This giveaway is now closed and winner announced on bottom of post.
Hey hey hey! I hope you all had a fabulous week. It’s back in the 90’s here. Gah!! But oh yea, energy saving tips…a few weeks ago when I was doing the Celebration of Service event in Michigan, we also learned about energy savings, and learned things you can do to your home to help with the costs so your home runs more efficiently.
One of the easiest things you can do is to change your air filters regularly.
We try and change ours every 3 months and when we forget, we can definitely tell a difference in the way our AC runs. You are actually supposed to change them every 1-3 months to keep energy consumption low, maintain air quality and ensure proper climate control.
We also went around the Stiggy’s Dogs’ property and changed out the old light bulbs for the new energy efficient CFL bulbs.
Using CFL bulbs uses 75% less energy than a standard incandescent bulb and last up to 9.1 years with standard use. That’s incredible!
What else can you do to save on energy costs around your home? Make sure your windows and doors are properly sealed so no air escapes in. As the temperatures drop this winter, there are several steps consumers can take to protect their homes from the cold, improve home efficiency and save money. The Home Depot® offers more than 4,500 Eco Options products, many of which homeowners can use to stay warm and reduce energy bills this winter.
We even got a little lesson on how to properly seal the windows around your home.
Homeowners can save up to $220 each year on heating and cooling costs by properly insulating and sealing their homes. That’s a huge savings y’all!
Also, simple winterization projects such as changing the air filter or installing a programmable thermostat can be completed in less than an hour and help to save up to $280 each year while improving energy efficiency of the home.
And guess what?! The Home Depot wants to give one of you a new Honeywell Wi-Fi Programmable Thermostat! Yes I said wi-fi so that means you can control your thermostat from your smart phone! I’m a gadget girl and I just love that feature.
Entering to win is simple:
Just leave a comment and tell us how you plan on winterizing your home this year, OR, tell us how awesome this programmable thermostat is, especially since you don’t have to get up to go change the settings! :)
Update: The winner is #22 and that is Rachael Landers, congrats! An email has been sent.
And that’s it! I’ll announce a winner sometime at the end of next week. Have a great weekend everyone and be sure and come back Monday…Something AMAZING is happening. You will be ecstatic. :)
xxoo,
Decorchick!
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Disclosure: The Home Depot partnered with bloggers such as me for their Celebration of Service Blog Network. As part of this program, I received compensation for my time. They did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about any product mentioned in these posts. The Home Depot believes that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. The Home Depot’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.
We have learned to close the blinds as soon as it starts to get dark. Keep the heat in. Same with the summer heat. Shut the blinds during the heat seemed to help. The other one is to not run washing machine or dish washer unless it’s full!
this year we are putting insulation under the floor or our basement.I would love to win the thermostat.
This is what I have been wanting for Christmas! I have the old fashioned kind & have a thermometer mounted next to it so I can check the temp-WOW
This thermostat would be incredible! We’ve
Considered upgrading our thermostat in the past
As ours is now 14years old. We’ve looked at digital
Thermometers in the past, but this one is Awesome!!!
Would love to win this and have a more energy efficient winter! :).
Thank you for this opportunity!
Living alone it would be great to come home to a warmed up house during the winter! I have a bit of inside caulking to do since the house has settled since being built 6 years ago. Thanks for this chance!
We hang our clothes out instead of using the dryer all summer!
I always use cold water for the laundry especially since I do a load a day
Would love a programmable thermostat with wifi! In the south on days like this we can go from 45 degree mornings to 88 degree afternoons; such contrast. We could easily adjust the temp with this!
Living in Arizona, our winters are mild and pleasant. Heater only comes on at night and we use light blankets. However, during the summer, we really need our windows properly sealed and we have screen shades in all windows. If it weren’t for proper sealing and window treatments we would see a much costlier energy bill! It would be awesome to have this programmable thermostat in our home because I’m also a gadget person and it would make life easier not having to run upstairs and downstairs in the middle of the night to change the temperature settings! I hope we win this awesome thermostat!!
