Ways to Conserve Energy and Fuel

This is just a list that I'm keeping, adding to it from time to time in the hope that it will be helpful to people.

Heat

Heat only rooms you really use. During the Winter, close off rooms that you don't really need to have heated. Remember that every cubic foot of air takes energy to heat, so you should minimize the volume you're heating.
Close off heating ducts for the rooms you're not using. You can buy magnetic covers at hardware stores that provide a better seal than just closing the vent.
Use space heaters instead of central heating. Heat only the areas that matter.
Use any residual heat in the house to wet hang clothes that need drying.
Check that your water-heater is not over-heating the water, which is wasteful.
Use a timer or manual switch to switch off the water-heater during the hours when you are not at home.
Save materials during Summer and Autumn for using in a woodstove or fireplace in the Winter. Save good burnable materials include the following.
- extra pieces of wood from projects
- wood chips, bark, twigs
- nut shells: collect them year round.
- clothing: if it gets ripped, remember, it's flammable.
- branches -- keep them on a rack outside to dry.
- stale bread
- non-glossy junk mail (use for starting the fire)
- any extra McDonalds french fries (don't throw them away -- they last for months!)
If you own your house, remove trees that obscure south-facing windows. Use them as firewood.
If you own your house, plant trees on the north side of your house, to reduce the cooling effect of wind.
You can tape a layer of transparent plastic from your local hardware store over windows to create an additional layer of insulation over windows.
When it's cold out, raise the window shades to let in sunlight to help heat your home. South-facing windows are especially good for this.
During the winter, close off north-facing rooms if possible and seal the heating duct vents in those rooms. Occupy the warmer south-facing rooms.
During the boring Winter months, take time to read a book about passive solar energy.
You can turn down the heat and wear more layers of clothing when it's cold.
If you have a woodstove, don't be afraid to use it. If you have a fireplace, consider getting a woodstove instead.
If you own your home, consider installing remote-source lighting, which fiber-optic based lighting, which collects light in a reflective dish up on the roof and sends it down a cable to the interior of your house. This is better than a conventional skylight, since you don't have to worry about heat leakage.
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Insulate your water heater.
Put insulating face-plates on your electrical sockets.

Water

To conserve toilet water, put bricks in the holding tank, so that less water is used to fill it and therefore less to flush. You can also fill jars with water to the jars' rims and put those in there.
To conserve shower water, put an egg timer in the bathroom to make it easier for you to limit your showers to 5 or 10 minutes.

Electricity

Get timers for your various electric lights so that they go out when you aren't using them. Or even get the kind that includes a motion sensor.
If you're going to spend $$ for coffee, spend it at a warm, lighted, sit-down cafe where you will get:
- free electricity for your laptop or for a charger
- free warmth in winter, which is cheaper than heating your home
- free napkins to use in the car or home
Switch your light bulbs to compact fluorescent, but make sure you get the non-mercury containing kind if possible.
Even better than compact fluorescent are the new LED lights, which are costlier but brighter and they last forever. At a minimum, replace your single most-used light bulb with an LED bulb such as the Vivid Plus. Over the long run, LED bulbs save money.
Borrow or buy yourself a Kill-a-Watt meter ($35, click here to search on Froogle) and use it to find the most electricity-hogging devices in your home. Then either replace those or don't use them.
Unplug unused electronic devices. Many devices draw power even when they are turned off, which sounds odd but it's often true. For instance, any device that can be turned on with a remote control need to be powered up enough so that it can be watching for the signal from the remote. You can use a watt meter to determine the "off" wattage of appliances.
Rather than using a clothes dryer, which uses tons of electricity, dry clothing on a rack in the warmest room in your abode. Remember, dryers are a luxury. In many countries, like Germany and China, dryers aren't even used by most of the population. They dry their clothes on racks in the warmest, sunniest room or on clothes-lines outdoors or in sun rooms.
If you must use a desktop computer, set the power management and/or screen saver to power off the monitor after a few minutes of disuse.
If you notice that some program is keeping your computer running at a high rate of activity, such as Real's stupid player program, uninstall it.
If you're not going to use your computer for more than a half-hour, switch it off entirely.
If you have a desktop computer, sell it and get a laptop. Desktops use as much as 200 watts including the monitor, whereas laptops use just a fraction of that, e.g. 35-60 watts. If you don't believe me, buy yourself a Kill-o-Watt meter and test it.

Refrigeration

Warm and then fold a 3 inch piece of bees' wax over the temperature sensor in your fridge to discourage it from using lots of electricity to re-cool the fridge air every time you open the fridge door. Or check out a commercially available solution here.
In the Winter, put some items outside in the snow or ice, instead of in a freezer -- if it gets cold enough.

Driving

When driving a stick-shift car, i.e. with manual transmission, don't be afraid to take the car out of gear and coast. Your fuel efficiency goes way up when coasting.
When at a long stop light, turn off the engine. Gasoline used at a stop light is lost without any gain, unless by chance it's hot out and you need the air condition.
Never floor it when going up a hill. Your fuel efficiency goes way down when you do that. In most vehicles (except diesels) remaining in lower gear is also inefficient. So upshift to a higher gear and stay there.
A little good planning can save a lot of gasoline when running errands!

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