Home Energy Stewardship Checklist

To Do Today

Adjust your thermostat. Run your air conditioner at higher temperature and your heat lower.

Turn down the temperature of your water heater to the warm setting (120°F). You'll not only save energy, you'll avoid scalding your hands.

Start using energy-saving settings on refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines and clothes dryers.

Survey your incandescent lights for opportunities to replace them with compact fluorescents (CFLs). These lamps can save three-quarters of the electricity used by incandescents. The best targets are 60-100W bulbs used several hours a day. New CFLs come in many sizes and styles to fit in most standard fixtures.

Check the age and condition of your major appliances, especially the refrigerator. You may want to replace it with a more energy-efficient model before it dies.

Clean or replace furnace, air-conditioner, and heat-pump filters.

Use a Clothesline. Using a clothesline will reduce your utility bill and, here in ever-sunny Texas, can often dry your clothes as fast or faster than a dryer. If you can’t line dry all your clothes, start sorting your items so you can line dry some portion of your laundry. For every time you don’t run your dryer, you are preventing some number of pounds of coal from being mined and processed for electricity. A clothesline is thecheapest solar equipment on the market!

Visit the Texas Interfaith Power and Light Website for a host of programs, tips, and ideas to help you help the environment in a faithful, thoughtful way.

This Week

Visit the hardware store. Buy and install programmable thermostats, low-flow
showerheads, faucet aerators, and compact fluorescents, as needed.

Rope-caulk very leaky windows.

Assess your heating and cooling systems. Determine if replacements are justified, or whether you should retrofit them to make them work more efficiently to provide the same comfort (or better) for less energy.

This Month

Collect your utility bills. Separate electricity and fuel bills. Target the biggest bill for energy conservation remedies.

Use an online carbon calculator to determine your family’s ecological impact. As the old business school adage says, you only manage what you measure.

Offset emissions you can’t figure out how to avoid by joining TXIPL. Membership includes emission offsets known as Renewable Energy Credits or RECs. Members can purchase additional RECs to get their emissions as low as possible.

Crawl into your attic or crawlspace and inspect for insulation. Is there any? How much?

Insulate hot water pipes and ducts wherever they run through unheated areas.

Seal up the largest air leaks in your house—the ones that whistle on windy days, or feel drafty. The worst culprits are usually not windows and doors, but utility cut-throughs for pipes ("plumbing penetrations"), gaps around chimneys and recessed lights in insulated ceilings, and unfinished spaces behind cupboards and closets. Better yet, hire an energy auditor with a blower door to point out where the worst cracks are. All the little, invisible cracks and holes may add up to as much as an open window or door, without you ever knowing it!

Install a clock thermostat to set your thermostat back automatically at night.

Schedule an energy audit for more expert advice on your home as a whole.

This Year

Insulate. If your walls aren't insulated have an insulation contractor blow cellulose into the walls. Bring your attic insulation level up to snuff.

Replace aging, inefficient appliances. Even if the appliance has a few useful years left, replacing it with a top-efficiency model is generally a good investment.

Upgrade leaky windows. It may be time to replace them with energy-efficient models or to boost their efficiency with weatherstripping and storm windows.

Have your heating and cooling systems tuned up in the fall and spring, respectively.

Duct sealing can also improve the energy efficiency and overall performance of your system (warm-air furnace and central air conditioners).