Welcome to this handy little tool for saving energy and money. The average NY home spends over $2,600 per year on energy for electricity, heat and hot water. Use this tool to learn how to save between 20 and 60% of that amount—up to $1,500 a year!

Do you want to save energy and money but don’t have the money to invest in windows and insulation? Take a look at our Low Cost Energy Savers page with its 23 tips that cost absolutely no money but could save you well over $500! That same page has 20 other tips that cost less than $20 each that could save you an additional $300 or more.

Are you too busy to take the time to do the things that would reduce your energy use? Our Quick and Easy page has 34 tips that take less than 10 minutes (many take less than one minute) and taken together can easily save you 300 or 400 dollars this winter.

Do you live in an apartment and feel powerless to make the changes to reduce your own energy costs? The For Apartment Dwellers and Tenants page lists 45 different tips including 25 tips that don’t require landlords’ permission to implement. Saving $500 or more on energy costs in your apartment has just become a little easier.

Have you tried to save energy and money in the past but just didn’t know how to do these things? There are video clips and documents that accompany each tip that show you exactly how to do each one of these tips, with clear step-by-step instructions! The only tips that don’t include step-by-step instructions are things like: “Turn off your television when not in use and save $25-$45/year”.

If you just want to see where all the energy losses occur in your home and how to cut the losses in those areas you can see them in the interactive house: just click on any part of the house to see what you can do to save money on that part of the house.

In the long term the most effective ways to reduce your energy use are based on treating your home or apartment as a set of systems and functions, and contracting a trained professional to carry out an energy audit of all those systems to identify and rank everything that should be done to make those systems as efficient as possible. There are resources and assistance available to most householders in NY to help do that. But in the meantime this website is designed to help you begin thinking of the systems and functions in your home including:

• Heating System (made up of the Furnace and Ducts or Hot Water Pipes, Radiators, and Thermostat)
• Hot Water System (including Hot Water Heater and Pipes)
• Lighting System (including Lights and Windows)
• Appliances Component (including the Refrigerator, Dishwasher, Washer and Dryer, and Computers and Televisions
• Protective Shell (made up of the Foundation, Basement, Crawl Space, Doors, Windows and Attic) that keeps warm air inside the house and cold air outside the house. It’s really important to make that shell as airtight as possible, and to do that you need to find all the air leaks and then seal those air leaks.

Our goal is to provide energy saving tips and techniques in a variety of ways to make it easy for everyone to easily learn more about energy saving in the home. And by the way, we are always interested in making it better. Please drop us a line with your ideas on how to make it better and with your tips on how to save energy and money!.

Some special software is needed to view parts of this site. If you are missing any of the necessary software, we have free versions of all the required players on our software page.

Disclaimers: The dollar savings we list throughout this website are based on homes and apartments in average condition and based on current energy prices in Tompkins County, NY. They may not be exactly equivalent to your own situation. You can get more precise savings estimates by carrying out a home energy audit and by using this handy fuel cost calculator. (The calculator is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. If you can't open the file, install the Excel reader here)

This informational site is provided by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County (New York) with generous help from many others. We do not endorse any of the companies or products featured throughout this site. Compare products and services before you decide which ones work best for you.