Residential
Customers
Heating and cooling your home accounts for an average of 60%
of your monthly energy bill. The following tips will help you save
energy and money.
Saving Energy is as Easy as 1-2-3
Heating During
the Fall & Winter Season - Energy Conservation Tips |
Ready or not, winter is coming! With high costs of energy being
a major concern this winter we want our customers to be as prepared
as possible. This is the first article in a series that will address
ways that you can help conserve energy this winter.
Your thermostat is a valuable tool if you use it wisely - Set your
thermostat to 60 degrees before you go to bed at night or when you
are away from your home for more than 4 hours. Each degree you lower
your heat in the 60-70 degree range will save 2% on your heating
costs. Using a programmable thermostat can do the work for you,
this type of thermostat can be programmed to automatically turn
down or turn up during certain times of the day. Check with your
heating contractor or local hardware store for costs involved in
the installation of programmable thermostats.
Fireplaces can be energy thiefs - If you have a fireplace, make
sure your damper closes tightly when you are not using it. An open
or poorly fitted damper will allow the warm air from your home to
escape out the chimmney. You should also make sure your chimney
is clean and inspected on an annual basis by a qualified contractor.
Use the Sun - Close your drapes on cold days and at night, but
open them during the day time, this will help the sun heat your
home.
Furnace maintinance is important – To keep your furnace running
smoothly by taking the time to replace or clean the filters. Your
owners manual can tell you the suggested proceedures to follow.
Dirty filters make your furnace run much harder and recirculates
dirty air through your house. If you have family members with allergies
you may want to consider filers that have special anti-allergen
components.
Check the duct work – Most ducts are located in unheated spaces
and are a common source of heat loss. Use R-6 or higher fiberglass
insulation to wrap ducts. Cracks or joints should be sealed with
UL-approved mastic sealants and UL-approved plastic or metallic
tapes. Do not use cloth-backed tapes. Reconnect or seal off any
disconnected ducts to avoid heating spaces that aren’t being
used. If you have any questions about how your duct work is connected,
contact your local HVAC contractor.
- Turn off equipment when not in use, like appliances, lights,
televisions, computer monitors and printers.
- Set air conditioner thermostats at 78 degrees or higher, health
permitting. When away from home, raise your thermostat to 85 degrees.
- In the winter set your thermostat to 68 degrees
- Clean or replace air conditioner filters monthly during the
cooling season.
- Keep the sun and heat out of your house by closing drapes or
blinds on south and west facing windows.
- Activate power-saving features on your computers and office
equipment when not in use.
- Do full loads when using your clothes washer dryer and dishwasher.
- Unplug and recycle your second refrigerator.
- Replace incandescent light bulbs with energy-efficient compact
fluorescent lamps (CFLs).
- Consider purchasing a whole house fan to cool your house.
- Use dimmers, timers and motion sensors on indoor and outdoor
lighting.
- Install a programmable thermostat to prevent unnecessary heating
or cooling, especially at night or when you are away from your
home.
 How
much am I paying to run this appliance*?
As you may have learned in our What is a kWh? section, when
we measure electricity usage with an electric meter, we measure
both the amount of electricity being used as well as the length
of time it is used. For example, a 1500 watt hair dryer used on
the high setting by two people for five minutes every day for a
month would cost: 1500 watts / 1000 = 1.5 kilowatts
2 people x 5 min/day used = 10 min/day
10 min/day x 30 days/month = 300 minutes or 5 hours/month
1.5 kWh x 5 hours/month = 7.5 kWh/month
If a kWh costs 6 cents, your total operating cost for this appliance
would be calculated as follows:
7.5 kWh/month x $.06 cents/kWh = $.45 cents/month*
Energy Efficiency
- Adding Value to your Home |
To really add the value of energy efficiency to your home, follow
these three steps:
 Tighten
the House’s Thermal Envelope—The thermal envelope
includes the roof, walls, windows and doors, insulation, caulking,
and weather-stripping. In other words, every item that separates
the inside from the outside. Each of these items directly affects
the house's heating and cooling loads--as well as its comfort,
quiet, and overall value.
Some tips:
- Properly insulate your house. The U.S. Department of Energy
can tell you the most economic and effective level that's
right for your Zip code http://www.ornl.gov/%7Eroofs/Zip/ZipHome.html
- Install double pane windows—heat escapes through a
single pane of glass almost 14 times faster than through a
well-insulated wall.
- Adding a storm door will create the same insulation effect
between the doors.
- Caulk and Weather-strip: Poorly caulked and weather-stripped
doors and windows can cause as much as 40 percent of a home's
heating and cooling dollars to leak out.
 Specify
High-Efficiency Appliances—During the past 30 years,
home appliances have steadily become more energy efficient. Examples
include a microwave oven, which uses 90 percent less energy to
cook a meal than a conventional gas oven; compact fluorescent
light bulbs, which can offer light similar to incandescent bulbs,
but use 75 percent less electricity to do so; and, refrigerators,
which can now use less than half as much electricity as those
built in the 1970s
Some tips:
- Did you know that heating and cooling your home uses more
energy and drains more energy dollars than any other system
in your home? Typically, 44 percent of your energy bill goes
for heating and cooling.
- All the appliances you plug in account for about 20% of
your household's energy consumption, with refrigerators and
clothes dryers at the top of the consumption list.
- Today’s refrigerators consume less than half as much
electricity as those built in the 1970’s.
