Heating (cooling) costs (best, old)

[RHB]

I don't worry about cooling costs (I live in Maine) but was wondering if anyone has any tips/hints to keep these costs down. Looking at the years buget, heating is a big chunk (as I trust cooling is in the south) and was looking for ideas to keep those costs down, while still staying warm.

We are well insulated, have the energy windows, and I'm working on making curtains that will be pulled over the doorways.

We've started collecting firewood, and fire starter material for next winter. We are thinking we want to try going straight wood this year and not turn on the gas heating system.

[karibear]

When we still lived in AK, we had an airtight wood stove with a stack robber. We also had a Toyo oil stove. We burned not more than 50 gallons of stove oil/month, and a couple cords of wood/month. That was adequate for a 2,000 sf house - the house was a mobile/ stick hybrid, and there wasn't much of anything energy efficient about it. Someone else I knew built several energy efficient houses, thick walls and very well insulated, including vapor barriers, which wasn't always the case then and there. His houses could be heated pretty much with a couple of candles, but he also had an airtight wood stove that he built himself with plenty of baffles. The stove was mostly used only during real storms, it was frequently very windy, and the doors did have to be opened once in awhile!

A good source for firewood, btw, is old pallets, a lot of places are happy to give them away to avoid having to pay to have them hauled by a garbage truck. All the ones I've seen were oak, and they were defnitely well-seasoned. The only hassle was bringing them home and cutting them to stove length while avoiding the nails. And the nails have to be cleaned out of the stove fairly often. If you save the ashes for garden use, it's easiest to dump the ashes through a coarse screen to clean them.

[f_m]

Originally Posted by RHB

We are well insulated, have the energy windows, and I'm working on making curtains that will be pulled over the doorways.

What is the rating of the windows? I would think the windows are less likely to be insulating than the walls.

[NCyank]

We live in an area where we can tolerate not using the heat and air for 4-6 months of the year. We turned the heat off in March this year and if the weather holds should make it to June with no air. As soon as the nights cool down in September we'll turn the air off and try to get 2-3 months with no heat (maybe using the fireplace on chilly evenings).

Other than that, we keep the heat down and the air up. We put solar shades on the back of the house last year, that helps in the summer. Windows are getting replaced slowly but I don't think that will make a big difference overall.

[StealthRabbit]

For warmth
long underwear! (we keep heat at 60f)
basement / earth sheltered living.
Russian style fireplace (heating a mass; uses about 30% of wood that a stove uses)
Annualized solar gain (heating soil / mass under home during summer, for winter release (12" per month transfer, so keep source insulated to not heat house in summer!)


for keeping cool:
wise ventilation in home (We use a 'whole house fan' from 3-6am instead of AC)
basement / earth sheltered living.
'cool tubes' (buried air flow tubes)
shade cloth hung over sunny side of home

[Pearl14256]

My fiance works in heating and cooling, and he says one of the cheapest and best ways to lower gas bills in the winter is to change your filter. This way the furnace isn't working so hard through a clogged filter.

I say don't eat ice cream in winter

[Herbrocks]

A little tip is using insulating pads cut to fit behind electric outlet/switch plates, esp on walls that face outside. They are pretty cheap premade, or I suppose you could cut them yourself if you are uber-frugal

[jlawrence01]

Most utilities will perform an energy audit for a nominal fee. You can generally lower your usage by 10-20%.

I also recommend programmable thermostats, especially White Rodgers, which allow you to reduce the heat at those times you are out of the house.

[Grandpa Pipes]

The single best way to cut home energy cost is to use the old time
method of........zone heating/cooling.

In otherwords.....heat cool only those rooms spaces where you are at
closing off all other unneed space.

As an example.......
We live in a 100+ year old house updated with new windows and insulated
sideing but we futher drive cost down by using small electric heaters
to heat just the three rooms of our nine room house 90% of the time.
The thermostat stays at 66 deg while the 2 small oil filled (safest) heaters
bring the living room, kitchen and bath to about 72 deg even in bitter
(20below) cold. We've done this for decades and our energy bill is alway
less than half of any of our surrounding neighbors. I'm sure that without
the heaters our energy cost would more that triple each month!!!!

Zone heating is the main type of heating in many other parts of the
world so it's track record is well established.

[Sheridan1962]

We just moved from Texas to Colorado, and it's a (good) adjustment in not having to deal with the brutal Texas heat. In our house in Texas, the BEST thing we had to save energy costs were solar screens on our windows. That really made a difference. We had a 3,800 sf home in Texas, and the highest elec/gas (combined) bill we had in the summer was around $400...that might seem like a lot to some people, but I kept our house cool (between 70-72 degrees).

We moved into a house here in Denver that has central AC/heat, but when it's cold, we keep the heat at around 65 and just bundle up. Now that the weather has gotten a little warmer, we keep the A/C at 78, and run our whole house fan all day. We've only been here a few months, but our elec/gas bills have been less than $100 each month so far (which is pretty good for a 4,300 sf house).