6 Simple Energy-Saving Home Fixes

Swap Out Bulbs

Replace incandescent bulbs with CFLs (compact fluorescent lightbulbs). A $10 CFL uses about a quarter of the wattage of an incandescent bulb, which amounts to more than $30 in savings per replaced bulb over the lifetime of the CFL (which averages 10,000 hours or 416 days). “If every household in the United States replaced one incandescent bulb with a CFL,” says Pablo Päster, a sustainability engineer based in San Francisco, “the energy savings would be the equivalent of shutting down one coal-fired power plant.”