Trying to make energy savings a habit in your family? We have a fun and easy way to get everyone involved! Download our simple Energy Saving Agreement (PDF) and make the following pledge for one year - if next month’s electricity bill is lower, and I’m taking action to reduce it, I get to keep the difference! This is a fun activity for kids and parents alike to help encourage energy efficient behavior and pay attention to utility bills.
Here’s a tip – put the date that you get your electricity bill on the family calendar so everyone knows when to check it. And let me know if you give it a try!
One of the coolest features of the Minnesota Energy Challenge (and one that makes the site different than a lot of other energy resources) is that you can join teams and see how much people at your business, school, congregation or other organization are saving together. It’s good to know that there are thousands of households in Minnesota doing what you are doing – and seeing how much we can save together feels great!
Right now on the Energy Challenge there are over 1,000 teams – and you can join however many you want! You can also create a team for whatever you want: your book club, your extended family across the state, the dog park, whatever strikes your fancy. That way you can compete against other teams to see who can sign up the most households and get people excited about energy efficiency in a new way.
For information about promoting your team at school, church or work, visit the Spread the Word action guides.
Car sharing has always made sense to me. I’ve had friends use car sharing in other cities, but since I own a car I didn’t think that I would ever get a chance to try it out.
And then Minneapolis instituted winter parking restrictions. Suddenly, taking my car to work so I could make afternoon meetings wasn’t the best option, since coming home after 5pm means driving in circles looking for a parking space – not to mention more wear-and-tear on my 11 year old car. Luckily around the same time the Center for Energy and Environment signed up for a nonprofit membership with local car-sharing service HOURCAR, so all I had to do was apply online and I was in!
It’s been a few weeks since I was approved and received my fob in the mail, but it was only a few days ago that I got the chance to use HOURCAR myself. And I have to say that the experience so far has been totally awesome. There in a HOURCAR just a five minute walk from our office, so I just moseyed down the street and let myself in with the fob.
Once I got to the little white Toyota Yaris hatchback, I realized what my only hurtle would be – driving a car that isn’t mine! After spending three years driving only my beat-up Honda, getting into a newer car was weird. It took me a few minutes to settle in and figure out the mirrors and where the speedometer was located, but once I got going I felt great!
I’m not ready for a totally car-free existence yet – I like the freedom of owning my own car, taking long road trips and visiting friends in other states. However, it’s insanely ideal for me to take a nice bus ride to work in the morning, use HOURCAR for errands and meetings, and save my car some wear, tear and mileage. Especially when my company provides the service! I definitely recommend looking into HOURCAR, both for business and personal use. Treat yourself!
:: HOURCAR
I know that something called “energy efficiency and conservation” sounds like it should be really boring, but it doesn’t have to be! In fact, saving energy is a great opportunity to be creative and have fun, especially with the youth in your family. A great example of such ingenuity at work is TOLBY.
TOLBY is the brainchild of Aidan, a 13 year old in Minneapolis who was sick of his older brother leaving the lights on when he left the room. Aidan and his mom sat down and brainstormed about easy ways to remind the rest of their family to save electricity. They came up with TOLBY – which stands for Turn Off Lights Behind You! Aidan made TOLBY signs and put them up all around the house so his family would remember. Aidan’s mom Sarah says that TOLBY has one very simple advantage: it can be shouted easily across the house at people who forget!
So, if you have one action that you’re trying to get your family to do, like turning off lights or taking shorter showers or recycling, use Aidan as your role model and think about easy acronyms and campaigns that you can make to remind them. You might even find yourself having fun in the process!
The #1 electricity hog in most Minnesotan’s homes is the refrigerator. Those giant hulking tanks of metal, plastic and refrigerant work 24/7 to keep our food nice and cold, and in the process use quite a big of energy. Older models especially add onto energy bills – those nice avocado green models from the 70s use four times more electricity than modern ENERGY STAR-rated models! And since they’re a pain to move around, most often when they are no longer fit to be a main fridge, they end up in the basement or garage as a beer fridge. That’s some really expensive beer.
Good news for Xcel customers – now they will pay you to recycle your old fridge – and you don’t even have to move it! All you have to do is call ARCA (800-599-5795), the recycler that Xcel is working with, schedule an appointment and they will come pick it up for you – and you’ll get a rebate from Xcel for $35.00! Now is the time!
Opportunities for money and energy savings abound these days! A great way for businesses or nonprofits to save a little cash is to reduce the energy use of your vending machines. Now that I think about it, it makes so much sense! According to the Clean Energy Resource Teams, the average beverage vending machine uses around $300 worth of electricity each year. So, to help you save money, they have paired up with EnergyMisers, LLC to provide a state-wide bulk-buy program for VendingMisers until May 1st, 2010.
“A VendingMiser is a simple little device that lowers the energy use of a beverage vending machine without affecting its performance,” says Lissa Pawlisch, CERTs Statewide Coordinator. “This is your chance to take action and save big.”
VendingMisers can cut a vending machine’s energy use in HALF and saves approximately $130 a year! Contact CERTs for more info!
