You too can reduce your carbon footprint, one light bulb at a time.
When Dove Karn bought a rundown old house in Margaretville, N.Y., last summer, she saw an opportunity to turn a drafty space into an energy-efficient one.
For Ms. Karn, a public-school teacher who is involved in a regional climate educational program, the nearly 120-year-old house became an opportunity to implement some of what she’d learned about energy conservation.
“I need to live what I’m teaching,” she said.
We may point to the cars parked in our driveways as good indicators of the size of our carbon footprints, but we should be looking at our houses, too. The average U.S. household consumed nearly 90 million British thermal units, or BTUs, in 2009, nearly 50 percent more energy than the average car uses in a year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Nearly half of that energy was used to heat and cool our homes; the rest went to lights, heating the water, and powering appliances and electronics.
Figuring out how to make a house less of an energy hog can feel overwhelming. Sure, you can replace incandescent bulbs with LEDs, caulk your windows and doors, and install a smart thermostat like Nest. But once you start thinking about larger investments in systems like tankless water heaters, geothermal heat pumps and solar panels, the costs balloon. It’s hard to know where to put your money, and which investments might make the most sense for your home.
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