Learning how to save money on heat is a great way to get started in your off grid journey. I personally decided to share some of my tips and tricks because today is the first day of the year that it’s been quite cold (and it just snowed!).

Your heating (and cooling) makes up over 40% of your heating bill so making sure it’s running in tip top shape is in your best interest because it can save you both money and energy.

Clean That Old Filter!

Did you know your furnace filter should be changed every 3 months? Even though I tell my family that repeatedly they still don’t seem to listen.

Why do you need to change your filter though? Simply put… as it gets dirty it restricts the air flow which means your furnace has to work longer to push that warm air to the rooms. A nice clean air filter won’t hinder air flow nearly as much as a dirty one (this tip doesn’t really save you energy, but it’s extremely important nonetheless).

Get Some Vent Covers

Chances are pretty good that you don’t use every room in your house. Even if you have vents that close you’re still letting hot air into the room because those vents aren’t sealed. I highly recommend you check out getting some vent covers to cover vents that aren’t in use. My personal preference are magnetic vent covers just because they work really well at sealing the vent and they’re easy to take off (and reusable!).

Vent covers are great if you don’t want to spend a lot of money, but if you’re like me (a perfectionist) you’re going to want a more permanent solution.

Replacing Vents

I only recommend that you do this step if your vents are leaking when they’re closed. It’s a pretty easy test to do… just turn your thermostat so the fan is on and go check out all the vents in your house. Close them and see if you can still feel a draft on your hand (if you’re not good at detecting drafts like me, a candle works great as a draft detector). If you feel a draft when the vent is closed than that means you’re wasting energy when you have that vent closed.

My personal method of replacing vents is pretty simple. I go to the hardware store and pick on that looks like it won’t leak. I also pick up some interior silicone (clear) and silicone the vent to the floor. It doesn’t cause any damage (just remember to get the interior stuff!) and it ensures that you’ve got a nice tight seal and aren’t leaking any hot air where you don’t want to be.

So just remember, leaking hot or cold air is costing you energy and money. Shut off the vents to rooms you don’t use and you could save a couple hundred dollars a year.

Your windows are the source of most of the heat/cold loss in your home. While upgrading all of them at once is extremely expensive I propose only upgrading 1 window per year.

The reason is simple: upgrading your windows saves you money. For example, if you live in a home with single pane or old windows replacing 1 a year can save you 3 – 5% of your heating costs (which works out to $30 – $50 / year.

There are other ways to save energy in your home that will save you more so keep that in mind when making the decision to upgrade your windows.

Here’s the different aspects of windows that you need to know in order to educate yourself about energy efficient windows.

The Frame

You may not realize it, but the frame around your window is almost as important as the window itself. The reason is that there are several different materials that windows are made out of and different materials are more or less energy efficient.

If you look at the windows in your house you’ll probably notice that the frame is made with vinyl (most of the white framed windows are vinyl). Vinyl is cheap, but is only recommended for temperate climates because vinyl can expand or shrink when it gets hot or cold. If you have vinyl windows you probably notice that each year new drafts seem to pop up… that’s because the vinyl has expanded and shrank and the silicone around it that seals the window has become detatched.

The best frame to use is a wooden frame because it doesn’t conduct heat, but windows with wood frames are expensive. Aluminum is also used in cheaper windows, but since it’s a metal that conducts heat extremely well I don’t recommend you use it.

Fiberglass window frames are a good compromise. They are energy efficient and they have the added plus of the fact that they don’t expand or contract in heat or cold. The downside is that they are more expensive than vinyl windows, but the added cost is worth it.

The Glass

When window shopping look for windows that have an energy star label. While this isn’t a guarantee that they are the most efficient windows it does mean that they meet or exceed the guidelines set by the Department of Energy.

You’re also going to be looking for glass that’s been coated in low-emissivity (low-e) coating. These coatings serve two purposes depending what climate you’re in. In cold climates they help keep the warm air inside (energy savings is about 30% over single pane windows) and in warm climates they can reflect the sunlight to keep the room cooler (energy savings are about 40% over single pane windows).

Make sure that you understand that windows are rated by how much heat they let out AND how much heat they reflect. In a cold climate you’ll want one that doesn’t let heat out and lets heat in and in a warm climate you’ll want one that lets heat out and also reflects sunlight away. Talk to your window guy about the best compromise for your climate.

Cost Considerations

I don’t want to tell you that replacing all of the windows in your home is going to save you a ton of money right now. Energy efficient windows are expensive which is why I recommend replacing one per year, but only if the windows in your home are older than 10 – 15 years or they are single paned windows. If you have newer windows– even if they’re vinyl– it will benefit you more to focus on other areas of energy savings in your home. Keep these considerations in mind when making your decision to replace your old windows with energy efficient windows.

