15 No-Brainer Ideas for an Energy Efficient Home
This is a guest post by John Smith. Take it away, John.
Several appliances in our homes use energy. The biggest culprit of all is the heating and cooling system. Then, follow other electrical and electronic appliances: lights, fans, inverters, and kitchen appliances. Here are 15 great tips on how you can make your house more energy efficient.
1. Insulate Your Home
Good builders refer to your home’s exterior as the “envelope” or the “shell.” If you keep this envelope sealed against air leaking into the house from outside, you can bring down your energy expenditure for space heating and cooling, and keep out those drafts. Test your home for leaks and identify the points from where cold air is entering your home. To stop the inflow of cold air, you can caulk your home’s exterior, use gaskets to plug holes, or choose from several other methods to ensure air infiltration does not occur.
2. Turn Off Lights
Turn off lights when you leave a room. Use energy efficient light bulbs that give you greater quantity of white light while consuming lesser power. Invest in motion-activated and heat-sensing lights for your porch, living room, and main living areas. These lights turn off automatically when there’s no one in the room. Use solar-powered lights for your garden.
3. Turn Off Appliances
We need to understand that when an appliance is on, it draws a certain amount of power to remain in ready to use state. Most people assume that since the appliance is not being used, it’s not consuming energy. This is not true.
4. Don’t Keep Devices Plugged in
People keep their mobile phone chargers plugged in and turned on for ready use. Know that power is diverted to the charger even if you’re not actually charging your phone at that point. The same goes for printers, speakers, DVD players, televisions, and other devices that are usually plugged in active mode when no one’s using them.
5. Use Manual Sprinklers in Your Garden
Automatic sprinklers tend to waste both energy and water. Use hand held sprinklers to water your plants. Use the automated sprinklers only if you have a large lawn that needs frequent hydration. During the rainy season, turn the automatic sprinklers off.
6. Coat Your Hot Water Cylinder
The thicker the coat of your hot water cylinder, the less heat you lose. Get your water heater cylinder coated with an 80mm-thick coat at low cost and save on energy and money, as well as lowering your carbon footprint.
7. Use Only as Much Heating and Cooling as You Need
Ensure that your boiler thermostat’s thermostatic radiator valves heat only the rooms that you use, and only when you use them. Set individual thermostats in every room and save on energy. Every month, make sure you change your air conditioner’s filter to minimize the wear and tear on your AC unit. If you live in a hot region, it’s good to plate your single pane windows with solar shades to reflect the heat and keep it outside your house.
8. Use Solar Power
If you own a home, you can garner the power of the Sun to provide most of your energy needs. Even if you live in a region that doesn’t see much sunshine, cleverly placed solar panels on the roof will gather enough heat to supplement your power requirements nicely. Solar power can be used to power up lights and virtually any appliance you use in your home.
9. Update Your Refrigerator
Did you know that refrigerators consume about 20% of your total household energy? Make sure your refrigerator is Energy Star rated. Energy Star rates refrigerators that consume 25 percent less energy. Set your refrigerator and freezer temperature according to your refrigerator’s manual to optimize on energy consumption and turn on the energy saver switch. The gaskets around your refrigerator and freezer doors must be clean and sealed tightly to prevent loss of cooling.
10. Surround Your Home With Greenery
Homes can heat up during the summer in regions where summers are always hot. This is all the more evident if your home is poorly insulated. Grow plenty of shrubs and trees around your houses to block the infrared radiation that causes the heat build-up. The greenery acts as a natural cooling system while reducing the usage of your home’s cooling system.
11. Get Your Home’s Energy Audited
Get your home’s energy utilization audited so that you know what aspects are consuming more energy and how you can cut back on your energy consumption. Your local Housing and Community Affairs Department will be able to put you in touch with reputable power auditing agencies for this purpose.
12. Turn Off Heating and Cooling When You’re Out
Be sure to turn off your home’s heating and cooling when you’re out. You can install a programmable thermostat and a timer for your water heater and your cooling system to achieve this. Set the system to start just before you reach home in the evening. This way, you’ll ensure that your energy consumption is moderate.
13. Rearrange Furniture to Facilitate Better Cooling
After doing everything possible to achieve better cooling for your home, if you’re still not getting the best out of your AC, check if your furniture is blocking air vents. The flow of cool air tends to stagnate if your air vents are blocked by huge chairs, couches and other pieces of furniture. In such cases, the cool air doesn’t flow but stagnates in different corners, giving you a dispersed cooling effect, with some areas feeling cool while others remain hot.
14. Set Your Washer to Warm Water Setting
If you wash all your clothes under the hot water setting, your washer will consume a great deal of energy. Set your clothes washer to the cold-water or warm water setting. If you switch from hot to warm setting for at least two wash loads in a week, you can save nearly 500 pounds on your carbon footprint every year, not to mention the energy and money savings.
15. Run Only Full Loads in Your Dishwater
Don’t start your dishwasher unless it’s absolutely full. Your dishwasher will consume the same amount of energy whether it’s full or not so make use of your energy consumption by loading it to the limit. Also, set your dishwasher on the energy saving setting if you have it. This will allow the dishes to air-dry, saving you that much more energy. Another option is to turn off the drying cycle manually. Opting not to use heat in the drying cycle can save you 20 percent of your dishwasher’s total energy consumption.
John has been living an eco-friendly life for last 5 years and manages an online nursing scrubs store, NursingUniforms.net

Howdy folks. Another week’s gone by and I can hardly wait to spend the weekend catching up on projects I’ve let slide a bit.