Boost your home’s energy efficiency for under $1,000

By Herb Weisbaum

An energy-efficient home is not only good for the environment. It’s also good for your wallet, because it saves you money in energy bills.

Patti Southard, with King County’s Green Tools Program, says there are all sorts of small remodeling projects you can do for under $1,000 that will cut your energy use.

“If you’re not going to be replacing your hot water tank, you can buy wraps that will help make that more energy efficient. You could beef up the insulation in your roof. And you can typically do that for under $1,000. You can use rigid foam board to do that. There’s a lot of eco-friendly batting material now so that you’re not dealing with fiberglass anymore. So you can get a recycled cotton bat, you can get a recycled wool bat and again the rigid foam board will all help beef up the insulation in your roof. And that’s another really good place to start.”

King County has just launched a new website called Eco-Cool Remodel Tool that will show you a lot of things you can do in your house and in your yard, one space at a time.

“It’s an interactive tool and you just click on a room and there’s tips,” says Southard. “So if you don’t want to spend a lot of time on that page you can just look at the tips for each room, such as kitchen, bath and bedroom. If you want more information you click “more information” and it gives you a comprehensive list of things that you can do to improve each room in your house and at the bottom of each page there is a set of resources where you can buy materials, find your tax incentives and look at what kind of rebates are available.”

Patti Southard says you can also use the Eco-Cool Remodel Tool site to e-mail her your conservation questions – and she promises to answer them.

You might want to get a home energy audit, so you can identify the simple things you can do to cut your homes energy use.

Most utilities in the area offer this service at a discount price. You can get one done for around $95 when the normal price is about $250.

If you’re heading to the home show, there’s a great place you can learn about all this – head to the Built Green booth. You can talk to experts who know all about energy-efficient remodeling and how to find a good contractor in the area.