03091 Energy Conservation for Renters

Location, location, location.

Choose your rental apartment (or house, condo, town home, duplex, etc.) carefully.

The more walls with adjoining apartments, the more energy conservative the apartment. Apartments below and above the apartment make the apartment in-between them more energy conservative. The ideal situation is an apartment whose door opens onto an interior hallway, with apartments adjoining the other three walls, and an apartment above and below the unit. Avoid top floor and corner apartments. The least energy conservative apartment configuration in a multiple unit building is a top floor apartment on a corner with an outside wall facing north.

Four-plexes are better than duplexes because they have more shared walls and if you are on the ground floor of a two-story building you have another unit on top.

You want windows that can open and shut.

If your geography has cold winters, look for an apartment with an east-west axis so that you have a long south facing fall. You want lots of windows in that wall. You want overhangs to shade the wall and the south-facing windows during the summer. (Readers from the Southern Hemisphere will want many windows on their north-facing walls.)

Exterior shading of the walls and roof with trees helps you keep cool in the summer. Deciduous trees, which lose their leaves in the winter, are better than evergreens because in the winter, you want the sun. Evergreen trees are desirable on the north side, which don’t get much sun in the winter and are often hit by cold north winds.

Ask the landlord about insulation and the age of the heating/cooling systems in the apartment. You want more insulation rather than less and newer systems instead of older.

Everybody will not be able to live in an interior apartment with apartments on either side, on top, and below. Do the best you can to find the most advantageous solution for your situation. In the process, you help educate landlords about the needs of renters. This stacks additional functions on your dwelling search.

Reducing Drafts. If your apartment has a lot of drafts, ask the landlord to correct the problem. If the landlord is not responsive, it would be worth the small money cost for you to buy some caulk and foam and fix the leaks yourself.

Insulating Windows. You can make movable window insulation out of rigid board insulation. Cut it to fit the windows. To get extra insulation, duct tape more than one layer of the insulation board together. Wrap them in aluminum foil to make them fire resistant. To make them look nicer, cover with contact paper, paint, or fabric. Take them with you when you move to a new apartment.

You can (and should!) hang heavy drapes over windows. The best configuration is for the curtains to fall all the way to the floor. You need a cornice board or valence at the top. This prevents a convection current from developing between the curtain and the window that would draw warm air from the room up along the cold window. That will cool the air and then the room and that’s not what you want in the winter.

Go the extra mile in covering up your windows and that will help keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer. You may want several layers of hangings over your windows. Before we made our insulated interior shutters, we duct-taped auto sun shades together and sandwiched them between blankets and hung them over our windows. We were poor and had hardly any money to pay for natural gas to heat our then-drafty duplex. We cared less about aesthetics and more about staying warm cheaply because we didn’t have much money.

Walls and Attic. Put heavy furniture against your exterior walls and it does the job of insulation. Bookcases full of books are great for this purpose.

Wall-hangings are useful insulation. Run a curtain rod along the ceiling and hang floor-to-ceiling drapes along the walls, which could be re-purposed comforters, blankets, etc. More layers are better than one.

Your clothes can be insulation. Make your walls a closet and hang your clothes up against exterior walls.

Stack boxes of Styrofoam against exterior walls. Ask your friends to save Styrofoam packing peanuts for you. Shred Styrofoam cups and use blocks of Styrofoam. Cover the boxes with cloth hangings for aesthetics. Styrofoam has an R-value of about 3.8 per inch. Thus, a 12 inch deep box in your attic or against a wall is R-45 which is pretty good insulation. When you move, take your insulation with you. Styrofoam is a fire hazard. You can lessen that somewhat by lining the inside of the boxes with aluminum foil.

If you have an uninsulated attic (or a not-insulated-very-well attic) put boxes of Styrofoam on the floor of the attic. Another attic possibility is cardboard, which has an R-value of 3-4 per inch. Stacks of cardboard can insulate attics and walls.

Floors. If your floors are bare tile, wood, or linoleum, area rugs insulate the floor and make the apartment seem warmer. You can sew additional fabric underneath the area rugs to increase their insulating value. Rag rugs are a traditional home craft that uses old cast-off fabrics (like old worn out clothes) to make beautiful and useful rugs that will help your floors stay warm during cold winters. Learn more about this craft at —

http://ragrugcafe.com/

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/Make-Rag-Rug.aspx

http://www.craftpassion.com/2010/03/recycle-tutorial-braided-rag-rug.html

Kitchen. Kitchen energy conservation tips work for renters too. See 03131 Kitchen Energy for more info.

