Something Wicked This Way Comes

All Hallows Eve is nigh. Ghosts will roam the Earth. Witches will issue midnight curses. Werewolves, vampires and other ghouls are licking their fangs in anticipation of their glorious night of carefree carnage.

Kid stuff, all of it. Want to hear a real horror story? Temperatures on Halloween will likely be dipping down into the mid-40s, after more than a week of same. It seems like only a short while ago we were all sweltering under the late-summer sun; now the winter heating season is in full swing, barely a month into autumn. And as you undoubtedly know -- from reading the paper, watching the news or observing the ashen-faced McMansion owner running down the street tearing his hair out -- local heating bills are expected to rise this winter by anywhere from 20 to 32 percent per household.

This time around, lowering the thermostat a few degrees, reducing the heat level on your water heater and checking the fireplace flue to make sure it's closed after every use aren't going to cut it -- though all are still highly recommended. The truth is, if ever there was a time to make some energy-saving investments, this is it. The cost of purchasing and installing these items can range from dirt cheap to not-so-much -- but the percentage you can shave off your heating bill over this winter, and winters to follow, makes them no-brainers.

Programmable thermostats. By installing one of these, homeowners can conserve large amounts of energy when they're not at home (during work hours, for instance) or when they're sleeping, warm beneath their covers. "But they have to be properly set up -- you have to have the discipline to do it right," says Steve Greenberg, an energy management engineer and a technical editor at Home Energy magazine. "If you do, it can be very cost-effective. Of course, if you're disciplined enough to turn down your temperature at night manually, that's even more cost-effective, because it doesn't cost you anything." Take it down to between 60 and 65 degrees while you sleep, 55 degrees if you're going to be out of the house for a while. Generally speaking, each degree you lower your thermostat can save about 3 percent on your gas bill.

Adequate insulation. Think you're covered? Better check, especially if you live in an older house, where attics may be decently insulated, but where heat may be escaping through walls, ceilings and crawlspaces. "The critical thing is to get enough of it," says Greenberg. Adding attic insulation can actually be a do-it-yourself project, as simple as attaching tall batts of fiberglass. Options for walls and other areas include blown-in cellulose, foams, even recycled denim. (A wealth of information about insulation can be found at the U.S. Department of Energy Web site, http://www.ornl.gov/sci/roofs+walls/insulation ).

Tankless water heaters. Imagine if you only had to heat the water you were using during a single shower or dishwashing cycle, instead of keeping an entire tank of water heated 24 hours a day, whether you were using it or not. That's the idea behind these remarkable energy savers, which create hot water on demand. (One catch: They're designed for sequential, rather than simultaneous, use -- so two people taking showers at the same time may end up getting a cold jolt of reality.) Tankless water-heater technology has been around for decades, though it's been quicker to catch on in Europe than in the United States. That may be changing. Greenberg likes the electric ones best, as they don't require a pilot light to burn natural gas 24/7.

Dual-fuel heat pumps. Heat pumps extract whatever heat there is to be found from the cold air outside (it's there, even if you can't feel it on your skin) and pump it indoors. "It sounds magical and counterintuitive, but it works," says Greenberg. One problem with them has always been that they don't perform well in extremely cold temperatures, he adds. Dual-fuel heat pumps solve that problem by generating and distributing heat using electricity until the temperature drops below a certain level, at which point a much more powerful gas-fueled furnace can pick up the job.

Storm windows. Okay, so they're not the nicest-looking things in the world. Get over it. Putting storm windows over your old single-pane windows still results in "one of the most serious barriers to the infiltration of cold and the loss of heat, at a relatively low cost," says Dan Reicher, a former U.S. assistant secretary of energy and now the president of New England-based New Energy Capital, which invests in clean-energy projects around the United States. Look for windows that bear the Energy Star sign -- an indicator that they meet the highest efficiency guidelines as set by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Caulking and weatherstripping. No one wants to see the draft reinstated. The simplest way to keep the heat in is still to make sure that your house is sealed up as tight as possible around windows, thresholds and skylights. (For caulks, look for those that say "Indoor/Outdoor" or "For windows and doors" on the label, so as not to end up with the stuff you put in your bathtub.) As undramatic a solution as it may seem, "this is the very first thing that people should do if they want to conserve energy," says Reicher. "It takes very little time, and the materials are cheap and available almost anywhere."

Insulating electrical outlets. Reicher suggests this experiment: Stand by your electrical outlets on a cold day. Feel any cold breezes rushing in? That's frigid air coming in through outlets on outside walls. The cold courses through uninsulated spaces and comes out into your bedroom, living room and kitchen via indoor outlets. "There's a simple thing, it literally costs almost nothing," says Reicher. "You unscrew the outlet plate, insert this little foam thing behind it, and put the plate back on. You've spent very little -- but you've really done something to conserve heat."

Finally, Reicher adds that consumers should think about more than the retail cost of any energy-saving aid or machine they might be considering. "There are two very different price tags to most energy-using equipment in a house," he says. People focus almost exclusively on the cost of purchase and tend to ignore the savings that can be realized from choosing energy-efficient products. "But the latter quickly exceeds the former. From a light bulb to a furnace, if people keep these two price tags in mind, they can end up saving a lot of money."