Treehugger Introduces a Modern Pyramid of Energy Conservation

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• published the Pyramid of Energy Conservation, which recommended the order of what you should do when making a plan to upgrade your home for energy efficiency. You start at the bottom and move up, with each step increasing in complexity and cost.

• Get an audit

• If you are going to cut your energy consumption and carbon emissions, you have to know where they are leaking out.

• Do the free stuff, including turning things off, lowering thermostats, and using a clothesline or horse.

• You start with data from the Red Door of Truth, with analysis by a professional who is not a window, foam, or furnace salesperson, and then you climb the pyramid of energy conservation and carbon reduction from there.

• Do the cheap stuff, like changing every lightbulb to LED, caulking, and weatherstripping.

• Do the big easy hunks, as energy pioneer Harold Orr called them.

• Get window inserts. They are a fraction of the cost of new windows but dramatically cut drafts and noise.

• Get off the gas. This is a big step in cost but a giant leap in carbon emissions reduction. Change the furnace or boiler for a heat pump, and get a heat pump hot water heater.

• Install photovoltaics if your roof faces the right way, and your electricity supplier will buy the power from you.

• Do a gut job and go enerphit—the Passivhaus standard for renovations.