So, you know you need to do some things to tighten up your house and reduce your utility bills. Making your house more comfortable would be nice and reducing the impact on the environment is also important. The great thing is that you don’t need to give up any one of these things to get the others. Going green doesn’t mean shivering in a dark house with your coat on!

Getting started on reducing home energy use and environmental impact can seem overwhelming—there are so many things to consider. Eventually you will need to do an energy audit of your home to see where you are using energy and how to conserve. However, before you start the big projects, try doing these four simple things that are inexpensive and have a quick payback.




Install a water heater blanket: This is a cheap, effective way to save energy and money. It is an easy “do it yourself” project. Since you use hot water year-round, you will get savings from this project all year. The cost of a water heater blanket is $20 or less at a local hardware store and will pay for itself in a year or less. Also insulate at least the first 10 feet of water line from the heater—both the hot and the cold with self-sealing foam pipe insulation. If you want to make a larger project of it, insulate all of your hot water lines – or at least what is accessible in the basement or crawl space. This will help to keep the water hot until it comes out of the faucet. The pipe insulation comes in 6 foot lengths and costs about $1.80 a section.


Enroll in “Cool Cents”: This is a free program from Indianapolis Power and Light that allows IP&L to cycle your air conditioner compressor off for short periods of time. This allows them to reduce peak load in the summer when peak demand is high. In exchange, they credit your bill $5 a month in June, July, August and September.

The way it works is that IP&L will install a box outside, near your central air-conditioner compressor. When they need to reduce peak electrical demand during the day, they send a signal that will turn off your compressor for a short period of time. They generally only do this during the weekday and not after 6:00pm. It would likely go completely unnoticed if you did happen to be home.

This program saves money and the environment because IP&L doesn’t need to build as many “peaking generators” that are only used during peak electrical usage, plus they pay you $20 a year. You must have and owner-occupied home and have central air-conditioning to participate. Call 1-800-305-0982 to sign-up or find out more about Cool-Cents here.


Install compact fluorescent (CF) replacement light bulbs: Most of us have seen these fluorescent bulbs that screw into a standard light socket. They use a fraction of the electricity of a regular bulb and they last much longer. In addition, they throw off much less heat – heat that doesn’t need to be removed by the air-conditioner. A 15 watt CF bulb will put out about the same light as a 60 watt standard incandescent. Bulbs come in a variety of brightness levels – usually with a comparison to a standard bulb so that you know what size to buy.

The best places to install these are in fixtures that are usually left on for a while. The front porch light is a perfect candidate – as well as any other outdoor lights that use a standard bulb. (motion activated lights may not be on long enough to justify the cost of a CF bulb). The fact that they last for a long time is great advantage for hard to change bulbs.

Inside, use them anywhere that you don’t have the light on a dimmer. They are great for lamps, overhead lights and basement lights. They are particularly good for lights that you normally leave on at night or while you are away. Bulbs also come in reflector bulbs for recessed ceiling fixtures. They do make 3-way CF bulbs and special CF bulbs that you can dim, however they cost much more.

CF bulbs come in different color temperatures –warm (more yellow, like an incandescent bulbs) or cool (more blue, like a florescent) and full spectrum (closer to sunlight). I would recommend that you buy one of particular type and try it out for color and brightness before buying several of them.

Something to be aware of is that these bulbs take almost a minute to come up to full brightness. Don't get discouraged because they aren't bright enough... Wait a full minute for them to become bright.

Bulbs cost less than $2 for a 60 watt replacement to less than $3.50 for a 100 watt replacement. They typically pay for themselves in less than 6 months. They are available at the local hardware store or online.



Install a Setback Thermostat: These save energy by turning your heat down during the day while you are gone from the house and at night while you are asleep. They have a clock and you simply program them according to your normal schedule. You set them to raise the temperature an hour or so before you get home or get up in the morning. These thermostats also save energy in the summer with the air conditioning. Setback thermostats are available for around $50. Keep in mind that they only save money if you actually program them.





Doing these four things are a low-cost and easy way to get the ball rolling, start saving energy and money and also be kind to the environment. All of these things have a payback of a year or less. Anything that saves electricity is particularly helpful to the environment because most of the electricity generated in the mid-west comes from coal. Although it is cheap, coal is a particularly polluting source of energy.


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