:: CERTs
Team Rivers
When Tim Reckmeyer told John Rivers that his family had been tracking their electricity usage, a light went off in John’s head.
“Being competitive by nature, we decided to challenge each other (and our families) to defeat the other by using less electricity and the game was on.”
Nearly two years later, the Rivers family has reduced their daily energy use to less than 1/3rd of what it used to be and is still going!
They started by borrowing an inexpensive Kill-a-Watt meter from the Reckmeyers to see how much electricity all the electronics and appliances in their home were using. “This made creating a priority list fairly simple,” explained John. Using that information, they set out to implement simple but powerful energy saving actions, including:
- Replacing light bulbs with efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs,
- Installing power strips with the entertainment equipment and home office, and
- Shutting computers completely off when not in use.
The Rivers also attacked their home’s biggest energy hogs: their old inefficient fridge and their whole house HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filtration system. They got a new ENERGY STAR-rated appliance that uses a fourth of the energy and put their filtration system on a timer so it no longer ran 24/7/365!
John says that he and his wife strive to make this contest fun and engaging for their two kids, which he said was “the easiest and likely most important thing from a long-term savings perspective” and that through participating in the contest “it has become a habit for them to do these things that are common sense.”
As of today, the competition rages on: “[The Reckmeyers] beat us in 2008 but it is very controversial as Dakota Electric estimated our December bill which appeared to be inflated,” John says. “The contest has resumed in 2009 and we currently have a comfortable lead…”
We’re on the edge of our seats to see who comes out ahead for 2009…stay tuned for Part Two to hear from Team Reckmeyer!
Oh, when these cold fronts move in and we all feel the chill in our drafty homes, there’s one phrase that springs to everyone’s lips – “I need new windows.” Especially in older homes, it’s easy to become very aware of the air leaks coming through old windows and dream about replacing them. However, replacing windows often does not fix the source of those air leaks or improve comfort as much as you may think it will. Getting new windows obviously look great and improve the curb appeal of your home, but if you are looking to make a big comfort improvement, absolutely nothing will beat sealing your attic bypasses.
Here’s the thing – air leaks into your house because it has a way to get out. If you have open pathways between your heated house and your cold attic around recessed lights, plumbing, chimneys or electrical pathways, then thanks to physics that hot air will rise out of your house and into your attic, creating a pressure in your home that pulls in more cold air from outside. This causes all sorts of bad news bears for your energy use and comfort, including ice dams and drafty rooms.
This means, that if you replace your windows without first sealing attic bypasses, you might be sealing off some of the leaks, but you’re not getting to the root of the issue. Seal those bypasses first (for which you can get an Energy Saver Rebate) and then marvel at how comfortable your house becomes!
Visit the Energy Challenge for a step-by-step guide to sealing your attic bypasses.
Once again, Xcel Energy has partnered with a variety of retailers across the state to provide a great deal – ENERGY STAR qualified high efficiency compact fluorescent light bulbs for just $1 each! Considering each bulb can save you over $40 over its lifetime, this is quite the deal. With over 265 stores participating, it’s easy to find some cheap, high quality light bulbs. Visit the Energy Smart website for more info.
A couple things to keep in mind when buying compact fluorescent light bulbs:
- Double-check to make sure they have the blue ENERGY STAR logo on the box. Never buy bulbs that aren’t ENERGY STAR rated – they just aren’t worth the money.
- CFLs come in a range of four colors, from warm white to daylight. Some stores have displays so you can see the lights on, but here’s tip: if you like the warmer lights of incandescents, look for warm white bulbs with a Kelvin temperature of 2700K. If you like a brighter, whiter light, look for bulbs with a rated 4,000K temperature or higher.
- If you’re looking for a bulb to use on a dimmer switch or 3-way fixture, you must buy a special dimmer or 3-way bulb. Using a regular CFL on those fixtures will greatly shorten their life.
Now, go forth and enjoy your energy savings!
:: Xcel Energy
There are many things that I love about living in Uptown Minneapolis – proximity to lakes, a great nightlife, within walking distance of so many good restaurants and a library. Of course, there are some downsides – I have a tiny studio apartment with no off street parking. Which was a pain before, but with the new winter parking restrictions in Minneapolis, parking in Uptown has become INSANE. Here are some tips to avoid tickets until April 1st:
- The name of the game is Metro Transit! Utilize the city’s bus lines and leave your car at home. If you’re coming from the suburbs, try park and ride and the light rail to get into the cities.
- Need a car during the day for meetings or errands? Try HOURCAR, a great local car-sharing program where you can check out nice fuel-efficient cars for errands like groceries or trips that just can’t be done by bus.
- Walk! Okay, the sidewalks are a little tricky and it’s not exactly balmy outside, but nothing beats the winter blues quite like a nice brisk walk, especially if you’re walking to a great local restaurant to have dinner with friends.
Good luck – and remember, avoid the towpocalypse by avoiding parking on the even side of non-snow emergency routes!
