Do you know how to make your home more energy efficient, how much those improvements will cost and how much money you will save if you do them?
Many homeowners or renters mistakenly delay learning about ways to make their home “greener” because they don’t know where to find good advice—or they believe that the improvements will be prohibitively expensive. Big mistake.
Excellent resources exist to help, many of them free. These include professional home energy audits and online advice, including easy ways to locate a trustworthy expert to advise you. There are even governmental and other programs that provide free or rebated products and installations.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s website is a good starting point to learn about home energy audits and locate a good expert to help.
Closer to your Chicago home—and even better for your pocketbook—energy provider Nicor Gas provides free audits and other programs that make your energy-saving improvements free or at least rebate part of your expense.
Specifically, Nicor offers four ways for homeowners and renters to receive free or deeply discounted assistance, through its EnergySMART program:
1. Free home energy efficiency assessments.
Free visits and advice from a well trained, trusted advisor who assesses mechanical equipment, air leakage, insulation, fireplaces, thermostats and more. This can lead to free installations of natural gas—and water saving products too.
2. Free water and energy saving kits with plumbing fixtures included.
Mailed directly to consumers, these kits include low-flow showerheads and faucet aerators.
3. Cash rebates on equipment.
You receive money back when you install a high-efficiency furnace, boiler, water heater or thermostat.
4. Free online resources.
“Find a contractor,” energy saving tips, helpful videos and more are available online.
Nicor also gives rebates and other incentives to homebuilders for constructing highly energy-efficient homes.
For examples of EnergySMART in action, which should stimulate your own thinking, please see Nicor customer stories here.
However, Nicor isn’t the only organization that provides substantial assistance in Chicago and throughout Illinois. According to the NC Clean Energy Technology Center, which is recommended by the US Department of Energy, there are more than 72—count ‘em, 72—policies and incentives available in Illinois.
In short, if you like saving money and you haven’t done an energy-saving audit of your home recently, you should. There are organizations and experts like Nicor and the US Department of Energy that make it easy for you to save. What’s not to love about saving money while you preserve the environment, too? In honor of Earth Day, please take a few minutes to find ways to save energy in your home too.
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