My handyman is coming out this weekend to install weatherstripping and caulk for me. This is my first winter in this new to me, but old house. Want to make sure everything is sealed up – no cold drafts for me, please!
Oh, how I would love this! I am out of town a lot, and being widowed and living alone, it would be great to be able to control my home temp from my Iphone. Temps here in KY can change up to 40 degrees in the same day!
My energy saving practices include cold water laundry only, timers on all my outside lights, re-caulked widows every 3 years and never running the water while brushing my teeth :-) I also close the blinds in the evening in the winter and during the days in the hot summer. I changed out all my light bulbs to CFL’s years ago when they first came out. I also had my local electric company come out and do a free energy audit/analysis of my home. The only thing they had me do was add some extra insulation around the attic trap door, other than that I received an A+!
Cold water washing is my #1 saver! We also run a pellet stove to be more emviromentally conscious!
I plan on repairing the doggy door so that cold air does not blow through and replace the weather stripping around the doors. I love gadgets AND the programmable thermostat would be a HUGE upgrade to our antiquated dial thermostat. LOL
Great write up! We are going to seal our windows and so this post was great in that I now know what to buy when I go to the HD! We live less than 5mins from a HD and it is heaven I tell ya! I think our windows are our biggest issue! We live in a home built in the early 70’s and we still have the original thermostat! Yep! We sure could do for an upgrade! Our unit/heater is updated but not the thermostat. boo! Thanks for the chance to win this one!! Hugs from Conroe, TX
Love this!! This would be a great thing for living in Arizona. We go from extreme hot to cold nights so a programable thermostat would be awesome. We are always repairing things since the heat is so hard on our homes. Sealing the windows, molding, doors and plus we have to keep the little desert bugs out…
Does replacing a water heater that is 30+ years old count as winterizing?
I was sold on the thermostat when you said it can be adjusted from a cell phone! That is awesome there have been so many times that I have forgotten to turn off the air/heater before leaving on vacation or a long weekend.
How cool is this! I am a gadget girl too, and that simply rocks! We live in AZ, and so winters aren’t too harsh, lowest temps usually hit mid 30’s. But our summers are scorching. You could say we “summerize” our homes :) Keeping blinds down during the hottest part of the day, and black out drapes, help keep the heat out. Utilizing fans instead of lowering the AC another degree. And we only run our dishwasher and washer/dryer, after 9pm, when energy costs are lower. Summer energy bills are still high, but without doing things like this they would be unmanageable. We would love to have a programmable thermostat so we could preset our temp changes for morning, afternoon and night! Would save those times when we accidently forget to adjust it higher and save energy!
We just got new insulated siding and house wrap so we are super excited to see how the house fares this winter (we did see some significant changes in air conditioning, but with the drought, not much savings). This year we’re going to insulate our rim joists in the basement, insulate the attic access, and (hopefully!) get new storm doors. Full plate!
I would love this programmable thermostat that I can work from my smart phone! Life just keeps getting so tech! Who would have thought when I was a kid(60’s) things like Wi-Fi and smart phones and computers could control parts of our lives!
The thermostat is awesome and my husband has been drooling over it since our last visit to Home Depot. So much that for the man who has just about everything, I considered buying it for him for Christmas (we are exciting like that!)
We are planning on changing filters, placing new weatherstripping in our doors and caulking around windows
We just moved into a two story house with more square footage and one thing my hubby did was window tint all the windows. It has made a difference in the temperature of the house. Seems to feel cooler when we set the air at 78 degrees. We also change the filters at least once a month. My kids suffer from allergies so we thought that was one way to keep costs down and their allergies at bay.
I would love to be able to change the temperature with my iphone! How awesome is that? We usually put the plastic covering on the downstairs windows during the winter (the kind you blow-dry and it seals with the heat.) We also bundle up with blankets so we aren’t running the furnace constantly. We also use a space heater downstairs and one upstairs to heat one room instead of the whole house.
