Best Way to Cool House With Attic Fan

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Saving energy effectually the house is good for your wallet, healthy and the family, and skilful for the environs. But free energy conservation effectually the house is more complex than just using less electricity, because anything y'all practice at home that requires water or fossil fuels is besides energy intensive. At that place's also the point of caring for our planet and it's environment—but if everyone does their part and saves energy, and so that problem would be significantly reduced. Cutting energy utilisation effectually the house involves reducing electricity and water utilize, being smart about when and how you use energy, preventing energy loss, and choosing appliances and fixtures that will help yous save energy.

1. one

   Supplant incandescent bulbs. Incandescent light bulbs, which includes halogen bulbs, create much more heat than light, and this makes them very inefficient. Replacing incandescent bulbs with meaty fluorescent or LED bulbs volition reduce the amount of energy you use on lighting by up to 75 percentage.

   • Lighting typically accounts for roughly x pct of your energy use. A single CFL bulb could save you lot about $30 in energy costs over the course of its life compared to an incandescent bulb. They cost much more simply they last much longer,^[1]

2. 2

   Lower the temperature on your h2o heater. Reduce the amount of energy your water heater uses by setting the water temperature down to 120 °F (49 °C).^[ii] You'll save free energy by turning down the water heater regardless of whether you lot have a gas or electric appliance, considering information technology requires a lot of energy to produce the gas you lot use in your firm. ^[3]

   • Don't set your water heater temperature below 120 F (49 C). This can allow dangerous pathogens to alive in your h2o tank.
   • Cover the tank with an insulating blanket.

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3. three

   Seal leaks and drafts. Keeping your firm at a comfortable temperature requires a swell deal of free energy. Leaks and drafts around the house that permit outside air in and climate controlled air out further increase the amount of energy it takes to heat or absurd your house. ^[4]

   • Install weather stripping on doors, windows, and cranium or crawl infinite access holes.
   • Seal up mail slots that don't get used.
   • Seal openings and cracks in the roof, walls, around electric outlets, and around pipes and wires with expanding caulk or foam.
   • Plug large holes, such as by using a foam product.
   • Install transparent plastic sheeting on drafty windows.
   • Buy thermal curtains. These bear upon the flooring and are wrap effectually to touch the walls, to trap common cold air backside them. Normal curtains permit the common cold air to escape past convection airflow.

4. 4

   Increase insulation around the house. Adding insulation should allow you to pay less for heating and air-conditioning, while keeping your home at the same temperature. Bank check the thickness of the insulation on your attic floor, attic walls, and roof if they have fiberglass batt insulation that is non covered by flooring or drywall. Compare these thicknesses with the DOE recommended thicknesses of fiberglass batt insulation for your region of the country: https://www.energystar.gov/entrada/seal_insulate/identify_problems_you_want_fix/diy_check s_inspections/insulation_r_values.^[5]

   • Equally a do-it-yourselfer, y'all can add 3 ¹⁄₂  in (8.9 cm) or 5 ⁱ⁄₂  in (xiv cm) batt insulation to existing fiberglass batt insulation, but you lot must remove the kraft newspaper from the existing insulation or water vapor will be trapped in your walls or roof.^[6]
   • If your walls are un-insulated yous can hire an insulation contractor to accident in cellulose insulation.^[7]

5. 5

   Buy energy efficient appliances. When it comes time to supplant appliances, expect for the Energy Star rating or some other energy-efficiency seal of approving. Energy Star appliances utilize up to 50 percentage less energy and water than their traditional counterparts.^[8]

   • Buy washers and dryers with many energy-saving features.
   • Front-loading washing machines are the virtually free energy-efficient.
   • Refrigerators with the freezer on acme or the bottom are more energy-efficient than side-past-side refrigerator-freezers^[9]
   • Stoves with ceramic consecration cooktops are more free energy-efficient than traditional range cooktops
   • Tankless on-need water heaters are much more energy-efficient than tank-style water heaters
   • Portable dehumidifiers utilise a lot of electricity. If y'all need to run yours oftentimes, effort fixing bug that are making your abode damp. For instance, if your basement walls are bare block, paint them with waterproofing paint. Check that your gutters and downspouts work correctly, and repair them if necessary.^[ten]

6. six

   Install free energy-efficient windows if y'all don't have storm windows. Much energy is wasted with single pane windows and drafty windows. .^[xi] Older windows are often very drafty, and this means your furnace and air conditioner take to piece of work harder to estrus or cool your house, and this ways using more than energy. When it's time to update your windows, look into more energy-efficient double- or triple-paned ones that will help reduce your energy use.^[12]

   • If you take tempest windows, caulk around their frames. Air current draws air out through storm windows and primary windows if the storm windows are not air-tight.
   • In many places, there are tax credits available for homeowners who upgrade to energy-efficient windows, and then await into government programs where you alive.

