There are a lot of tips and tricks for reducing your energy use, and therefore also your energy expense.  Some, like purchasing more energy-efficient appliances, investing in home improvements to improve insulation, and even the use of many kinds of insulation-improving bits and bobs of hardware-type-stuff, are things which those in rentals can’t get away with.  Others, like lowering your thermostat in the Winter from the level of heat you normally want to jack it up to, or only having lights on in whatever one room of the house you’re in at a given time, don’t quite work for certain families and their special needs.

Well, here are a few things which have made a huge difference in our energy bills, despite being a special-needs family in a rental…

First off, slay the energy vampires. Those are electronics which use energy, even when you are not actively using THEM.  Most major appliances are energy vampires, as are pretty much anything with so much as a little light that turns on as long as it’s plugged in.  Other culprits are chargers (for cell phones, laptops, batteries or other portable electronics) left plugged in when they aren’t charging anything.  Our fridge and chest freezer need to stay plugged in all the time, and we can’t easily get to the power connections for our stove and dishwasher, but we saw a significant difference as soon as we started only plugging in our washer and dryer while running them.  We also group electronics — computer-related stuff, small kitchen appliances — into power strips (which are a good idea anyway), and turn off the power strips when nothing hooked to them is in use.  This is a good option when you have things used often enough that it’s inconvenient to unplug /replug and move things around individually, but still have large swaths of time when they aren’t in use.  It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s still organized, and the difference it makes really adds up.  For example, instead of our TV, VCR, DVD player and digital converter box all drawing at least a small amount of power, 24/7….they only do when in use, at maximum a few hours a day.  Ditto for our microwave, toaster oven and blender.  Over the days, weeks and months, that contrast in power use grows more drastic.  This tactic is more potent yet if you can swing investing in one of the special power strips that doesn’t release power to anything plugged into it that isn’t in active use, even if the power strip is on.  I REALLY want one of those for our office area.  As it is, we saved about 30% on our electric bill, just doing what we already could.

Secondly, do not give up on insulating old, drafty windows. Here’s what we do:  First, I use rope caulk to fill in all the gaps between the panes, the panes and the frame, etc.  This really cuts down on big drafts, and the rope caulk remains flexible and quickly removable — ideal for areas you don’t want to seal permanently, but which won’t likely be opened for some time.  It’s reusable, too, as long as it doesn’t get too mildewy from moisture coming in with the drafts and hitting it.  Next, use packing tape to attach bubble wrap directly over the panes of glass.  It works better if you use the kind with the bigger bubbles, and you have the bubbles facing the glass.  All those extra air pockets do wonders for temperature insulation.  Lastly, get clear sheet plastic, and fix it tautly over the entire window frame.  Sheet plastic is available in a variety of thicknesses, quantities and locations, so do some comp-shopping.  You can find it on huge rolls, sold by the yard, in places that sell fabric — this is usually the least cost-effective source unless you just have one really bad window, although it is the provider of the thickest plastic.  Sheet plastic is also  sold in hardware stores / departments in the form of tarping, and even in automotive departments, where the packages are marketed as temporary fixes for broken car windows.  Seal all the edges of the plastic to the window frame with painter’s tape, if you don’t want the tape to pull the paint off the frame when you free the windows in smoke emergencies or when the weather warms; reinforce the hold by pushing some pushpins through at the joints,  corners, or angles where window frame meets wall, where the tiny holes won’t be noticed and are easily filled in.  Using the plastic catches any last drafts that snuck in past the rope caulk, and adds yet another layer of temperature insulation.  The really nice thing about all this is that you’re adding uber-insulation to your windows without cutting down on any of the light that gets in, as you do with (less effective anyway, though nicer-looking) insulated curtains.  Once you have the sheet plastic in place, you actually get a sort of light box effect at the window whenever light comes through, giving the room a rather nice ambient light effect, actually.  The loss of view is traded off with the increase in privacy, insulation, and bug-stopping.  And for the record, I re-use the plastic and bubble wrap, too.

Thirdly, keep the warm air (in the Winter) or cold air (in the Summer) where you want it most. Depending on how heating and cooling is handled in your abode, the specific tactics  here will change.  What I want to note is that sometimes, closing a door isn’t your only option for keeping A/C or heated air from being wasted on areas where it’s not really needed.  Our current rental is pure electric — that is, there is no gas or anything, everything runs on electricity.  The heat comes from baseboard heaters, not any sort of central venting system you can open and close individual grates for.  While we’re paranoid about power outs in the Winter, the advantage is that each bathroom and bedroom has its own thermostat, making temperature regulation of each area very easy to control.  We can have the heat completely off in our studio if we’re not using it, and in the bedrooms during the day.  In the evenings I can jack the heat up high in Ash’s room since he doesn’t keep blankets over him when he sleeps, without needing to heat the far larger downstairs area to the same temperature.  The tricky thing is that the kitchen, living room, utility area, stairway and hall are all controlled by one thermostat, but those areas get significantly different usage times.  Our front door is also metal with bend-up edges, which makes it something like an extremely drafty deep-freezer that’s very difficult to DIY improvements on.  Since there is one baseboard heater right next to that front door, and the rest of them for all those areas are all in the living room, the solution was to use shower curtain rods to hang insulated curtains in the open doorways to the utility area, and between the living room and the stairwell to the front door and further, to the upstairs hall.  Now most of the heat pumped out is held in the living room and kitchen where it is needed most, and only what comes out of one heater is wasted on the drafty front door area.  In the Summer when I want to take advantage of all natural light coming in, I can switch to a clear plastic shower curtain to block off the stairwell’s airflow, without losing the light from the skinny window next to the door.  Sure, that’s not the nicest-looking thing in the world, but when I am worried about affording enough juice from the window A/C unit in the living room to not melt into a grungy puddle, I can handle a take-down-for-company-able bit of ghetto DIY insulation like that.