Thank you for the opportunity and for introducing a great new thermostat!!
this year our family changed all of our light bulbs to led with the goal of saving enough money to take a weeken getaway next year. the honeywell thermostat would be an ideal way for us to monitor our hvac usage so we can look for more ways to adjust our heating and cooling to save more energy and money.
Thankfully our house was built with energy efficiency in mind. We’ll definitely be changing out our filters and sealing the windows well. A programmable thermostat is high on the list of things we really want this winter, too! I’d love to win this one :)
We just had professionals (from Green Street Energy Efficiency) come out and help us by adding window film and making sure all our ducks were in a line. They made a few other upgrades to our home to help us be more “sealed” for winter and summer. One of the upgrades we were recommended was a programmable thermostat – which we didn’t get at the time, but would LOVE to have!! Crossing my fingers :)
Keep teaching the kids to stop running in and out of the front door and garage. espespecially standing holding the door open when their friends come to the door. ugg; more insulation in the attic, and changing out old blinds .
I so need one of those thermostats! We will be changing blinds, curtains and hopefully new flooring in the living room and kitchen! YAY!
I seem to get cold air from under the front and back doors. I will be finding something to block the cold air from getting in the house.
You would not believe how much air/heart was escaping up our chimney , put plastic up around it our bill has dropped, several dollars. Love this thermostat!
I am going to get some protection around the doors!
We go around and unplug all unsused appliances (even though they aren’t on, they are sucking energy), we also use the fireplace as much as possible for heating, and finally we minimize the times we go in and out through the main entrances to the house (which is hard with puppies), but this will keep in the heat. If we go in and out through our under-home garage, less heat is escaping and less cool air is coming in. I would love love love this programmable thermostat! Thanks for the great giveaway!
We live in Texas and the weather is still quite warm here. My kids come down from upstairs in the evenings (way past bedtime) to tell me to turn down a/c. One morning, I found a step stool in front of the thermostat upstairs. Turns out, my 7 year old daughter was tired of coming down and took matters into her own hands and turned the thermostat down to a chilly 60 degrees! I think this super cool thermostat would help our family and save on my kids’ frustration by keeping them comfortable at night!
We’re replacing the weather stripping on our doors.
Would love to win this :) pretty nifty! I definitely need to recaulk around windows!
This looks really cool and would make a wonderful Christmas present for my hard to buy for hubby!!! :)
Would love to have this smart thermostat for the long hot summers in Texas!
We have heat reducing shades on the west side of the house that really helps drop the temperature in the house in the summer. We also had more insulation installed in the attic to control the heat loss.
I would LOVE to replace my old thermostat with this Honeywell Wi-Fi Programmable Thermostat! Being able to control it from my phone would be so wonderful. Thanks for the opportunity to win one.
We plan on re-chalking around windows this Fall as well as wrapping the hot water heater.
I follow your blog and your page on FB, really enjoy it! I would looove to win the thermostat! Hope your weekend is great!
We use curtains on our living room window. it really helps to keep the temp down especially in the afternoon.
Blackout curtains and blinds are a must for us here in South FL. We have been using 3M filters for 10 years and CFLs for the last 3 years. Love them all!
Caulking windows for us! (A job I hate!) Would love to win that Honeywell thermostat.
What!!!???!?!?! What an awesome giveaway!! We’ve been looking at one of these for our home! Anything that we can do from our phone we LOVE!! My husband and I are both BIG gadget people. We are changing out our filters and getting the ducts cleaned. Thanks for the giveaway!!!
Ack! I was just telling my husband that we need a programmable thermostat because I keep forgetting to turn it down/up after I get out of bed in the morning! Would be so awesome to win!
This would be awesome! I always try to turn up the thermostat when I wake up — but being pregnant with #3 this isn’t always on my mind. I would love this.
