From the November 2006 Newsletter:

Keeping your costs down as energy costs go up
By Justin Thyme

• First, consider inexpensive ways of using less energy. Keeping the air you’ve already heated from leaving your building or getting chilled is the cheapest way to reduce your costs on heating.
  

• If your ceiling is not well insulated, now is the time to consider improved insulation, ideally up to an R30 level. Your home and your tenants’ homes will be more comfortable and your heating bills will be reduced.
  

• Add insulation strips around old windows and doors. They are easy to tape up around door and window frames. The metal strips that you nail in place are a bit more time-consuming to install, but last much longer.
  

• Change furnace filters every month and make sure the filter fits the furnace.
  

• Check and seal your duct system at all joints with aluminum tape (NOT duct tape, which doesn’t last), so the heat goes into the living space, not the garage or attic. While you’re at it, you might as well wrap the ducts with insulation.
  

• Avoid heating an empty home. Put in a programmable thermostat that automatically turns off when you leave for work and at night and turns on when you come home.
  

• Finally, you should have your heating system evaluated by an expert to determine how long it would take to recover the cost of a new furnace. Keep in mind in your calculations that the price of gas will be increasing.

•  Make sure your hot water faucets don’t drip. If they do, have them fixed.
  

• If your water heater feels warm to the touch, add an insulation blanket. Heat the water, not the garage. Set the water heater’s thermostat no higher than the heat you need. Turn the temperature down to 125 degrees or lower. If you’re gone for a few days, or have an empty unit, set the thermostat at “vacation.”
  

• You can also wrap all exposed hot water pipes with “pac-man” type snap-on insulation. This is very easy to install. Your hardware store will know what this is.
  

• Solar water heating can reduce monthly utilities bill enormously, but requires a capital outlay. Such heating systems are relatively easy to install, using your existing plumbing system. They require a solar panel on the roof or some other sunny spot and a storage tank (similar to a water heater) in the basement or attic. Solar systems keep water hot most of the year. For periods without sun, they can be augmented by an electric or gas backup system, so that no one goes without hot water. The system can be set up for buildings with multiple units and engineered to meet the needs of each building. Such a system might cost $5–8,000 for a single unit. A two-unit building might cost roughly $7–10,000. Not chump change, to be sure, but state and federal rebates are available until December of 2007, reducing initial costs. While the systems take a while to pay for themselves—perhaps as long as 6–8 years, depending on amount of hot water used in the building—after that, they are nearly free except for the low maintenance costs. Current solar water systems are expected to last for 20 years or longer, even though the technology is relatively new. If you are paying for tenant utilities, it is definitely worth considering. For more information check the internet under “solar water heating” or look at the Pacific Energy Center at PGE: www.pge.com/003_save_energy.
  

• Put outdoor lights on a timer so they turn off during the day.

• Change all outside lights to outdoor-rated fluorescents. These use about one-fifth as much energy as regular incandescent lights and last at least 10 times longer. Use compact fluorescent screw-ins.
  

• Inside, change all entry lights, closet lights and lights in other utility areas to color-balanced screw-in compact fluorescent bulbs. These new bulbs have improved greatly; they don’t flicker or make everyone look dead. If you don’t like the spiral shape of the bulb, you can buy ones with covers that look like an incandescent bulb at City Lights on Folsom Street or on the Internet. A 25-watt fluorescent bulb provides the same illumination as about 90 watts of incandescent lighting, and each 25-watt fluorescent replacement saves about $70 a year.
  
• Put your home computer, printer, cell phone charger, TV, CD player, microwave, toaster, etc. onto easy-toreach power strips with an on/off switch. Turn the power strip off when you aren’t using it. Many appliances use nearly as much energy just by being plugged in on “Stand-by” mode as they do when they are “on.”
  

• Install dimmable light switches. (These switches do not work with fluorescent bulbs.)
  
  

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