Ed and Amy Kelly of Indianapolis, Ind., are excited about their recent kitchen remodeling. While their initial reason was to update the appearance of their kitchen, the couple realized that replacing the aged appliances would have a big energy-saving benefit. “We bought all new energy-efficient appliances because we would save money in the long run. We watch our bills very closely. Plus, we wanted to do our part to reduce energy consumption,” Amy explains.

The Kellys would like to implement more energy-saving ideas and projects around the house that would make their home more energy efficient, but like most young homeowners, they’re on a tight budget. Luckily there are plenty of home improvement options to fit anyone’s budget–from free energy-saving tactics to more costly overhauls.

Lindsay Curren is co-founder of Transition Staunton Augusta, a Virginia chapter of Transition U.S., a nonprofit organization that supports building communities that are resilient to the challenges of peak oil and climate change. Curren knows that not every homeowner can afford costly energy-saving upgrades.

No cost

Think “going green” must break the bank? Think again. Here are a few things you can do to improve your home’s energy usage that cost absolutely nothing.

• Close doors to unused rooms when heating or cooling your house.
• Pull blinds down during the summer and up in the winter to minimize or maximize solar gain.
• Turn off heating and cooling when you’re not at home.
• Turn down the thermostat — “We had a family meeting and decided that, for heating, no one is to set the thermostat above 68, and for cooling, no lower than 75,” Curren says.
• Dress appropriately: Don’t wear summer clothes during winter and crank up the heat to compensate.
• Line dry your clothes — “We line dry everything winter and summer,” says Curren.
• Unplug unused appliances — (Beware the vampire!)
• Sign up for a free account at EarthAid.net to track and reduce your energy usage — and qualify for rewards at the same time!

Less than $100

No need to break the bank to make your home more energy efficient. Here are some low-cost tasks and helpful tools.

• Use a TED device to measure and track your energy consumption.
• Plant a tree to shade your air conditioning unit so that it will work more efficiently.
• Install window film, such as Energy-Film, to prevent solar gain during the summer and energy loss during the winter.
• Caulk or seal drafty areas in your home, such as around windows.
• Use door snakes, chimney balloons and clotheslines to reduce energy use.

Curren suggests other low-cost solutions: “We wrapped an insulating blanket around our hot water heater and insulated the first six feet of pipes leaving the hot water heater. [We also] installed weather stripping around our outside doors, and we bought “draft doggies” in funky fabrics from a vendor on Etsy.com for under the interior doors.”

$200-$1,500

Consider the appliances in your kitchen or laundry room. Replacing outdated ones with Energy Star appliances reduces your energy usage and gives you a great excuse to freshen up a room’s appearance at the same time. Less-flashy upgrades in this price range include installing a tankless water heater or adding additional insulation to your attic. Curren blew insulation (see “Insulation at Some Saves Money”) into the attic to a level of R30 in their Virginia home. Check here to determine recommended insulation levels in your part of the country.

$1,500 and up

Yes, some home energy efficiency improvements are expensive. However, they typically pay for themselves very quickly in the form of reduced utility bills and/or tax rebates and incentives. These include: solar panels, solar water heaters and geothermal solutions. Making 10 of these types of changes saves a typical homeowner $600 or more per year and posts an impressive 16% return on your money, according to a study by the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing. Energy-efficient improvements may also increase your home’s market value when you sell.

After buying their new energy-saving appliances and redoing the cabinets, the Kellys wanted to continue on their energy-saving kick — but spending more money was not an option. What further upgrades and efforts have the Kellys done to improve their home’s energy efficiency? “We shut off the air vents to rooms we don’t use on a daily basis. We use ceiling fans in all of the rooms [and] bought dark curtains to block out the sun. Those have really helped our back room that is facing the sun. It used to get extremely hot in there,” says Amy.

Are they happy with the results? “Yes. We have definitely saved money,” she says.

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The popular image of wind power is of a windmill-like tower cranking away on the prairie.

The wind power at Kathleen O’Donnell’s North Side home, however, comes from a rooftop device that vaguely resembles a barber pole, without the red-and-white stripes.

O’Donnell has installed an 8-foot-tall wind turbine at her Ravenswood Gardens home, where since October it has harnessed the breezes to provide some of the electricity for the former two-flat that she and her husband spent about a year converting into a single-family home.

The premise is fairly simple: The device’s helical-blade scoops catch the wind, forcing it through the turbine and to the home’s generator, creating electricity. If the wind isn’t blowing, the home is powered by the energy grid, as usual.

An architect, O’Donnell realizes she’s something of a pioneer when it comes to wind turbines in residential use.

“It’s a little bit new,” she said. “Wind is not as ubiquitous as solar, in terms of what people are willing to do.”

But maybe not for long. She notes a broader willingness to embrace energy-conserving products these days. Such acceptance has come a surprisingly long way in a just a few years, she said, and solar panels, geothermal heating and even green roofs don’t get as many quizzical looks as they used to.

Usually, it’s all about that other green, she said — cost.

“The ‘want’ is out there, but the ‘will’ is lagging,” O’Donnell said. “Everybody wants it (when clients) call, but when they’re told this is this much money, and it will increase their overall costs, then reality begins setting in, and they start cutting it.”

Wind power is pretty much an unknown, as far as public acceptance, she said.

“Some people might look at wind and say it’s a vanity thing,” she said. “It’s untested. We just don’t know about its (economic efficiencies). The payback is probably going to be better than solar. Maybe in a year or six months we’ll be able to extrapolate that” at her house.

So she’s using her own home as a guinea pig, to an extent.

“I’m committed to it and want to make my own personal investment to suit my own pursuits and for my goals for green building,” she said.

The costs are not insignificant. Her wind turbine (manufactured by Helix Wind Corp. in San Diego) lists for $7,500. In addition, there were costs for labor, installation, wiring, permits and fabrication of a steel structure and base to support it, which drove the total to roughly $16,500, she said.

The device is capable of fully powering her home, but because it’s so new (installed in October), she hasn’t been able to monitor its energy output precisely. In the spring, she said, she intends to incorporate solar panels to help power the house, in addition to green-roof technology to help heat and cool the house.

O’Donnell may eventually move Tripartite Inc., her architecture practice, into her home, which will complicate her energy use, she said. On the other hand, it could make such conservation measures more valuable.

“I’m skeptical that the turbine is going to (cover) our total energy use, but at least it will be a large portion,” she said. “If we have an office in here and we have a lot of computers going, it will use a lot more energy.”

Nonetheless, she said, the days are gone when a homeowner can do a major renovation and not think long and hard about energy-conservation features.

“We’ve turned a corner,” she said. “You can’t do a rehab and not put in the insulation and the (efficient) windows.

“With all these houses on the market, and (a homebuyer) has to make a choice between house A and house B, and house A has a green aspect and house B missed the mark, I don’t know how you’re going to sell house B.”

Hear Mary Umberger at 12:49 and 11:15 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday and at 10:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday on WGN-AM 720. Write to her at Money & Real Estate, Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., 4th Floor, Chicago, IL 60611 or send e-mail to housingnews@comcast.net.

Mary Umberger Chicago Tribune