when you go out?

“We are nev­er home – we couldn’t have used this much elec­tric­i­ty.” Or, “We went on vaca­tion for two weeks and our elec­tric bill shows bare­ly a drop in usage.” We often hear com­ments like these, espe­cial­ly in sum­mer. How can elec­tric bills scarce­ly change when a house is emp­ty for most of the billing peri­od? Here are some things to con­sid­er.

Turn Off the Unnec­es­sary Ener­gy Eaters
Hanging light bulbs illuminate vibrant green plants inside a cozy, modern interior
Nighttime scene with lightning over two cars parked on a street, beside residential houses and streetlights. Power lines cross the sky.

Whole home surge protection

Homes today are in more need of whole-house surge pro­tec­tion than before. Due to the advanced elec­tron­ics, appli­ances, heat­ing, light­ing, and high-tech enter­tain­ment cen­ters, the aver­age home has a huge invest­ment in elec­tron­ic equip­ment. Surge pro­tec­tors extend the life­time of sen­si­tive elec­tron­ic equip­ment by pro­tect­ing it against harm­ful pow­er surges and over­volt­age prob­lems.

Pro­tect Your Valu­ables

Landscape to save energy

Are you look­ing for cost-effec­tive yet eye-pleas­ing ways to low­er your ener­gy bills? Look no fur­ther than your back­yard. Plant­i­ng trees, shrubs, vines, grass­es, and hedges may be your best long-term invest­ment for reduc­ing ener­gy costs. That’s because a well-designed land­scape will cut your heat­ing and cool­ing costs dra­mat­i­cal­ly, pro­tect your home from win­ter wind and sum­mer sun and reduce water con­sump­tion.

Plant, Grow & Save
Two striped chairs and a small table on a sunlit porch, casting shadows against a white house with a glass door. Peaceful ambiance.
A large residential air conditioning unit installed beside house.

Why is a heat pump a good idea?

If you’re look­ing for ways to cut your heat­ing bill, con­sid­er that heat­ing and cool­ing account for about half of your home ener­gy use. Also, the eas­i­est way to take a bite out of that part of your bill is with an ener­gy-effi­cient heat pump.

Increase Effi­cien­cy with a Heat Pump

Sizing air conditioners

Stud­ies have shown that one-third of home air con­di­tion­ers do not work the way they should because they are over­sized. And an over­sized air con­di­tion­er does not mean more cool com­fort for you; it means high­er pur­chase costs, high­er oper­at­ing costs and a home that is too cool to be com­fort­able.

Choose the Right Air Con­di­tion­ing Sys­tem
Two air conditioning units, one labeled "Toshiba," are placed on a flat, concrete rooftop surface, surrounded by light panels.

Cold Weather To-Do’s

A cold snap can chal­lenge even the most hard-work­ing home heat­ing sys­tem. And the old­er, and more poor­ly-insu­lat­ed and air-sealed your home is, the hard­er it is to keep up with the cold weath­er.

Warm Weather To-Do’s

KPUD encour­ages adding ener­gy-sav­ing and safe­ty tasks to your spring clean­ing list, from chang­ing fil­ters and clean­ing gut­ters to check­ing HVAC ducts and reset­ting pro­gram­ma­ble ther­mostats.

More Resources for Saving Energy

One of the best sources of ener­gy effi­cien­cy infor­ma­tion today is the Inter­net. Many util­i­ties, prod­uct man­u­fac­tur­ers, gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies, non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, and indi­vid­u­als main­tain Web sites with ener­gy infor­ma­tion that is just a click away. Here are some oth­er handy Web sites when you are look­ing for ener­gy sav­ing tips:

Ener­gy Ideas Clear­ing­house. A pow­er­house of ener­gy infor­ma­tion is avail­able here free of charge. Search the Ener­gy Ideas Clear­ing­house (EIC) ener­gy solu­tions data­base for infor­ma­tion on every­thing from appli­ances to weath­er data.

Ener­gy Star This web site pro­vides lists of Ener­gy Star qual­i­fied prod­ucts and a store loca­tor to help you find qual­i­fied prod­ucts at local retail­ers. Ener­gy Star prod­ucts are made by all major man­u­fac­tur­ers and are avail­able at stores every­where. Ener­gy Star is a vol­un­tary part­ner­ship among the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy, the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, prod­uct man­u­fac­tur­ers, local util­i­ties and retail­ers.

Ener­gy Star Refrigerator/Freezer Cal­cu­la­tor. Find out how much your refrig­er­a­tor or freez­er costs to oper­ate in ener­gy and mon­ey and how much you can save with Ener­gy Star.  

Ener­gy Con­ser­va­tion and Renew­able Ener­gy. Keep cur­rent on the lat­est devel­op­ments with this com­pre­hen­sive month­ly newslet­ter on North­west ener­gy con­ser­va­tion and renew­able ener­gy. At this site your can track what is hap­pen­ing with util­i­ties, ener­gy pol­i­cy, salmon recov­ery, indus­try restruc­tur­ing and oth­er issues relat­ed to effi­cien­cy and renew­ables. The site also has infor­ma­tion about pro­grams and projects such as refrig­er­at­ed stor­age, irri­ga­tion sched­ul­ing, fuel cells, green pow­er, build­ings and more.

Coun­cil for an Ener­gy-Effi­cient Econ­o­my. The Amer­i­can Coun­cil for an Ener­gy-Effi­cient Econ­o­my (ACEEE) is a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to advanc­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy as a means of pro­mot­ing both eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion.

Solar Wash­ing­ton.  Solar Wash­ing­ton is a 501©3 non-prof­it asso­ci­a­tion of solar ener­gy equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers, sys­tem inte­gra­tors, dis­trib­u­tors, deal­ers, design­ers, con­sul­tants, stu­dents, and inter­est­ed cit­i­zens.  Their mis­sion is to fur­ther the devel­op­ment and use of solar ener­gy, and sup­port relat­ed tech­nolo­gies.