Living Like Ed (2 page)

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TAKING AN OLD HOME AND MAKING IT GREEN

I bought our house in 1988, a simple little two-bedroom house on a small lot in Studio City, California. Given my financial position at the time, it was a great move that has also turned out to be great for my career—I’ve never felt pressured to take a role I didn’t love just so I could make a huge mortgage payment. Of course, by Hollywood standards, this house is a shack. But by world standards, as I’m sure you know, it is a palace.

Retrofitting an Old House vs. Building New

Few of us have the resources to build a more energy-efficient house from the ground up. I didn’t have the money to do that, and I didn’t have the will to do that. Plus I
liked
my house.

So, I set out to make my home as environmentally sound as I could in every aspect. I knew that with insulation, a drought-tolerant garden, double-pane windows, an energy-saving thermostat, and solar panels I eventually put on the roof, I could make this a much more efficient structure.

Indeed, by the time I was done, I had made my home nearly as energy efficient as a new one. And you can do the same for your home, wherever you live.

The key to saving energy in your home is
controlling
energy use. Clearly, there are many ways to do this, from simple changes in what you do and how you do it to more-intense home improvement projects. Because so much of the energy used in your home is used to keep it warm in the winter and cool in the summer, we’ll start with ways you can control your heating and cooling needs.

And there’s another important point I want to mention right up front: You don’t have to
own
your home to make many of these changes. There’s a lot you can do even if you’re renting, or if you own a condominium or another type of structure where you might be limited as to the kinds of changes you can make.

So why bother making these changes? Because they’ll make your home more energy efficient, which means you’ll be helping the environment by saving natural resources. It also means you’ll be helping yourself and saving money—sometimes really big money. So no matter where you live right now, you can make some changes that will make a real difference.

A Fresh Filter

Perhaps the easiest thing you can do today is change the air filter for your heating and air-conditioning system. Many people think, “Filter? There’s a filter?” If that’s you, yours probably hasn’t been changed in a while.

Most central heating and air-conditioning systems have a filter at the air intake—on a wall or on the ceiling—and many window and wall-unit air conditioners have a filter element on the front that needs to be changed, too.

I usually change my air filter every other month.

I change mine regularly, sometimes six times a year, because we have two cats and a dog, and pet hair is always blowing around. I check the air inlet for my heating and air-conditioning system regularly and often realize, “Whoa! It’s time to change this thing again.”

Why is changing the filter so important? Because when the filter gets dusty or dirty or clogged, it’s harder for your system to pull air through it. That means your system has to work harder, and it has to stay on longer in order to do the same amount of work.

So changing that filter regularly is the low-hanging fruit that you can pick right away. And it doesn’t matter if you have central heat and air or a window- or wall-mount air conditioner. Changing the filter is a great way to make your home more energy efficient.

Beyond that, changing the filter will help if anyone in your family suffers from allergies. You can even go a step further and choose an air filter that’s designed especially to trap allergens. If odors are a problem in your home, there are filters designed to trap them, too.

An Energy-Saving Thermostat

Once you’ve got the air moving more efficiently through your heating and cooling system, think about how you regulate the temperature of that air.

It requires a huge amount of energy—energy that you pay for in the form of your electric, oil, or gas bills—to raise or lower the heat of your home by even a few degrees. Controlling these costs, and the amount of energy you use, means controlling the temperature both when you’re at home
and
when you’re away. This is the magic of an energy-saving thermostat.

Most people simply turn their heating and air-conditioning system on and off when they want to be warmer or colder. Some even leave the system on when they leave the house, so that it will be the right temperature when they return. Maybe you leave the heat running at your preferred temperature all night long—even though you’re sleeping under a blanket or a comforter—because you want the house to be nice and warm when you get up in the morning.

But why spend all that money, and waste all that energy, keeping your house comfortable when you’re not there, or when you can simply add another blanket to your bed at night?

Programming the thermostat is easy—and a real money-saver.

If you have central heating or central air-conditioning or both, you can install and use a programmable thermostat instead of an old “set the temperature and it’s either on or off” thermostat. This way, you can save energy and money
and
have your house at the right temperature when you get home, when you wake up in the morning,
and
when you’re asleep.

You will have to invest some money up front; an energy-saving thermostat starts at about $65. But it will pay for itself in heating and cooling savings in a year or less if you use all of its features.

Programming Your New Thermostat

•
Make sure you program the energy-saving thermostat to shut down the heat or air-conditioning automatically when you leave for work or for school, and to turn it back on 20 to 30 minutes before you expect to return.

•
You’ll also want to program the thermostat to reduce the temperature when you’re heating the house (or to increase the temperature when you’re cooling it) about 30 to 60 minutes after you normally turn in for the night. Once you’re under the covers and asleep, you won’t require as much heating or even cooling. (You’d be surprised how much less cooling is necessary to keep you comfortable at night. And you can always open a window in the summer if it’s cooler outside at night.) Again, you just program the thermostat to return to “awake” mode 20 to 30 minutes before your alarm goes off in the morning.

•
You don’t need to worry about being uncomfortable if you’re home all day on the weekend, either. Energy-saving thermostats let you program different settings for weekdays and weekends.

•
If you plan on going out of town, make sure you override your normal programming and shut down everything until you return. The caveat here is that if you’re in a very cold climate and you’re worried about your pipes freezing, don’t let the temp fall below 55 degrees Fahrenheit. And you might not want to shut the system down completely if you’re leaving pets in your home. Even so, you can see there’s tremendous potential for energy savings here.

Temperatures change day to day, so don’t be afraid to adjust your program settings, daily if need be, to maximize the efficiency of your system. I check mine every time I leave the house.

                  Ed used to make me crazy with that programmable thermostat. He was always tinkering with it, making us late before we’d go anywhere. And if I adjusted it myself, he was always asking, “What happened? Who touched this?” He always knew if I’d cranked the heat up a degree or two, but he kept the house bordering on freezing in the winter!

But I guess it’s like anything. You can get used to wearing a sweater inside, especially when you see the difference in the energy bill. And it does make sense to save energy when we’re not home. Of course, he’s got that thermostat programmed to dial the heat way back at night, but I have to admit I don’t mind putting an extra blanket on the bed anymore. It’s not such a bad trade. With what we save on the electric bill, I get to buy more shoes!

Choosing a Comfortable Temperature

It’s one thing to talk about programming the thermostat. Everybody says, “Sure, makes sense.” It’s another thing entirely to try to reach an agreement with the people living in your home about what temperature is comfortable.

Let me talk about the temperature in my house
before
Rachelle and
after
Rachelle. When I was single, I would keep the house at 65 to 68 degrees in the winter and 78 in the summer. I didn’t think twice about simply wearing a sweater or sweatshirt in the winter and changing into a cotton T-shirt and shorts in the summer.