We recently moved to a new older home. Our first house was built in 99 the one we moved to was built mid 70s. We really need to replace the windows but I think we’re going to have to settle for making sure everything is nice and caulked this winter.
We are closing on our first house Oct. 22- just in time for the weatherization of everything here in Pennsylvania. Luckily since we are just moving in, we are going to make sure everything is caulked, cleaned and ready to roll for the winter before we even move in!
This is awesome – my thermostat is not working so I need to win! To save energy, I keep the temp higher than what most people would do and we installed tint on the windows to cut down on the sun coming into our home. It really helps to keep the house cooler.
Greetings,
We live in Austin and just had large price hike I electricity. We are a family of four with each of us coming and going. I try to keep the thermostat set at affordable levels but…. It would help enormously if we could control on/off and temp to try to reduce our footprint AND wallet.
Cheers,
Cat
We actually just had our house go through a basic weatherization check. It did fairly well. Caulking will be on our list to do.
Every year I plastic off all but two of our windows & change our filters 2 times a month – I buy in bulk, and we have electric heat.. so they get nasty real quick living in the country! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of a programmable thermostat considering we have an ancient one with paint all over it due to the previous owners being sloppy and myself being too lazy/busy to clean our current one up and too broke to buy a new one!! This would make my life soo much better! :D I hope I win!!
I never used to winterize, but last year I started by closing our blinds at night along with our drapes… i put up heavier drapes in the winter time and I have become better about changing out filters. This programmable thermostat would be awesome!
This programmable thermostat is awesome! I would love to be able to adjust the temp from my phone. You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve gone up to bed and I had to send my hubby back downstairs to change the thermostat.
We are having our electric company come to our house to check and see where we can reduce our cost.
I so need to be able to program my thermostat from my phone. Everyone forgets to turn the thermostat down when the leave in the morning.
We just bought a programmable thermostat. I would give this one to my daughter so she can save energy too!
We keep the blinds closed and have started changing the light bulbs in our house to the new energy efficient ones. This thermostat would be a great addition to our home and to be able to program from my phone would be a plus!
We’ve always been pretty careful about using energy, but this winter we’ll keep the house even cooler since my son is old enough to bundle himself up if he needs to.
In my household we have done all of the energy changes you have listed but still had a $400 last month (of course we are in California and they hike up the prices during summer). My husband lost his job and I have been a stay at home mom for 6 years. We took in my brother in law and his child and we have been pinching every penny we can,and saving the ones that fall in the couch cushions! :) My husband and I have also separated and we share our home so that our daughter doesn’t have to go back and forth between houses. We are using our extra pennies we save for marriage counseling, not on gadgets or nights on the town. But it would be great to win a gadget that would help save energy and maybe save us a few pennies so we could have a night on the town when we get to that point again! I love all of your ideas…thank you for the opportunity.
I just wrote on my list of things to buy, a programmable thermostat this morning! Would love to win one, thanks for the chance!
This is awesome! I’d love one! I’m sure we waste so much money because our thermostat is set at the same temperature all the time!
I really need a programmable thermostat! I also need to do some caulking around a few windows.
I am always looking for ways to save on bills, this programmable thermostat would be such a help! Thanks for the chance to win it!
Energy saving tip that we need to install : We really need to wrap our hot water pipes with insulation. It takes forever to get hot water from the tank to the faucets. Hot water is left in the exposed pipes to cool down when the water is not running.
That programable thermostat would be great. We are always on the road somewhere then remember that the thermostat was left either too high or too low.
We always have full loads in clothes & dish washers. I really need tips on the do-it-yourself insulating since this is the first home we’ve owned (military housing prior). Being able to program this thermostat from my phone would be crazy! Thanks for the chance!
Bottom line…our thermostat is worn out…really could use one.thanks for the giveaway!
We’ve put in new insulation in our attic. I’m also planning on buying some of the insulators for our electrical outlets. Love your blog and would LOVEEEEE a new Honeywell Wi-Fi Programmable Thermostat!!!
