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Ducts
One of the most important systems in your home, though it's hidden
beneath your feet and over your head, may be wasting a lot of your
energy dollars. Your home's duct system, a branching network of tubes
in the walls, floors, and ceilings, carries the air from your home's
furnace and central air conditioner to each room. Ducts are made of
sheet metal, fiber glass, or other materials.
Unfortunately, many duct systems are poorly insulated or not
insulated properly. Ducts that leak heated air into unheated spaces
can add hundreds of dollars a year to your heating and cooling bills.
Insulating ducts that are in unconditioned spaces is usually very
cost effective. If you are buying a new duct system, consider one
that comes with insulation already installed.
Sealing your ducts to prevent leaks is even more important if the
ducts are located in an unconditioned area such as an attic or vented
crawl space. If the supply ducts are leaking, heated or cooled air
can be forced out unsealed joints and lost. In addition,
unconditioned air can also be drawn into return ducts through
unsealed joints. In the summer, hot attic air can be drawn in,
increasing the load on the air conditioner. In the winter, your
furnace will have to work longer to keep your house comfortable.
Either way, your energy losses cost you money.
Although minor duct repairs are easy to accomplish, ducts in
unconditioned spaces should be sealed and insulated by qualified
professionals using the appropriate sealing materials. Here are a few
simple tips to help with minor duct repairs.
Duct Tips
• Check your ducts for air leaks. First look for sections
that should be joined but have separated and then look for obvious
holes.
• If you use duct tape to repair and seal your ducts, look
for tape with the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) logo to avoid tape
that degrades, cracks, and loses its bond with age.
• Remember that insulating ducts in the basement will make
the basement colder. If both the ducts and the basement walls are
uninsulated, consider insulating the basement walls and the ducts.
• If your basement has been converted to a living area,
install both supply and return registers in the basement rooms.
• Be sure a well-sealed vapor barrier exists on the outside
of the insulation on cooling ducts to prevent moisture buildup.
• Get a professional to help you insulate and repair all
ducts.
Ducts –
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
The unsealed ducts in
your attics and crawl spaces lose air – uninsulated ducts lose
heat, wasting energy and money.
Heat Pumps
If you use electricity to heat your home, consider installing an
energy-efficient heat pump system. Heat pumps are the most efficient
form of electric heating in moderate climates, providing three times
more heating than the equivalent amount of energy they consume in
electricity. There are three types of heat pumps: air-to-air, water
source, and ground source. They collect heat from the air, water, or
ground outside your home and concentrate it for use inside. Heat
pumps do double duty as a central air conditioner. They can also cool
your home by collecting the heat inside your house and effectively
pumping it outside. A heat pump can trim the amount of electricity
you use for heating as much as 30% to 40%.
Heat Pump Tips
• Do not set back the heat pump's thermostat manually if it
causes the electric resistance heating to come on. This type of
heating, which is often used as a backup to the heat pump, is more
expensive.
• Clean or change filters once a month or as needed, and
maintain the system according to manufacturer's instructions.
Solar Heating
Using the sun to heat your home through passive solar design can
be both environmentally friendly and cost effective. In many cases,
you can cut your heating costs by more than 50% compared to the cost
of heating the same house that does not include passive solar design.
Passive solar design techniques include placing larger, insulated
windows on south-facing walls and locating thermal mass, such as a
concrete slab floor or a heat-absorbing wall, close to the windows.
However, a passive solar house requires careful design, best done by
an architect for new construction or major remodeling.
Solar Tips
• Keep all south-facing glass clean.
• Make sure that objects do not block the sunlight shining on
concrete slab floors or heat-absorbing walls.
• Consider using insulating curtains to reduce excessive heat
loss from large windows at night.
Fireplaces
When you cozy up next to a crackling fire on a cold winter day,
you probably don't realize that your fireplace is one of the most
inefficient heat sources you can possibly use. It literally sends
your energy dollars right up the chimney along with volumes of warm
air. A roaring fire can exhaust as much as 24,000 cubic feet of air
per hour to the outside, which must be replaced by cold air coming
into the house from the outside. Your heating system must warm up
this air, which is then exhausted through your chimney. If you use
your conventional fireplace while your central heating system is on,
these tips can help reduce energy losses.
Fireplace Tips
• If you never use your fireplace, plug and seal the chimney
flue.
• Keep your fireplace damper closed unless a fire is going.
Keeping the damper open is like keeping a 48-inch window wide open
during the winter; it allows warm air to go right up the chimney.
