Easy Solutions for Saving Energy and Money This Fall

The attached comments are reprints from Center Point Energy's monthly newsletter that is well worth repeating.  Though not new ideas, they are tried and proven ways of saving money during the heating season.

• Lower thermostat setting.  Lower the thermostat setting to 68 degrees during the day, and to 58 degrees at night or when away.  For every one degree reduction in the thermostat setting, one can save 3-5 percent on heating bills.
• Install a programmable thermostat.  A programmable thermostat can automatically lower the heating temperature at night or while one is away from home.
• Seal leaks and windows.  Seal leaks around doors and windows with weatherstripping or caulk.  stretch plastic tightly over inside or outside of windows to reduce cold air infiltration.
• Heating system tune-up.  Furnaces should be checked annually by a qualified technician to ensure safe and efficient operation.  
• Change furnace filter.  Change furnace filter according to manufacturer specifications.
• Lower water heater temperature.  Reduce water heating costs by simply lowering the thermostat setting on the water heater.  Turn the water heater temperature to the lowest setting comfortable.  for most people, 120 degrees Fahrenheit is sufficient and safe.

Home Electrical Generators

If you live in or near Oxford, MS or for that matter, anywhere in the US these days, you probably have experienced power outages due to many factors.  Inclement weather, earth quakes, extremely hot summer temperatures, electrical grid failures, generation outages and transformer failures are just a few items that can cause you to loose power for extended periods of time.  It seems like this year for all of us, these events have occurred all too often and left many of us in the dark.  It is even worse if you are away from home and your home, including your refrigerator/freezer leave you with spoiled food, extremely high temperatures and in some cases, major humidity issues that you only find when you return home.  What a vacation?????


Thank goodness there are some solutions for these problems today that are not as costly as they once were.  I am specifically talking about a partial or whole house permanently installed generator powered by natural gas.  What they do is sit outside your home, very much in size like that of a central air conditioning condenser unit that only come on following a greater than 2 minute power outage.  They are very easy to maintain, require a automatic weekly 12 minute operation to maintain the battery charge and can provide partial or full house generating capacity, in all or only partial areas of electrical need.

I installed a partial home generator in my home three years ago when I built it and have been very pleased with the results.  While I have had it come on automatically on multiple occasions, its greatest use was this summer when a tornado hit our neighborhood and did much damage leaving the power out for an extended period of time.  The unit came on and provided power for us to follow the weather via TV and keep up with what was happening in the area for the next 24 hours before power was restored.  During this time, two additional tornadoes occurred, one of which devastated many homes in an area near ours.

It is not very difficult for an electrician to install one of these as depicted below and if you specify natural gas or propane as the fuel of choice, the run time is essentially unlimited.  I highly recommend consideration of a whole or partial home generator, based on my experience, even if you only have to use it once a year.  You will be amazed at the Peace of Mind it brings to you as a home owner.  If you are interested and want to get a view of how some raters pick units, take a look at this URL (http://www.generators.smps.us/ratings.html) on the internet.