Love my smartphone and would love this thermostat!!! We are always looking for new ways to improve our energy efficiency!
I would love to have a programmable thermostat! All the research I’ve done says they really do make such a difference in your costs. And not having to get up to adjust it? Bonus! :)
We live “off-the-grid” but this would be a nice addition to our heating system. My husband is in the process of converting our outdoor wood furnace (which heats our home) to a more efficient one. Would LOVE to try this thermostat.
I would love this programmable thermostat that can be run from my cell phone. So many times I get to work and remember that I forgot to turn the thermostat up or down. This would definitely save me some money.
Kim Armstrong
Would love to have a state of art thermostat instead of a piece of crap thermostat!
it would be SOO nice to have this thermostat, running around with 2 under 2 having to get up to change the thermostat just after getting situated to feed my youngest, blah. Thanks for all you do! LOVE when you share little tidbits about you cute family! keep the pics of those darling little girls coming :)
It would be such a blessing to have this in our home. With the weather being so out of whack these days it would be nice to adjust the temp from work so we can walk in the door to the most comfortable setting possible.
Thanks for the opportunity to win! I have two thermostats, one downstairs and one up. I’ve been wondering if I should move the one upstairs since it’s in the hall at the top of the stairs. It will read that it’s warm because of all the heat coming up the stairwell but then the bedrooms are freezing.
This is awesome. My husband is such a “techie.” He would love this!!
I would love to have a programmable thermostat! This give aways reminds me that I did not adjust my thermostat before leaving the house this morning. I really need a programmable one!
We have pretty good windows, and we go through and make sure they are latched and sealed once it starts getting cold out. … thats about it for us for winterizing. I had a condo that was cheap builder-grade everything, and I used to put up plastic on those windows every winter, and it made a huge difference. I would LOVE a wireless programmable thermostat though… we have a very low-tech programmable thermostat right now that does the trick, but I love fancy gadgets. :)
Oh my gosh, this thermostat sounds awesome! I would love to be able to turn the heat up without even getting out of my covers! What a cool invention! Thanks so much for the giveaway!
Great tips. I need to do the window sealing. :)
I open the blinds in the morning to let the sunlight help heat the house. Then close in evenings to keep the heat in
I recently saw one of these Wi Fi thermostats in a magazine and thought what a neat idea. Like you I’m a gadget freak. This would be so perfect for me to be able to control the home environment while I’m at work. I currently turn the temperature done during the day (winter / fall months) while at work. Would love to be able to program that it so that the temp is just right when I get home from work.
I just purchase my 51 year old house two months ago. Since the move in I have been on continuous ” DIY” projects mode and creating “To-Do Lists” for myself. Since Michigan winter is turning colder– I have installed thermal insulated draperies for my living room. This weekend I will be caulking the windows through my house and changing the furnace filter. A new Wi-Fi thermostat be a great DIY project for me and would be a great addition to my house.
Need to fix gaps around doors.
I don’t really have to winterized my home since there really isn’t a winter in Houston, however just the though of being able to control the thermostats at a whim without having to get up is awesome!
We just added an insulation tent in the attic over the pull down stairs. Also plan on putting plastic over the front door leaded glass. Every ittle bit helps in these New England winters. Would love a programmable thermostat.
Just installed electronic thermostat at my sisters super easy! Caulking and wrapping pipes this weekend
This is awesome! I have to have it!
I just moved into my 1925 bungalow which I love but I have a very old thermostat so there is difficulty regulating the temperature. I also abide by the close/open the curtains to help with the heat/cold. But, my favorite keeping warm tip? I cuddle up on the couch with my 3 dogs. Not only are rescue dogs great company and great watchdogs (they ran off a burglar that broke in while I was in bed two months ago) but they are also great snugglers and heaters!
I LOVE that you don’t have to get up.. I am 8 months pregnant and the less I have to get off the couch, the better!