Towards sustainability: heating

Here is as planned my first article towards sustainability. Since heating is behind an important part of the energy consumption of buildings, this is where we begin.

As insulation is quasi inexistent in most constructions they can be considered as thermal colanders. (expression coined by the French energy and environment Minister, Jean-Louis Borloo). So this is important to lower the thermostat before anything else.

This can brings drastic changes as decreasing the thermostat by one single degree Celsius lowers the bills by seven percent.

So decreasing by three degrees Celsius would save 20 percent of heating bills.

To Grist (see below) the Fahrenheit equivalent is one percent per one degree. To adapt to these lower temperatures, do like Jimmy Carter (and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing) once advocated: wear a sweater indoors !

Another great way to keep warm is drinking hot beverages (tea, coffee…) as it will significantly warm you up.

Second tip : have a look at your windows and doors and seal the leaks.

Third and last tip: close shutters and curtains at nights. If they block lights during day, they can decrease the heat loss as well. The French ADEME estimates it can enable savings of 10 percent.

And you, do you have other tips to lower your heating bills ? I look forward to reading them !

Related posts:

1. Towards sustainability, a series of lifestyle tips
2. A great video on why CFL are fantastic
3. Looking for sound and profitable investments ?
4. On housing insulation – Part 1/2
5. Cutting the energy consumption of collective housing

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