Thermostats. Adjusting the thermostat conserves energy. It is not cheaper to leave your thermostat at the same temperature 24/7. It is cheaper (money and energy) to adjust the thermostat so you heat or cool less while apartment is empty.

In the summer, set the temperature higher and use fans to maintain interior comfort. When you leave, set it even higher and lower it when you get home.

In the winter, set the temperature lower and dress for the season indoors. At night, lower the thermostat and use extra quilts and blankets. When you leave, set it even lower and then raise it when you get home.

Ask your landlord for a programmable thermostat so you can set it to adjust itself the temperature to match your comings and goings.

If your apartment use steam radiators for heat, put aluminum foil on the walls behind the radiators to reflect more heat into the room.

Canopy beds. A canopy bed is a great portable energy conservation device during the winter. We associate canopy beds with the castles and nobles of the medieval era. However picturesque they may be in retrospect, at the time they served the utilitarian purpose of keeping people warm at night in drafty stone castles that were not well heated. The structure actually originated in lower income dwellings and nobles copied the idea.

At its most simple, any bed can become a canopy bed by putting four posts that extend up three to four feet from the level of the bed. These posts hold up a four-sided frame. Sheets or blankets or quilts hang from the frame to below the level of the mattress, and cover the top. This creates a nest for sleeping and for snuggling.

Keeping Cool. Every renter needs a set of fans. Moving air takes as much as ten degrees off the apparent temperature. If you have air conditioning, fans allow you to set the thermostat at a higher temperature and remain comfortable. If your rental has ceiling fans, they will help you stay comfortable while reducing your energy costs.

The most efficient portable fans have an enclosure around the edge of the fan blades so that the air blows straight out in front of the blades. If there is no enclosure (referred to as a cowling), then air will “leak” off the edges and go elsewhere and you get less cooling effect for your energy expense.

We measure fan strength in “Cubic Feet per Minute” (CFM). When shopping for fans, you want the highest CFM for the lowest watts.

Watts are a measure of work done with electricity.

More watts = more electricity = more energy expense.

Less watts = less electricity = less energy expense.

More CFM at LESS watts = the better deal.

Always turn fans off when you leave the room. They work by creating a mini-wind chill effect on your skin. In the absence of a human being, they do nothing for the temperature. Running a fan in an empty room is a waste of energy.

If you have ceiling fans, change the direction of the fan depending on whether you are in a heating or cooling season.

During the summer, the ceiling fan should rotate counter-clockwise. It blows air downwards. This helps cool the people in the room.

In the winter, the fan rotates clockwise and pull air up. This helps move the warm air that collects near the ceiling around the room and warm it up. It only works when the fan is set on LOW.

Typically each ceiling fan has a switch to change the direction of the blades. Change the setting only when the fan is off and the blades do not rotate.

This applies only to ceiling fans, not to other kinds of fans.

Window fans are another great friend of the energy frugal renter. Use them at night, when it is cooler outside than it is inside. Put one in a south-facing window facing out, so it pulls air out of the apartment. Put another one in a north-facing window facing in, so it pulls cooler air into the apartment. If you don’t have south and north facing windows that open, set them up so they are on opposite sides of the house, that way you get a breeze effect.

Whatever fan you get, experiment with its different fan speeds to determine what works best for you. The top speed may not be the most “cooling” in your situation.

Use compact florescent or LED lights. Most apartments come equipped with standard incandescent lights. Every renter needs a set of bulbs, either compact florescent or LED lights. The new LED lights are even more energy conservative than the florescent. Since they are new to the market, they are pricey. Both are available in a variety of lighting “colors.” Don’t hesitate to ask at a store for a demonstration of a bulb to make sure you like the color of its light. When you replace the landlord’s incandescent bulbs, keep them safe. When you move out, take your efficient light bulbs with you, and put the landlord’s incandescent lights back into the fixtures.

Avoid “All Utilities Paid” rentals. “All Utilities Paid” rentals are rarely a good deal for the renter. You will always pay more for your energy if the landlord pays the bill. Avoid this kind of rental unless your situation is such that you can personally get service from a utility. Some municipalities and water systems require that landlords pay the water bill, so you may not be able to avoid that. On the positive side, these apartments may be better insulated and have other energy conservative features.