Last Saturday Albany High School's Earth Team hired an energy efficiency expert from Rising Sun to talk to our community about how to green your home. I was surprised to find out that the three biggest energy users are refrigerators, heating spaces and heating water. That is a lot of energy for heating! Fortunately it is easy to decrease the energy you use for heating and reduce the cost of heating. There are two types of changes you can make; measures and behavior changes. Measures are investments such as plugging holes in the walls and buying curtains for the windows. Behavior changes are basically what they sound like (putting on a jacket when it is cold, keeping doors closed, and taking shorter showers).

One measure you can take is replacing your old refrigerator with an energy-efficient model.  Units only 10 years old can use twice as much electricity as new ENERGY STAR® models.  You can also buy toilets that use less water per flush.  You can also wrap heating and cooling ducts with duct wrap, or use mastic sealant, replace all light bulbs to CFL's, and install low flow showerheads. CFL's do produce mercury but the mercury that would be produced when digging for coal (used for incandescence) is more than that produced by CFL's. Some important behavior changes that will pay off are setting the thermostat at 68 degrees or lower and the air-conditioner at 78 degrees or higher. By moderating the set tempurature, you are not using extra energy to maintain the temperature. You can also dress according to the weather, take shorter showers, recycle your water by using your shower water on your lawn, wash only full loads on washing machines and dish washers, raise the temperature of the refrigerator and freezer before ice buildup becomes 1/4-inch thick, close blinds in the winter and open them in the summer, use clothing lines in the summer instead of driers and fix all your leaks!

When buying products, “energy star” products are certified to be the most energy efficient products on the market. Make sure you know what you are buying.  Many companies are “green washed” - they have one sort of green product that they advertise but don’t actually care about the environment at all.

Due to the education budget cuts, Albany High is doing an energy audit and will be implementing some of the measures and behavior changes I just talked about. Because of the economic crisis it is important to cut every cost that we can; cutting energy is great because it saves money and fuel.