How to save electricity and money in life?

Save energy, save money? Maybe…
Reducingenergy use isalwaysa great thing. But not every energy-conserving strategy isguaranteed to reduce your overall expenses. We take a look at some common misconceptions.

1. Closing forced-air registers in unused rooms saves on heating and cooling expenses. In fact, the opposite is true. Slimming down the flow of heated or cooled air to a room raises pressure (known as”back pressure”) in a forced-air system, so the blower needs to work harder, using more electricity. A better move: Ask your HVAC specialist to make more zones with the addition of motorized dampers to your ductwork. Or install smart registers, such as Ecovent (keenhome.io).
   These battery-powered devices automatically open or close as needed to keep a set room temperature, while tracking back pressure and communication with one another wirelessly to balance airflow. Ecovent says a normal system costs about $1,200, delivers average energy savings of 25 percent, and could pay for itself in about three decades.
2. Replacing old windows is a cost-effective way to save
   energy. Installing new, insulated windows is a sure way to reduce the heat loss and air infiltration standard of older, single-pane units and enhance comfort and convenience. But their high initial cost means you can wait as long as 40 years to break even, based on energy savings for whole-house replacement. For about a quarter of the price, you can add Energy Star–certified storm windows. When fitted with heat-reflecting low-e glass, these can lower heating and cooling bills by about 10 percent and cover themselves in five to seven years, according to Energy Star. Interior storms control air leakage better than outside storms because they fit closely into the window With either kind of storm, updating the weatherstripping on the old windows is an inexpensive way to improve overall performance even more.
3. A tankless water heater is the most cost-effective Approach to Create hot water. It depends. Tankless heaters do save energy by eliminating standby heat losses–the energy lost while keeping water hot in tank-type heaters. In a home that uses less than 42 gallons of hot water each day, tankless units are 24 to 34 percent more efficient, saving an average of $100 annually, or more. But in a busy household, standby losses are less of a factor, and increased efficiency drops to 8 to 14 percent. In that case, it could take 12 to 15 years to recoup the $2,800 expense of installing a gas-fired tankless water heater. (Fortunately, these heaters last 20 years or longer.) For about the same price, you can purchase an Energy Star tank-type water heater with a condensing gas burner or a hybrid electric heat pump. While tankless heaters do not run out of warm water, simultaneous or high-volume use may be restricted by the size of your gas supply line. Tank-style heaters do not have that limitation, and, in the case of condensing-gas heaters, bounce back so fast that running out of hot water is not an issue. When heavily used, these gas heaters achieve payback in about eight years. In warm climates with higher electricity rates, the payback on heat-pump heaters is only four years.
4. An electric space heater is a cost-saving way to heat a room. At best, it’s a temporary, intermittent solution. Regular use can be expensive: about $3.20 per 16-hour day, depending on the average cost of electricity in the U.S.. The more energy-efficient–and safer–cures for chronically cold rooms include stretching forced-air ductwork to them. Or, for those who have a boiler, you can run pipes to a wall-mounted hot-water radiator, which, unlike a space heater, produces comfortable radiant heat. A third option: Add a wall-mounted gas- or propane-fired furnace that vents to the outside. It costs about 85 cents per day to run either a 3,000-Btu hot-water panel radiator or a natural-gas wall socket with the identical output.
5. If you wish to save on energy, go solar. There are tons of reasons to go solar: Rooftop photovoltaic cells produce clean energy, reduce carbon emissions, and may decrease your electric bills (although pushback by utilities may limit savings in some areas). But in terms of bang for your buck, a greater investment is to properly insulate the large gaps in a house: the attic floor, floors above a crawl space, and the rim joist that sits on the base. Doing this saves an average of 15 percent on heating and cooling at a price of just $1.50 to $3.50 per square foot. Unlike solar panels, these improvements do not work out in 30 years, and they do their job 24/7, whether the sun is shining or not.