Vent dryer inside, throughout winter. You can route the clothes dryer heat vent to the inside of the home in the winter. We live in a really dry climate, so the additional moisture is really a benefit, not a issue. You will find two major benefits of venting inside. First, you recover the heat that was added to dry the clothes about 2.2 kWh every load. second, you prevent bringing in cold outside air to make up for that air that the dryer is pushing outside. To vent to the inside, you have to have a dry climate, an electrical dryer only, along with a method to catch the lint within the dryer exit stream. The price of this project was $20.00 for some tubing along with a lint filter. Gas dryers can never ever be vented inside, simply because toxic combustion products are within the vented air. Electrical dryers ought to only be vented inside if your climate is dry, because of feasible moisture difficulties. Energy cost savings every year would be 630 kWh with a cost savings of $63.00 every year.

Use electrical mattress pads. Unlike electrical blankets, the energy consumption for mattress pad heaters is really low, about 0.15 kWh every night. By utilizing these electrical mattress pads to heat the bed, we are in a position to keep the temperature from the rest of the home a lot lower and at the same time, will be comfortable. We have two furnaces in our home, but since putting in the electrical mattress pad heaters, we have been able to turn off the furnace that heats the bedrooms. The cost savings in propane is considerable, and it is quite comfortable as well. Others have reported being in a position to do the same thing with down comforters, but we have tried them and it does not work as well for us. The mattress pad heaters vary in price, but ours was $125.00. The evergy cost savings every year is 2.320 kWh along with a price cost savings of $186.00 every year.

Insulate windows with bubble wrap. This is really a neat idea that comes from the greenhouse crowd. You are able to insulate windows utilizing bubble wrap packing material by spraying a water mist on the window, and then applying bubble wrap. The bubble wrap will generally stay in place for the full season with 1 application. The bubble wrap distorts the view, but does permit a good amount of daylight to come in. It is really a great choice for windows that you don't need to look out of. This is really price efficient, payback is generally less than 1 heating season. At the end of the winter, you are able to just pull the bubble wrap away, roll it up and save it for next year. If you are going to use lots of bubble wrap, it's worth finding a dealer in packing materials to purchase it from, or a greenhouse supply location. You are able to get bubble wrap from shipping businesses such as UPS, but they tend to be more spendy. My price was 27 cents every square foot for 141 square feet, for a total of $38.00. You can do this project in just a couple of hours depending on the number of windows you have. The energy cost savings was 955 kWh and the yearly cost savings was $75.00.

Get rid of phantom electrical loads. I suggest we lobby our representatives in congress to have all electrical devices labeled with the amount of energy they use when they're switched off! These phantom loads, as they're referred to, are fairly little, but they add up as wasted electricity. For now, the easiest method to discover how much energy your appliances and gadgets consume even when they're away is with an inexpensive meter called the Kill-A-Watt. You plug the Kill-A-Watt into the wall, and then plug the device into it. The meter measures energy use and keeps totals for you while it is plugged in. Other brands operate similarly, Watts Up is another one you can use. In my house, all the phantom loads add up to as much as about 80 watts of energy. That's 700 kWh every year. With energy strips, you are able to totally turn off everything plugged into them by turning off the energy strip. I utilized energy strips to get rid of 20 of the 80 watts. The remaining 60 watts is coming from my fancy dish HDTV receiver. Turning it off has no effect on its energy consumption whatsoever. The only price of this project was a few energy strips, about $20.00. I spent about $50.00 to upgrade my satellite receiver. It still consumes energy when it's off, but only about 15 watts verses 60 watts. The power cost savings is 569 kWh every year along with a cost savings of $57.00 every year.