Here’s the random piece of knowledge for the day. Your house leaks hot/cold air like a sieve… in fact if you combined all those cracks together you’d end up with a 2 foot diameter hole in a wall. There are several ways that you can go about fixing this and I’ll do my best to help you save a bunch of energy by making your windows more efficient.

Identifying Drafts

Identifying drafts can be done several ways. You can hire a guy to bring a thermal imaging camera (which is what the image at the left is)… or you can use a much cheaper low tech approach.

To start with run your hands around the edge of your window and also across anywhere that moves. If you feel cold air than that’s a window you’re going to have to fix. It’s best to identify drafty windows in the winter because it’s harder for your hand to detect heat in the summer.

Now you’ve identified the highly drafty windows in your home. Put those ones down on your list to attack first. Now it’s time to use my patent pending draft detector… a candle. Any candle will work provided it’s flame is free (think the tall thin candles). Just place it at different spots on the window ledge. If the flame starts to flicker than there’s a slight draft there and it needs to go on your list of windows to fix after you fix the really drafty ones.

Fixing The Drafts

Silicone

This is a more long term solution, but it doesn’t cost that much. Just grab some exterior white (or whatever color the edge of your windows are) silicone and re-seal the edges. Usually the window installers don’t really care that they are sealed perfectly and they miss spots.

Silicone is only going to be useful for sealing the edges of windows so if the draft is coming from where the window opens (because a seal is broken) than read on for other methods.

Window Insulation

I recommend using window insulation in the winter on all of your windows simply because it’s a cheap way to pretty much eliminate all of the drafts caused by windows.

Basically window insulation is just plastic wrap that you put over your windows and using a blow dryer you shrink wrap it.

Why it works?

Air is a poor conductor of heat/cold. Basically when you apply the window insulation it creates and packet of air and instead of double paned windows you now have triple paned windows. The heat from inside your home is trapped inside your home (though a small amount will still escape because the air will conduct a little heat).

Window insulation is about $10 – $20 / pack, but is it worth it? If you have drafty windows and manage to save 20% (I personally saw 26% savings because we have some old windows that haven’t been replaced) than you’re going to save a nice chunk of change each month.

Replacing Windows

I saved the most expensive option for last, but it should be on your todo list simply because windows and doors are where most of the heat/cold in your home is lost.

This is a good long term project to have because replacing one window a year will yield about 30% of the windows cost that year (it’s usually 3 – 5 years for it to pay itself off in savings). There are some really advanced windows coming out now which I will cover in later posts.

Until then, I hope you save a bunch of money by insulation your old windows!

While it’s great to generate your own energy using renewable sources like wind or solar it actually saves you more money in the long run by saving energy in your home. The reason is simple: if you can save energy than you don’t have to generate it and that means that you can have a smaller renewable energy system.

Since cooling is a large part of your electric bill it’s a good idea to tackle it first.

Temperature

I don’t like buying new things. My favorite thing in the world to do is make things work better than they do already. That means adjusting the temperature of your refrigerator and freezer.

As I always like to look at facts when determining things let’s look at a simple fact for your fridge. You want to keep it fresh without allowing bacteria to grow. Bacteria starts to grow at temperatures above 40F so I recommend setting your fridge to 39F – 40F. You’ll need a thermometer and just stick it into your fridge and check the temperature everytime you open it.

Your freezer is designed to operate at -10F – 0F. Since it’s only function is to keep things frozen I first set my freezer at it’s highest (warmest) setting and adjust it down until the food is just frozen.

Efficiency

Every single time you open your refrigerator or freezer you’re letting cold air out which it has to work to replace. Air is the worst heat conductor and there’s a way to help keep your fridge and freezer more efficient.

It’s as simple as keeping them full at all times. You want to reduce the amount of air and replace it with water. For your refrigerator that means putting jugs of water in and your freezer can be just of water as well. Just remember that water expands when it freezes so squeeze the jug a little bit to squeeze some air out and allow it to expand.

What does this do? Well, first it decreases the amount of air in your refrigerator and freezer and secondly the jugs of water act as ‘cold batteries’. When you open your fridge or freezer the cold air rushes out, but there’s less air now and that’s been replaced with water which is still cold. That means that less energy is lost each time you open your fridge or freezer which saves you a lot of money in the long run.

While these tactics aren’t going to save you a fortune you should be able to save a couple percent on your electric bill and those percentages sure add up when you attack everything with energy saving strategies.