By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 25, 2006; F01
For homeowners burning up over high gas and electric bills, there are plenty of options -- and not all of them require the skills of an accountant, energy futures trader and contractor.
The simplest way to cut energy costs is to simply cut energy consumption. Tips can be found at Web sites run by Pepco and the Energy Department as well as nonprofit groups such as Greener Choices and the Alliance to Save Energy.
The biggest energy users in most households are the heating and air-conditioning systems. GreenerChoices.org, a Web site founded and operated by Consumer Reports, estimates that heating and cooling typically use 45 percent of a household's energy.
Adjusting the thermostat or buying a programmable thermostat can help cut costs. During winter, turning down the heat from 72 degrees to 68 degrees for eight hours a day (when no one's home or when everyone's asleep) can cut fuel costs by 10 percent, according to Pepco. In summer, every degree you raise your thermostat can save 5 percent of fuel costs, Pepco says. Using fans to feel a bit cooler costs less than lowering the thermostat.
The easiest way to cut heating costs is to plug leaks in the windows during the winter. For about $8, you can buy a sheet of plastic to fit over a sliding door to a deck and seal its edges with a hair dryer. Weather stripping can help, too. Closing the flue of a fireplace can prevent heat -- which rises -- from escaping. In many houses, changing to more energy-efficient windows can help, but if the house is an older one, make sure the correct window size is still manufactured.
Hot water is the next biggest home-energy guzzler. The temperature on hot water heaters is often set at 140 degrees, but it doesn't need to be more than 120 degrees. (And the lower setting can be safer, too, reducing the risk of scalding children.) Washing clothes in cold water instead of hot water can save about $50 a year, Pepco estimates. New showerheads (if the existing one is more than 10 years old) cut hot water use without any discernible difference in pressure.
Lighting costs account for about 7 percent of home energy consumption. Compact fluorescent bulbs screw into the same sockets as regular incandescent bulbs, but they use less than a third as much energy. They're a lot more expensive, but they last six to 10 times as long and save money (and the hassle of more frequent changing). The light quality is different, but even if you don't like the light for reading, you can still place them in hallways, showers, and places where lights are left on at night or when no one is home.
Consumer electronics swallow up more energy than ever. A computer and a monitor left on 24 hours a day can use close to $90 a year in electricity, according to Greener Choices. Many devices gobble up electricity when they're turned off, and rechargers use energy even when the device they recharge is someplace else. Make sure you put computers on sleep mode and unplug cellphone rechargers when they're not in use.
Proper maintenance can help all sorts of energy-consuming appliances. Vacuum the refrigerator vents. Change or clean the filters on the heating and cooling units. Check for leaks in ducts, and seal them with duct tape.
None of these measures requires any investment, but there are many purchases that make economic sense. How old is the furnace? Any furnace that is more than 15 years old may be significantly less efficient than newer models, according to Greener Choices.
Insulating the attic can save heating and cooling costs. Pepco recommends insulating your attic floor or top-floor ceiling with material with a minimum of an R49 rating. R-values indicate the resistance of an insulation material to heat flow. The higher the R-number, the more effective the insulating capability. A ceiling fan can also suck cool air from lower down in a house and blow hot air out of the house.
When buying new appliances, such as a furnace, dishwasher or clothes washer or drier, look for the Energy Star label. To qualify, an appliance must be a certain percentage more efficient than the minimum energy standard. Energy Star, a joint project of the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, is designed to encourage manufacturers to boost product efficiency. A water heater should have an energy-factor rating of 0.91 or higher, Pepco says. An air-conditioning unit should have a seasonal energy efficiency ratio of 13 or more, Pepco adds.
Federal and local governments are ready to help with some of these energy-saving expenditures if the house is your principal residence. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended tax credits to homeowners for a portion of the cost of insulation, exterior windows, exterior doors and solar panels up to certain maximum levels. One credit covers 10 percent of the cost of new energy efficient windows, insulation or doors up to a maximum credit of $500 for the 2006 and 2007 life of the program, an Internal Revenue Service spokesman said. (Only $200 of that credit can go to windows.) The federal government will also grant a tax credit equal to 30 percent of the cost of solar panels up to a maximum credit of $2,000 also over this year and next year. (The solar credit can be used to cover installation and labor costs, but the credit for energy efficiency doesn't cover installation or labor costs for "building envelope" items such as windows, doors or insulation.)
For more details about federal tax breaks for homeowners, see http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=153397,00.html . For state programs, see http://www.dsireusa.org/index.cfm?EE=1&RE=1 .
A word of warning about federal alternative-energy tax credits: People with alternative-minimum-tax liability may not receive the full benefits. The IRS is still studying that issue.
Homeowners face choices about their bills, too, but not many. The deregulation of the utility industry was supposed to foster greater competition in the electricity business, but while that's come true for big commercial and industrial users or large apartment complexes, it hasn't happened for ordinary homeowners. As the Virginia State Corporation Commission wrote in a Sept. 1, 2004, report on the retail market for electric generation, "the right to choose has not yet evolved into the ability to choose." It added, "there is little competitive activity in the Commonwealth."
But homeowners can often choose to purchase "green" or wind energy through electricity-marketing firms, usually subsidiaries of the local utility. Pepco Energy Services and Washington Gas Energy Services offer residential customers both wind and "green" energy options, both at premiums over the standard rates offered by Pepco. Another caution, though: These prices are pegged to regular rates. You wouldn't expect wind costs to go up just because oil prices rise, but under the Pepco Energy Services program, they do.
