As the temps begin to drop, the number of things you can do to save energy and be more house-efficient increase.  Below are just a few ideas and tips you can take advantage of this season to be greener and (energy) leaner:

Wrap your water heater with insulation because why should you be the only one with a toasty blanket this chilly season. Doing so can reduce standby heat losses by about 35% and save around 4-9% in water heating costs.

Replace all bulbs in your house with LED lights that will last longer and use less energy, and if you replace your Christmas lights with LED strands, you can recycle your old Christmas lights at Strosniders from November to January!

Seal your windows, especially your north facing ones where the wind usually blusters, with simple shrink-fit plastic and open the shades on south and west facing windows during the day to let in the sun’s free, clean heat.

Feed your composter with some of your leaves and fall vegetable scraps. You’re not the only one that loves holiday leftovers!

Replace your showerhead with a low-flow version and you can save 50-70% of your water use, depending on the gallon per minute flow rate of your new showerhead. They start around $8 and are easy to install, so you can make the switch before all those aunts and cousins are fighting over your guest bathroom during those long-uhh, lovely holiday visits.

Invest in a Kill-A-Watt meter that can show you exactly how much electricity individual plug-ins use when they are turned on and off, so you can adjust usage as well as unplug items when they are not in use to reduce vampire loads.

Insulate outlets and wall switches with draft stopper gaskets. A gap in your wall insulation from a wall switch costs 30% of the entire wall’s insulating effectiveness.

Lastly, grab a bottle of wine from Linganore Winecellars, and invite all of your friends over for a winter get-together.  It’s estimated that each guest is the equivalent of a 100-watt heater so the more the merrier - and cozier!