By Susan Shinn Turner

For The Salisbury Post

A year ago, my husband had the most energy-efficient house in the neighborhood. Then I moved in.

Now we get a notice from Duke Energy saying we are the least energy-efficient house.

Well, I told my husband, at least we are No. 1 at something. Looks like if we use the most energy that Duke would send us some kind of trophy or gold medallion I can wear around my neck, like the kind you get at the end of a road race. That’s what I think.

He was not amused.

Turns out, a lot of my friends get the same letter. So trying to be a good wife — and since I’m trained as an investigative reporter — I decided to ferret out some energy-efficient tips.

First, I asked my friends.

Rebecca Morton and her husband, David, have been renovating his grandmother’s house in China Grove for a number of years. Now she’s an expert in energy savings, and sent me a laundry list of items.

At the top of the list: “Insulate, insulate, insulate.”

“Insulate exterior and interior walls — also helps with noise — ceilings, and around windows and doors, more in the attic. Seal the crawl space. Foam insulators in outlets, seals on exterior doors and windows. Newer appliances are great — pricey, but great. Solar panels great, too. Clothesline instead of dryer. Tankless water heater. Less clothes, More clothes. Temperature zones within the house when it’s time to replace the heat pump. Geothermal heat pump (also pricey and requires land). Full laundry and dishwasher loads. Hardwood trees in the yard. Screens on windows instead of air conditioning in spring and fall, especially at night — unless of course you have allergies to deal with.”

Jessica and Nick Goodman recently replaced the doors and windows of their Salisbury home, and installed a regulating thermostat.

“The heat or air doesn’t run during the day, but turns on about an hour before we are schedule to come home,” she says.

Jessica says she doesn’t know how long it will take to recoup the costs — turns out Duke Energy does have a calculator for that kind of thing — but she notes, “It feels less wasteful, and our house is more comfortable.”

Sounds like a good investment.

Stacey Shafer also uses a timer on their thermostat.

“We’re usually on the low end of the charts unless we run our gas logs in the winter,” says Stacey, who lives with her husband and their three children in Granite Quarry.

Wendy Smith of Salisbury ordered the new kit to save energy and water.

“Unfortunately, the nozzle wouldn’t fit, and I haven’t thought any more about the kit since,” she admits. “We use energy-efficient bulbs, and use our blinds to help heat and cool the house.”

When I first moved in, I balked at keeping the blinds closed all the time. Then came summer and the 90-plus degree days. I closed the blinds. It also helps hide evidence of sporadic dusting.

Lee Ann Freeze and her husband, Bryan, own a small house near China Grove. Still, she says, they upgraded to energy-efficient appliances. “We saved the cost of the air conditioning units in less than six months.”

Melissa Shue and her husband, Mark, are preparing to air-seal the attic, blow in more insulation, and install a solar-powered attic fan to draw heat out of that space. Melissa, who lives in Fulton Heights, says she recently read that heating and cooling comprises more than half of your energy bill.

Well, that’s certainly no surprise.

So then I went to the Duke Energy page, which is chock-full of good ideas.

If you go to www.duke-energy.com/home/savings, you can find all kinds of tips. The Lower My Bill Toolkit, for example, has home improvement incentives and savings calculators (here it is, Jessica Goodman!), as well as energy-efficient projects and seasonal tips.

Among them: turn off ceiling fans when not in the room; check out the EnergyWise program to receive annual savings on your bill; successfully complete an HVAC audit and get a rebate; make sure connections at vents and registers are well-sealed where they meet floors, walls and ceilings — common locations to find leaks and disconnected ductwork; install energy-efficient central air conditioning and receive a rebate.

There’s also something called a free, in-home energy assessment by Duke Energy. This sounded a bit scary to me, but I watched the video anyway.

Turns out a nice guy named Gordon Appleton (I assume he has help from other Duke Energy folks) will come out to your house and check it top to bottom to find places to make energy savings. That includes weather stripping around doors, making sure windows are closed and locked (double-pane, insulated windows are also good), keeping the water heater set at 120, determining whether you need that second fridge in the garage (if not, that’s a savings of $17 or more a month right there), checking the resistance to heat movement to and from the attic (that’s called an R-value), checking to make sure there’s plenty of attic insulation (at least 10-12 inches), replacing air filters every 30 days or so, and making sure the ductwork is sealed.

Oh yeah — and setting the thermostat to 78. Which was where it was when I moved in.

I’m thinking, Gordon, have you lost your mind? In the video, he says, “That’s still comfortable for most folks.”

Riiiiiight.

Gordon’s point was, for every degree you go up, it can save you 7 to 10 percent on your cooling costs.

But then Gordon said to bump it up a degree or two and get used to that and then keep bumping up ’til you hit 78.

Riiiiiight.

But seriously, I’m going to try this at the end of the month. When it cools off some. Then bring on that medallion!

Now, if you really want to get extreme, you can be like Clyde. The Salisbury artist — who goes by his first name — says he sets his thermostat at 85 degrees in summer. The air conditioning comes on at night, sometimes. He takes advantage of cross-ventilation and window screens.

He doesn’t air condition his studio but he does heat it with a wood stove in the winter.

And for someone who doesn’t have a computer or cellphone, he still says you should “cut all that stuff off” when you’re not using it. That includes unplugging charger cords and the like.

Clyde says he has an energy-efficient refrigerator, and says a neighbor fills his with empty jugs so that space doesn’t need to be cooled. Okaaaaaay…

For his efforts, he has a monthly power bill of 8 bucks.

Maybe don’t mention this to my husband, either.

Clyde is definitely not used to air conditioning.

“I recently went to a meeting at City Hall, and I had to come home and get my winter coat,” he says. And people wanted to borrow it.

In fact, Clyde seems to thrive in the heat. “I mow in the heat of the day, then guess what? It doesn’t feel so hot after that. A cool breeze is worth a million dollars.”

And then there’s my friend Mike Agee.

Mike and his wife, Sharon, live in Salisbury, and he retired a few years ago as an electrical engineer with Duke Energy. About that same time, he replaced their heating and cooling system, installing a programmable thermostat that would manage the system when they weren’t home.

It’s been on manual override ever since.

“My wife wants to put the thermostat where she wants it,” Mike says, grinning. “But there are more and more tools to be more energy efficient. I am starting to use LED bulbs for lighting. There’s a lot of ways to manage your energy use without it inconveniencing you.”

Except for Mike’s thermostat.