- A microwave oven uses 90 percent less energy to cook a meal
than a conventional gas oven.
- About 80% to 85% of the energy used for washing clothes
is for heating the water. Use cold water rinses whenever you
can.
- Increasing your lighting efficiency is one of the fastest
ways to decrease your energy bills. If you replace 25% of
your lights in high-use areas with compact fluorescents, you
can save about 50% of your lighting energy bill.
 Improve
Control Over Household Energy Use—How the household uses
its electric appliances and equipment will finally determine its
energy efficiency. There are a houseful of energy-saving tips,
many of which are simple, low-, or no-cost, and will help consumers
gain greater control over their electric bills.
Some tips:
- You can save as much as 10% a year on your heating and
cooling bills by simply turning your thermostat back 10% to
15% for 8 hours. You can do this automatically without sacrificing
comfort by installing an automatic setback or programmable
thermostat.
- Change or clean the heating and cooling system's filter
every month or two, depending on how dirty it gets. You should
be able to see light clearly through the filter. If not, it
needs to be changed.
- During the day in the winter, keep curtains drawn and shades
pulled over windows facing north. In the summer, close curtains
over windows facing south.
- Move furniture away from the air registers, allowing for
the free flow of cooled or heated air.
- Place the thermostat on an inside wall, away from windows
and doors. Drafts will cause the thermostat to keep the heating
or cooling system running, even if the rest of the house is
comfortable.
- During hot summer days, close cooling vents in unused rooms.
Also, when using window air conditioners, don't forget to
close doors to unused rooms.
- Seal any ducts—the network of tubes in the walls, floors,
and ceilings, carries the air from your home's furnace and
central air conditioner to each room—if they run through
the attic or in a crawl space underneath your house.
Central Air Conditioning: |
 Periodic
maintenance will keep your cooling system running efficiently.
Please call your local Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power office for system service
checks.- Select a central air conditioning unit with the lowest suitable
capacity and highest efficiency. Ask your dealer to help you determine
what you need.
- Make sure ducts in your air conditioning system are properly
sealed and insulated, especially those that pass through the attic
or other uncooled spaces.
- Planting trees or shrubs that provide shade for your air-conditioning
unit can increase efficiency by up to 10%.
- When it is below 78° outside, use a ventilation fan in your
attic or in an upstairs window to cool your home instead of running
your central air conditioning.
- Clean or replace your air conditioning filter each month.
- Do not place lamps or television sets near your thermostat.
Heat from appliances is sensed by the thermostat and could cause
the A/C to run longer than necessary.
- Turn off air conditioners when you leave the room for several
hours. You will use less energy cooling the room down later than
if you leave it running.
- Use a fan with your window air conditioner. It will spread cooled
air without greatly increasing your power use.
- Close blinds and draperies to keep out daytime sun.
- Electric lights generate heat, so keep lights low or off.
- Cook in the early morning or late evening whenever possible.
- Keep windows closed during the hottest hours of the day.
- Use vents and exhaust fans in the attic, kitchen, and laundry
room to pull heat and moisture directly to the outside
- If each household in the United States raised air conditioning
temperatures 6 degrees, we'd save the equivalent of 190,000 barrels
of oil every day.
- Setting your thermostat colder than normal when you turn on
the A/C will not cool your home faster. It will cool to a lower
temperature than you need and use more energy.
 Summer
time is vacation time! When your house is vacant, your electric
bill should go way down, right? Well, not always. Many things continue
to run in your home whether you are there or not. Here are a few
tips to help lower electric usage while you are away:
- Turn off your electric water heater
- Raise the temperature of your refrigerator to 42-45 degrees
- Put security lights on a timer
- Turn off the air conditioning.
Following these simple tips will save you money on your electric
bill. And wouldn't you rather spend it on your vacation?
 Your
heating system, whether gas or electric, is probably your home's
largest energy user in the winter. It can be an energy waster if
you don't use it wisely.
- Keep the heat. Close draperies at night to keep in the heat.
Open them during the day to let the sun shine through and warm
the inside of your home.
- Maintenance can help efficiency. To improve or maintain an
the efficiency of your existing furnace, check the filters at
least once a month during the heating season and change if necessary.
In addition, follow the maintained guidelines in your furnace's
manual.
- Prevent heat loss. Cut heat loss by caulking and weather stripping
doors and windows. Close the damper when not using a fireplace
to prevent heat from escaping.
- Permanent setbacks save the most. A good rule of thumb is to
set the temperature as low as you can and still be comfortable.
For permanent setback, where the temperature stays low 24 hours
a day, there is a potential energy savings on your heating bill
of 1-2% per degree of setback.
- Clock thermostats help with temporary setbacks. Turning the
temperature down at night or when no one is at home can save energy
with most types of heating systems. If you have trouble remembering,
clock thermostats can help by automatically turing the thermostat
down and up on a pre-set schedule.
- Use ventilating fans only as needed. Use kitchen, bath and other
ventilating fans sparingly. In just one hour these fans can blow
away a house full of warmed air. Turn them off just as soon as
they have done their job.
- Insulate. Proper insulation keeps your home warm in winter and
cool in summer. In fact, up to 20% of your heating energy can
be lost through an uninsulated ceiling. The following minimum
R-values are recommended for your home: R-30 ceilings (R-38 for
mountain homes and electric heated homes), R-13 walls and R-19
floors over unheated areas.
Following these simple tips will save you money on your energy
bill.
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