My City Utilities

The utilities in my city are owned by the local government. I think it is a pretty big revenue stream for them, if my electric bill is any indication. I try to conserve both water and electricity, but even when I am really careful my city bills can be so discouraging. I have always known that the largest portion of the electric usage in a home is the HVAC system. Anything that makes your heater or air conditioner work harder is costing you money. Because of that, I called in the specialist to do an energy audit of my house. I don’t own the house, I rent, but I was hoping there would be some simple things I could do to save on heating and cooling as well as other things that could decrease my energy footprint. It turns out there were a few things after all. First, there are small cracks between the bottom of the doors and the floor. Those allow the air conditioning and heating to escape, which means my central heating and cooling system has to work longer and harder. The guy recommended I purchase inexpensive draft dodgers to place there. Second, the climate control/energy auditor showed me that the caulking around my windows was looking pretty pathetic. To help my a/c out even more, I should re-caulk the windows. He looked at my air filter, and much to my delight, he was happy that it wasn’t dirty. I do change the a/c air filters regularly! Go me! He did also say that the central heating and cooling unit I have does not have a high SEER rating, but there is nothing I can do about that.

heating and air