• When you use the fireplace, reduce heat loss by opening
dampers in the bottom of the firebox (if provided) or open the
nearest window slightly – approximately 1 inch – and close
doors leading into the room. Lower the thermostat setting to between
50° and 55°F.
• Install tempered glass doors and a heat-air exchange system
that blows warmed air back into the room.
• Check the seal on the flue damper and make it as snug as
possible.
• Add caulking around the fireplace hearth.
• Use grates made of C-shaped metal tubes to draw cool room
air into the fireplace and circulate warm air back into the room.
Gas and Oil Heating
Systems
If you plan to buy a new heating system, ask your local utility or
state energy office for information about the latest technologies
available to consumers. They can advise you about more efficient
systems on the market today. For example, many newer models
incorporate designs for burners and heat exchangers that result in
higher efficiencies during operation and reduce heat loss when the
equipment is off. Check the appliance card in the back of this
booklet for additional information on how to understand heating
system ratings.
Look for the ENERGY STAR® label.
Air Conditioners
It might surprise you to know that buying a bigger room
air-conditioning unit won't necessarily make you feel more
comfortable during the hot summer months. In fact, a room air
conditioner that's too big for the area it is supposed to cool will
perform less efficiently and less effectively than a smaller,
properly sized unit. This is because room units work better if they
run for relatively long periods of time than if they are continually,
switching off and on. Longer run times allow air conditioners to
maintain a more constant room temperature. Running longer also allows
them to remove a larger amount of moisture from the air, which lowers
humidity and, more importantly, makes you feel more comfortable.
Sizing is equally important for central air-conditioning systems,
which need to be sized by professionals. If you have a central air
system in your home, set the fan to shut off at the same time as the
cooling unit (compressor). In other words, don't use the system's
central fan to provide circulation, but instead use circulating fans
in individual rooms.
Cooling Tips
• Whole-house fans help cool your home by pulling cool air
through the house and exhausting warm air through the attic. They are
effective when operated at night and when the outside air is cooler
than the inside.
• Set your thermostat as high as comfortably possible in the
summer. The less difference between the indoor and outdoor
temperatures, the lower your overall cooling bill will be.
• Don't set your thermostat at a colder setting than normal
when you turn on your air conditioner. It will not cool your home any
faster and could result in excessive cooling and, therefore,
unnecessary expense.
• Set the fan speed on high except in very humid weather.
When it's humid, set the fan speed on low. You'll get better cooling,
and slower air movement through the cooling equipment allows it to
remove more moisture from the air, resulting in greater comfort.
• Consider using an interior fan in conjunction with your
window air conditioner to spread the cooled air more effectively
through your home without greatly increasing your power use.
• Don't place lamps or TV sets near your air-conditioning
thermostat. The thermostat senses heat from these appliances, which
can cause the air conditioner to run longer than necessary.
• Plant trees or shrubs to shade air-conditioning units but
not to block the airflow. A unit operating in the shade uses as much
as 10% less electricity than the same one operating in the sun.
The shopping guide in the back of this booklet will help you find
the right size unit for your needs. Look for the ENERGY STAR®
label.
Programmable
Thermostats
You can save as much as 10% a year on your heating and cooling
bills by simply turning your thermostat back 10% to 15% for 8 hours.
You can do this automatically without sacrificing comfort by
installing an automatic setback or programmable thermostat.
Using a programmable thermostat, you can adjust the times you turn
on the heating or air-conditioning according to a pre-set schedule.
As a result, you don't operate the equipment as much when you are
asleep or when the house or part of the house is not occupied. (These
thermostats are not meant to be used with heat pumps.) Programmable
thermostats can store and repeat multiple daily settings (six or more
temperature settings a day) that you can manually override without
affecting the rest of the daily or weekly program. When shopping for
a programmable thermostat, be sure to look for the ENERGY STAR®
label.
Nighttime Heating
Using a
programmable thermostat, you can automatically turn down
your
heat at night or when you are not at home.
Nighttime Cooling
In the summer,
you can save money by automatically turning your air- conditioning up
at night.
For more information on heating and
cooling, contact:
Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
Institute,
(703) 524-8800
ENERGY STAR®,
(888)
STAR-YES (782-7937)
Owens Corning Customer
Service Hotline,
(800) GET-PINK (438-7465)
U.S. Department of Energy's
Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy Clearinghouse (EREC), (800) DOE-EREC (363-3732), and Network
(EREN).
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