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1. i

   Use smaller appliances for smaller cooking jobs. Using your oven is great if you lot're cooking an entire meal. But if you're just roasting a few vegetables, making toast, or making another small meal, use food-specific appliances that use less free energy. For instance:^[13]

   • Utilise a toaster to make toast
   • Apply a toaster oven to cook, roast or bake modest portions
   • Use a steamer or rice cooker to steam rice and vegetables
   • Use a frying pan to sauté or stir fry instead of blistering or roasting
   • Use a microwave to bake, steam, and boil all sorts of foods

2. two

   Shut off appliances and fixtures you aren't using. Lights, televisions, computers, and other appliances and electronics use lots of energy. You can save energy past turning off lights when you exit a room, turning off the boob tube and radio when you're washed watching or listening, and putting your computer into sleep or hibernate fashion when you exit the room.

   • When you become away for overnight or longer, unplug all appliances and electronics, because many of them utilize free energy fifty-fifty when they're non on. To brand your job easier, use power strips for appliances that are often used together, such as the Television receiver, stereo, and DVD player.^[14]
   • Unplug phone chargers and other devices when you're not using them too, because they draw power as long as they're plugged in.^[15]
   • Cutting downwardly on the Phantom Loads. Some appliances and electronic devices proceed to swallow energy even when they are not in use. This is commonly referred to as the Phantom Load. It is normally caused when electronics are still plugged in or are non turned off. You can ensure that you lot stop wasting free energy and your money by unplugging your electronics or past turning off the power strip where the devices are plugged in.

3. 3

   Cover the bedroom radiators with blankets when you leave in the morning. This insulates them, effectively turning them off partially.

   • Likewise, exit the shades and curtains in the bedrooms completely open while y'all are gone. The bedrooms volition exist heated past UV radiations, like greenhouses. .

4. 4

   Save h2o around the house. The water that comes into your firm has been treated, filtered, maybe chlorinated, and pumped all over the city, and this requires lots of energy. Finding ways to save water at home, therefore, can help you conserve energy. Some quick means to save water include:

   • Taking shorter showers
   • Turning off taps when you're lathering upward
   • Filling the sink with water to wash dishes rather than letting it run
   • Saving kitchen water for the garden
   • Reusing cooking h2o
   • Flushing less
   • Investing in h2o-smart fixtures and faucets
   • Capturing condensation from your air workout unit and using information technology to water plants.

5. 5

   Only practise laundry or dishes when you lot have a full load. Washing machines and dishwashers don't just use a lot of water, they also use a lot of power, so using them responsibly can aid you save free energy at abode.

   • To save fifty-fifty more water with the washing machine, ever choose the appropriate load size and then the car will adjust the h2o level.
   • With the dishwasher, you tin besides save free energy past turning off the drying cycle, and letting dishes drip and air dry instead.^[16]

6. half-dozen

   Wash wearing apparel with cold water. Your washing machine already uses lots of energy, in the form of water and power, only you lot can reduce the amount of ability it uses past washing with cold-h2o cycles. Heating the water accounts for virtually ninety percent of the energy a washing auto uses when you lot run a load on hot.^[17]

   • Reserve hot water cycles for extremely soiled loads of laundry, but set the rinse cycle so it uses cold water.

7. vii

   Hang dress to dry out. It takes a lot of power to run a clothes dryer, so you can save free energy by hanging your clothes on a line or belfry outside instead. Not simply volition this save energy, just it volition also requite your clothes that clean, fresh air smell.^[18]

   • Avert drying clothes inside, every bit this can create wet and mold in the business firm.

8. eight

   Shade your windows with trees or an awning. Trees and awnings are a wonderful style to naturally cool your house in summer and heat it in the wintertime. To take advantage of this, plant deciduous trees on the s side of your home or install an awning.^[xix] The copse or awning will shade your firm.

   • In winter, the leaves volition fall off the trees and permit warming sunlight into your abode.
   • Instead of planting deciduous trees, you can likewise install thick curtains that will block the sunday, lord's day screens, or a UV-protective movie on the windows to tint them.^[20]

9. 9

   Use rechargeable batteries only. While it may seem counterintuitive, recharging a battery is a great way to save free energy compared to buying a new i. It requires a lot more energy to produce a new battery than it does to recharge one that'southward already made, and then when your electric current batteries die, supervene upon them with rechargeable ones.

   • Rechargeable batteries are likewise cheaper in the long run, because y'all don't have to keep ownership them.^[21]
   • Rechargeable batteries are as well better for the environment, considering they don't go to the landfill later each use.

