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Written by Marianne Peters, Greeniac11213   
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Monday, 23 March 2009

My Energy Audit

Last week I asked John Vialard of my local Marshall County, Indiana electric cooperative to do an energy audit of my house. It’s an inventory of a home’s energy output, followed by some energy-saving solutions—usually a free service to utility customers. I learned that while some energy innovations are great, simply cutting back makes the most sense—especially if we all do it.

Conserve. John Vialard pointed out that while it might seem smart to install a new wind turbine, reducing my current energy use is wiser. Turning off lights and gadgets, using less water, programming my thermostat, correctly maintaining appliances, air-drying my clothes, insulating my water heater—all add up to savings for little cost.

Seal the cracks. Air infiltration happens when outside air sneaks in uninvited through cracks or gaps. “Make sure your house is as energy-efficient as possible,” John advised me. “That will automatically reduce your carbon foot-print and your costs.”A “tight” house is an efficient one. Homes like mine that were built around 1980 and earlier are not as snug as more recent construction. John suggested taking advantage of a cold, windy day and feeling along windows, doors, walls, and visible ductwork with my hands. Holding a candle or a feather next to possible cracks can also indicate air movement. Cheap solutions such as applying caulk or adding insulation usually does the trick.

Buy efficient appliances. Tightening up the house saves energy; so does buying energy-saving appliances like the ones with an Energy Star label. According to John Vialard, appliances are the biggest contributors to energy use in a typical home.

However, don’t rush out to replace your current appliances with new ones. “Unless you know that refrigerator is really working hard,” said John, “it doesn’t make sense to get rid of it in favor of a newer, more efficient one. Someone else will end up using it anyway, which will still consume energy.”

Invest in an efficient HVAC system. When our aged air conditioner finally wears out, John suggested replacing it with a geothermal heat pump, a newer technology that offers radical energy and cost savings. Though installing a heat pump has a hefty price tag (as high as $10,000), if you can afford it, it is exponentially more efficient than a furnace and readily pays for itself in just a few years.

More than light bulbs. I think compact fluorescent light bulbs are the greatest thing since sliced (organic whole grain) bread. However, John told me that lighting is not a significant energy cost for most people. He pointed out that the energy-saving benefits of CFLs won’t be realized until most households are using them—it has to be a collective effort. That reminded me that saving energy should not be a pursuit for obsessed greenies; keeping energy costs low releases funds that can be used elsewhere. What if our local schools had energy audits? How much money could we save just by taking steps to conserve energy, and how many dollars could be released for education? What about using energy audits to help cash-strapped libraries, non-profits, charities, and religious institutions find ways to save energy? Start in your own home, and let’s see where our collective energy savings takes us!
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© First North American Rights, 2009. Reprinted with permission of owner.




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Green Facts

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

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  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.