Becoming more energy independent begins in the home, and there are many types of improvements you can make to your living space to drastically increase savings, take control, and live more comfortably.
Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) is the single largest driver of energy waste in a household, accounting for roughly 60% of your energy bill regardless of the climate you live in. One of the first things to consider is your building envelope, or the separation from the outside and inside environments of your home.
The degree to which you seal your envelope will be the most important factor in improving efficiency, because if there are leaks then your HVAC system will have to work harder to compensate. Various factors such as material type, insulation, seals, doors and windows, external vents, and the life cycles of all of these influence the efficiency of your envelope.
Lighting is the second largest consumer of wasted energy, and depending on the types of fixtures that you have in place, excess lighting heat can also offset the efforts of your HVAC system. There are three major sources of lighting in most homes: incandescent, fluorescent, and LED.
Incandescent is what you think of when you think of a light bulb, but it is the most inefficient in terms of energy usage, waste heat, and life expectancy (about 1000 hours). Fluorescents are more efficient, using a gas-filled tube to create illumination, and vary in life spans (about 10,000-24,000 hours). LEDs are by far the best in terms of efficiencies, using the least power, giving off almost no heat, and lasting incredibly long (about 25-30 years).