10. 10

    Recycle and reuse. Just like with batteries, it requires less free energy to recycle something than it does to go far new, so you can reduce energy utilisation past recycling what you can. Ameliorate yet, effort to reuse items effectually the house, such equally washing drinking glass jars and keeping them for nutrient storage.

    • Depending on your municipality, items you may be able to recycle include drinking glass, aluminum cans, bottles, plastic, cardboard, paper, and more than.
    • Buying products with minimal packaging is as well a skillful way to salvage energy, because no resources or energy is wasted manufacturing or recycling the packaging.^[22]

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1. 1

   Clean your furnace filter regularly. When the filter on your furnace gets dirty and clogged, it makes the furnace less efficient, meaning information technology uses more than free energy. To prevent this, check your filter monthly during the months when yous're heating the house. Vacuum or wash the filter as necessary, or every three months.^[23]

   • Some furnace filters aren't washable, and they'll take to be replaced every three months or so.

2. 2

   Put in a programmable thermostat. These types of thermostats tend to exist a little more expensive, but the investment volition pay for itself within a few months thanks to the energy you'll salvage. Hither's how a programmable thermostat can relieve y'all money:^[24]

   • Set the thermostat then that the furnace or air conditioner comes on less during the day when nobody is domicile, and at night when everybody is sleeping.
   • Utilize the thermostat to refuse the heat or air conditioning when yous're away on vacation, but set it to come back on just earlier you get in home. There are besides some thermostats that you tin can operate remotely, such as past using a computer or smartphone.

3. 3

   Seal leaks in your ducts. Leaky ducts, just similar leaky walls and windows, tin can waste product tons of free energy, because your furnace or air conditioner has to work much harder to supercede the lost air. Inspect all your heating, cooling, and air return vents and ducts for holes, leaks, and other bug. If you notice leaks, seal them with duct sealant, and then wrap the duct with insulation.

   • Sealing these leaks could salve y'all up to xx percent on your energy bills.^[25]

4. 4

   Keep your firm warmer in summer and cooler in winter. For the summer months, set up your thermostat to 77 F (25 C) if you can manage. In winter, set up the thermostat to 68 F (20 C). This will forbid the air conditioner and furnace from running constantly, and volition save lots of energy in your home.

   • In winter, use sweaters, thick socks, slippers, and blankets to keep warm at home.

5. five

   Use fans to absurd your dwelling house on hot summer nights. In summer, place fans near open windows at night when information technology's cooler exterior than it is within. Y'all can use pedestal fans adjacent to the windows, or you can use box fans fix in the window sills.^[26]

   • For cross ventilation, use them in windows on opposite sides of the floor, with one fan set to accident air in and one to blow air out.^[27]
   • A small infinite heater may even be sufficient in wintertime if y'all live in the southern part of the Us.

6. 6

   Employ ACs with Smart Time Switches. Air conditioning can act as a heavy load on free energy consumption. Smart switches are electrical switches with a built-in timer, turning off and on an electronic circuit. Smart switches tin be programmed to allow the cooling for a certain flow and cut off the electric supply until the next bike of cooling. This way you volition exist able to conserve energy especially during the night hours.

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Add New Question

• Question

  What are some examples of free energy conservation?

  

  Walter Brant
  Handyman

  Walter Brant is a wikiHow community member and correspondent who has been repairing and restoring houses with over 30 years of experience. He works with homeowners to make a broad variety of improvements to make their homes more comfortable and liveable.

  

  Bear upon your pipes to cheque their temperature—any piping that feels hot to the touch is wasting energy. Insulate the piping that carries the hot water from the tank by adding insulating sleeves. These are sold at hardware stores and habitation centers.

• Question

  What are some tips for saving energy during a hot summer?

  

  Walter Brant
  Handyman

  Walter Brant is a wikiHow customs member and contributor who has been repairing and restoring houses with over 30 years of feel. He works with homeowners to make a broad variety of improvements to make their homes more than comfortable and liveable.

  

  At night, if it'due south the same temperature or libation outside than it is inside, identify fans near open windows to cool off your dwelling house. You can even place and so in windows on opposite sides of the floor for cross-ventilation—but plow 1 fan so it's blowing air in, and the other and then it's blowing air out.

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About This Article

Article Summary X

To save energy in your home, try turning downwards your h2o heater to 120 degrees F. Additionally, when your non using appliances and fixtures, like lights, televisions, or computers, turn them off and unplug them. To save water, aim to take shorter showers or fill the sink when washing dishes rather than letting the water run. Since washing machines and dishwashers use a lot of water, you can also relieve water by only using these appliances with a full load, and save energy by washing your clothes with cold water. For information on how y'all tin salve coin by upgrading to energy-efficient appliances, read on!

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