Renewable Energy Tips

• Wind turbines like WindTronics have become and affordable option for many home owners.  SilverLine Electric, LLC can order and install many renewable energy options into your house.
• Other options include solar photo voltaic systems for residential and commercial (solar panels).  
• Many renewable energy sources receive tax credits from the government that help supliment their cost.
• Generate enough energy from a renewable source and get the power company to pay you.
• Discover how much you could be saving with this wind and solar estimating calculator.
• US Incentives for renewables and efficiency.

Heating and cooling

• To save energy, set your thermostat as low as is comfortable in the winter and as high as is comfortable in the summer. You save 3 percent on the day’s heating or cooling costs by setting your thermostat back one degree (higher for cooling, lower for heating) for that 24-hour period. Maintain those settings and you save 3 percent all season!
• Clean or replace heating and cooling filters once a month or as needed. If your filter is in a cardboard frame, it needs to be replaced monthly during the heating season.
• If your system doubles as a central air-conditioning system, also clean or replace the filter monthly while the cooling system is in use.
• Clean air registers, baseboard heaters, and radiators as needed. Make sure they're not blocked by furniture, carpeting, or drapes.
• Bleed trapped air from hot-water radiators once or twice a season. If in doubt about how to perform this task, call a professional.
  
• Use kitchen, bath, and other ventilating fans wisely. In just one hour, these fans can pull out a houseful of warmed or cooled air. Turn fans off as soon as they have done the job.
• During the heating season, keep the draperies and blinds on your south-facing windows open during the day to allow sunlight and heat to enter your home. Close drapes at night to help reduce heat loss.
• During the cooling season, keep the window coverings closed during the day to prevent the sun from heating your home.
• Make sure drapes don't block registers and air returns.
• Close off unoccupied rooms. Install individual room controls to heat and cool rooms only when you use them.
• Have your heating and cooling systems serviced once a year to ensure peak operational efficiency.

Saving water and water-heating energy

• Install low-flow showerheads and faucet aerators.
  
• Insulate long runs of hot-water supply pipe, especially sections that pass through unheated spaces. 
• Repair or replace leaky faucets. The drips add up fast and represent dollars going down the drain. 
• A hot water faucet that leaks one drop per second wastes more than 2,300 gallons of hot water per year, which could cost as much as $36. The replacement washers needed to repair a leaky faucet costs only a few cents. 
• Lower the water heater thermostat to 120°F., or raise the temperature and install a cold water-mixing valve to the line. Water reaching your tap will be 120°F., will be safe enough to avoid scalds, and will save you money.

Laundering

• Wash with cold water whenever possible. 
• Wash and dry full loads to maximize efficiency. 
• Don't overload dryers. Overloaded dryers use more energy, cause clothes to wrinkle so they may need to be ironed, and wears out clothes more quickly. 
• Use suds savers and front-loading washers for maximum efficiency. 
• Always adjust the water level to fit load size. 
• Overloaded washers don't clean clothes as effectively so they even may need to be rewashed. 
• Clean the lint filter after each drying cycle to maintain dryer efficiency.

Energy-efficient lighting

• Use task lighting to target work and leisure activities. This lets you reduce your overall room lighting levels. 
• Use energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs—especially in fixtures that operate more than two hours a day. They cost more initially but use 75 percent less electricity and last about ten times longer than incandescent bulbs. 
• Open shades and blinds to take advantage of natural light. 
• Select bulbs carefully. Look for the highest lumens at the lowest wattage. Wattage is the power needed to make a bulb work. Lumens measure brightness. Long-life bulbs emit less light than standard incandescent bulbs of the same wattage.  Use long-life bulbs only in hard-to-reach places. 
• Keep light fixtures clean to gain the most illumination.

Refrigerating

• Test the tightness of the door seal on refrigerators and freezers. If the seal doesn't tightly hold a dollar bill when the door is closed, it's probably time to adjust or replace the gasket. 
• Replace old refrigerators. A 1980s-era refrigerator will cost up to 75 percent more to operate than a new super-efficient model. 
• For greatest efficency set refrigerators at 40º F. and freezers at 0º F.

Cooking

• Use your oven instead of your cook top to cut cooking costs. Surface units heat continuously, but an insulated oven normally heats one-third of the time it's in use. 
• Don't peek. Cooking temperatures can drop as much as 50º every time the oven door is opened, causing the oven to reheat. 
• Use the oven's self-cleaning cycle only for big cleaning jobs. Start the cycle while the oven is still hot from baking. 
• Use small appliances such as crockpots, electric frying pans, toaster ovens, and microwave ovens to save when cooking.