Cut Your Energy Bills Now

In this book, you'll find more than 150 steps you can take to save energy in your home. Some are easy, some are difficult. Some you can do yourself; others you'll need professional help to get done. The object is to steer you toward value by focusing on steps that are low cost or high benefit; some are both.

For those projects you'll do yourself, the book offers tools and tips from the author's 18 years of direct experience in helping people save energy and improve comfort. For those projects that need outside help, the author teaches you what to look for in a contractor, what to ask him or her to do and what to expect.

Some steps aren't projects at all, but simply ask you to pay a bit more attention, by smart shopping, planning ahead, or making yourself more aware of your day-to-day use of the energy-consuming "stuff" in your home.

What to tackle first? Every house is different, and so is every family, so there's no recipe for the "right" solution. Before the books looks at the projects themselves, it talks about the house as a series of systems and the ways these systems use energy.  Understanding your energy use will help you create a strategy that works for you and will help you capitalize on opportunities to reduce costs or leverage benefits whenever you are doing other remodeling work on your house.

The book also provides an overview of environmental impact and health and safety concerns right in your home and shows you how to get outside help when you need it: financial help, technical help and contractor help. This will help you plan ahead so you can get the maximum benefit from these steps and projects at a minimum cost and effort.