Adding heat traps to the water heater can save like $20 a year. They're either goosenecks at least 6" tall or straight couplers with check valves in them.

For garage door insulation, I'd be reluctant to use any plastic foam, even if it's covered with foil, and I think that it would be safer to use rigid fiberglass insulated acoustical ceiling tiles, available in thicknesses from 1/2" to 3". This fiberglass offers about twice the insulation value as the same thickness as soft fiberglass.

As others have mentioned, sealing air leaks helps, and it may help to caulk all around the sill plate because even a tiny gap is a big leak if it's 100' long. Ventilation ducts usually leak a lot, as much as 20% according to my utility, but duct tape has been found to be one of the worst sealants because it eventually peels off. It's best to use a liquid brush-on mastic, but if tape has to be used, it should be the aluminum foil type with an adhesive rated for over 220 deg. F. Most is rated for only 160F.

I've read that fiberglass insulation is transparent to infrared heat, so it may be better to insulate the attic with blown-in cellulose, which blocks infrared. Unfortunately cellulose is very dusty and can leak through wall outlets and around ventilation ducts.

blueiedgod said:Setting up a little pond in the back yard with the gutters piped to it. As long as you set it at the lowest point of your property, the water from the property, and maybe neighbors, will flow into it. This will provide you with enough water to water your plants and grass.
If you live somewhere where you'll actually get enough rain to create this little swamp, you'll also be creating the perfect conditions for a raging mosquito infestation.

Pho said:Only downside is it wastes a lot of water, though it's not so bad on the very lowest setting. I also can't decide what's worse for the environment: heating my room with electricity from coal power plants, or heating my room with hot water heated with electricity from coal power plants.

Of course you were wasting energy. You first need to heat the water and then you extract the energy out by blowing air through your "heat exchanger" device. Even if there is no loss during the transfer of the water (from the water heater to your device), you never get all you energy back since the water leaving the device was still warmer than the unheated water. Besides, the water you wasted was potable water. You should feel bad about your invention.

You should feel bad about your invention.

Eh, I like to think that the hot water heater in the basement of my building is more energy efficient than my 30-year-old electric heater. That helps me sleep at night. Besides, this thread is about living frugally and my "invention" only wastes about a shower's worth of water per day. Here, we'll compromise. I'll stop taking showers to balance it out.

Energy savings myths run rampant, some spread by utility companies and government agencies. I have spent the past 20 years researching and measuring energy savings as a consultant to utilities and goivernment agencies. Here are some of my suggestions, repeating a lot of what's been said) with info on estimated impacts. I've assumed 10 cents/kWh as average electric rate, but certainly that will be quite low for California and much of the Northeast and upper midwest. :

1) Keep the thmerostat as low as you can in the winter and use automatic setbacks to lower the temperature when your sleeping or not home -- this will cost you very little and can save you about 3% of your heating usage per degree average reduction in winter temperature and about 5% in cooling use per degree in the summer.

2) use compact fluorescents wherever you can -- figure typical savings of about $6/yr in electric per bulb (assuming 3 hours per day use)

3) replace old refrigerators with new ones (energy star or not, hardly matters). If you've got a 20 year old side-by-side fridge, it could easily cost you $200/yr in electric. Even a pretty decent 15 yr old top freezer model will cost about $130/yr to operate. A new top freezer model will cost you about $40/yr to run and a new side-by-side about $65/yr. The energy star models use about 15% less on average than the typical.

4) unplug secondary fridges and underused freezers -- older fridges in bad shape (sometimes used as beer boxes in basements/porches/garages) can use up to $300/yr although some will use only about $100/yr. If you don't really really need it, then get rid of it. Some utilities will pay you and then haul it away for you

5) Insulate uninsulated attics, add insulation to poorly insulated attics. In both cases, seal leaks between the house and attic before adding insulation-- that's where most of the air leaking out of your house goes. These "thermal bypasses" can account for 10% of your heating usage and include sealing over the tops of plumbing walls, duct chases, dropped ceiling closets, kitchen cabinet soffits, and sealing top plates of walls .

6) insulate uininsulated walls in cold climates using high density cellulose blown in insulation-- typical savings are about $200/yr at a cost of about $1200 (obviously these numbers vary with the size of your house -- figure savings at 20 cents/yr per square foot for gas heated houses in places where it snows). Insulated walls can also make you feel more comfortable.

7) Only replace your gas furnace if you have high heating bills or it's broken and not repairable. Savings from a new condensing furnace will be about 20% of your heating usage and the new unit may cost $1000-$2000 installed -- do the math and see if it makes sense.

8) If you heating or cooling ducts that run outside the conditioned space (attic, garage, crawlspace -- not basement) then look for large holes and disconnections (it's amazing how often disconnected ducts go unnoticed in these spaces) and seal them as best you can using duct mastic or foil/butyl tape carefully applied. In some places, the utility will subsidize this service and tend to use contractors that will do a much better job than you. Savings should run between 6% and 15% of your heating and/or cooling usage on average.

Some myths, etc...

1) sealing electrical outlets is not very effective and may save 0.5% -- the info on 20%+ savings is BS

2) sealing windows and doors with caulk and weatherstrip makes you feel more comfortable maybe, but will tend to save very little -- 70% or more of the air leakiage in a typical home is not through windowsor doors. For newer homes, its more like 90%. The big holes are at the top and bottom of the house where pipes or ducts penetrate the building and architectural/framing features create large gaps.

3) replacing windows and doors is never cost effective from an energy standpoint. If you want new windows or doors for some other reason, then fine, buy them. Just don't expect more than about 5% savings from replacing all of the windows and oors of you home. Plastic shrink film over the windows in the winter does at least as good a job as a new window.

4) Pho -- the old electric heater in you apartment is certainly MORE efficient than the water heater in your building. Electric space heaters are always 99+% efficient (1st law of thermodynamics), although high electric costs make them a poor heating choice.

5) Getting regular maintenance/tune-up service for a gas furnace is a waste -- there is typically nothing they can do to affect the efficiency. You should just change your filters regularly.

6) getting a tune-up for a heat pump or air conditioner often makes it less efficient as contractors tend not to know what they are doing and add extra charge for no reason, making them less efficient. There are some programs sponsored by some utilities that do know what they are doing -- those can be worthwhile

I've got lots more info, but this post is getting long..

Here's an idea: Dig a 3 Million Gallon Tank under your house, fill it with water, and reap the savings.................

Edit for more info: "TES is expected to save USC about 4,500 megawatt-hours of electricity a year and roughly $400,000 annually in electricity costs."

NRGguy,
Thanks for the great post.

Put a brick in the toilet tank. You will use less water.

Anyone have a recommendation on good CF light bulbs? We've tried them in the past, but the color issue always seems to bother us somewhat. My wife really digs the GE Reveal bulbs that don't cast such a yellow tint on things, but I'm not sure what CF bulbs might give a comparable light.

StevenScott said:Put a brick in the toilet tank. You will use less water.

And two bricks will save twice the water, etc. There is, however, a point of diminishing returns, like when your toilet tank contains so little water that you don't get a decent flush.