Keep Cool This Summer and Save With Energy Star
The dog days of summer are here. But the good news is that you still can be cool and comfortable at home while helping our environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers the following summer tips from ENERGY STAR to help you save energy, save money, and help fight global warming this summer. And, EPA encourages you to take the ENERGY STAR Pledge to commit to real steps in the fight against global warming.
Chill Out with Energy-Saving Cooling Tips
Here are some ways to save at home this summer and plan for next year:
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Schedule an annual, pre-season maintenance checkup with a licensed contractor to ensure your cooling system is operating efficiently and safely—as well as identify problems early.
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Check your heating and cooling system's air filter every month, especially during heavy use months. Change it if it looks dirty, at a minimum every 3 months to prevent dust and dirt build up and to avoid expensive maintenance.
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Find and seal leaks in ducts that can reduce the efficiency of your cooling system and contribute to comfort problems.
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Find and seal leaks in the doors, windows, and outer walls of your home that cause drafts and can make your cooling system work overtime.
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Adjust your thermostat and use your ceiling fan in the counter-clockwise direction to create a wind-chill effect, making you "feel" cooler for additional energy and dollar savings. But remember, fans cool people, not rooms. So turn the ceiling fan off when you leave the room.
Want to learn other ways to save energy? Check out ENERGY STAR @ home for more ideas.
Programmable Thermostats Make Summer Savings Simple
Did you know that as much as half of the energy used in your home goes to heating and cooling? Homeowners can save about $180 a year by properly setting their programmable thermostats and maintaining those settings.
The pre-programmed settings that come with ENERGY STAR qualified programmable thermostats are intended to deliver savings without sacrificing comfort. Depending on your family’s schedule, you can see significant savings by sticking with those settings or adjust them as appropriate for your family. The key is to establish a program that automatically reduces heating and cooling in your home when you don’t need as much.
Installing and using an ENERGY STAR qualified programmable thermostat with pre-programmed settings makes savings simple for you so you can stay comfortable, save energy, save money, and help fight global warming all year long.
Visit energystar.gov/pts to learn how to choose a programmable thermostat, set it correctly, and save! Explore the Web page to find helpful information, tools, and a video podcast that can help you learn how to select and use a programmable thermostat in your home. (Taken from Change the World, Start With Energy Star email dated 7/17/08)
Ways to Lower Energy Bills
1. Replace your light bulbs. Cut down on your home's energy use (and brighten your rooms) by replacing traditional incandescent lights with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. Fluorescent bulbs use 75 percent less electricity than incandescents and can last up to 10 times longer. Once available only in spiral shapes, compact fluorescents come in more aesthetically plesing versions these days.
2. Add insulation. Keep heat in the house - where it belongs-by adding insulation to your attic. There are a number of environmentally-friendly products you can use. Insulation made from recycled blue jeans, soybeans or newspapers is available at home-improvement stores or online. While these green products are all slightly more expensive than traditional fiberglass insulation, they are worth the money: You'll avoid breathing in stray fibers.
3. Install a programmable thermostat. Never return to a chilly house or wake up to a cold bedroom in the morning again. A thermostat takes just 20 minutes to install and can be adjusted for several settings throughout the day to meet your heating needs.
4. Use a special paint. If you plan to punch up a room with a fresh coat of paint, why not brush insulation onto the walls at the same time? Mix a nontoxic ceramic powder into your paint to reduce the amount of heat passing through your walls to the outside. The ceramic particles in the additive create a radiant barrier that reflects heat back into the room. And once you put it on, the walls are insulated for good.
5. Protect your pipes. An insulating wrap acts as a safeguard. Place the precut foam lengths over 
cold-water pipes in crawl spaces, the attic and overhead in the basement to prevent them from freezing. And don't forget about the hot-water pipes: Hot water loses heat as it gets to its destination - your shower or sink. Wrapping the pipes keeps more of the heat in, so you can start your shower a little sooner.
6. Redirect the heat. You pay good money for heating oil and natural gas - but where does most of the heat wind up? Near the ceiling. Redirect it back into the room with a ceiling fan. Move the fan's switch to reverse, so the blades run counterclockwise. This pushes the warmth away from the ceiling, down around the walls and into the living space.
(by Wayne Kalyn from Parade, September 16, 2007)
Did you know that the production of electricity is the leading cause of industrial air pollution in the U.S.?
You have the power to choose energy generated from renewable resources such as wind, solar and water (hyroelectric). To choose "green" energy is to choose cleaner air because this type of energy is completely pollution-free.
The City of Plano challenges you to choose green power. By switching, you'll help the City to reach our goal of raising the number of homes using renewable energy by 5 percent and achieve the distrinction of being an EPA Green Power Community.
Click on "Power to Choose" to discover tools for evaluating electricity service offers, and look for the 
icon denoting environmentally-friendly products.
ENERGY STAR Launches Home Advisor, Energy Tips
EPA’s new ENERGY STAR Home Advisor online tool, launched on October 24, 2007, offers customized recommendations for homeowners to cut energy use and save money. Users enter their ZIP code, household heating and cooling methods, and water heater type, and the tool provides recommendations for energy efficiency improvements. It also provides a summary of estimated savings (in total energy, electricity, fuel use, and carbon emissions) associated with the recommended measures, based on the typical energy use of homes in the user’s area.
Typical recommendations include sealing air leaks, adding insulation, replacing old heating and cooling equipment, installing a high-efficiency water heater, installing a programmable thermostat, and replacing lights and appliances with ENERGY STAR models.
The ENERGY STAR Home Advisor is available at: www.energystar.gov/homeadvisor
ENERGY STAR has also published a new round of home energy-saving tips for the winter heating season, including tips for renters, a virtual room-by- room tour of energy-saving improvements, and feature stories of homeowners who have saved money through energy efficiency projects.
The tips are available at: http://energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.es_at_home
Heat & Cool Efficiently
As much as half of the energy used in your home goes to heating and cooling. So making smart decisions about your home's heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system can have a big effect on your utility bills — and your comfort. Take these steps to increase the efficiency of your heating and cooling system. Click on the link for more information:
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=heat_cool.pr_hvac
Congress Passes, President Bush Signs Energy Bill
Last week the Senate (86-8) and this week the House (314-100) passed a scaled-back Energy Bill (the Energy Independence and Security Act) that President Bush signed on Wednesday.
Some of the highlights:
Vehicle Mileage: Requires automakers to increase the fuel economy of cars and small trucks, including SUVs, by 40 percent to an industry average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 (the first increase in 32 years).
Renewable motor fuels: Mandates a sixfold increase in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, with 21 billion gallons to be cellulosic ethanol from such feedstock as prairie grass and wood chips.
Energy efficiency: Requires more energy-efficient lighting and appliances, including refrigerators and dishwashers, and more energy-efficient federal and commercial buildings. Improves the energy efficiency of lighting by about 30 percent and requires the phase out of incandescent light bulbs between 2012 and 2014.
Green jobs: Program to train workers for 3 million green collar jobs over the next 10 years.
Block grants: $10 billion Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program.
What was left on the cutting-room floor:
Provisions that would have
-- repealed tax breaks for big oil and gas companies
-- provided incentives for the development of new, clean energy technologies
-- required utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.