LIGHTING
1. Switch to compact fluorescent (CF) light bulbs.
CF bulbs (the little spiral bulbs that fit in standard light sockets) generally use only a quarter of the electricity it takes to power standard light bulbs. When the average home contains around 40 light bulbs, this can add up to some serious savings. CF bulbs are a bit more expensive, but they will last up to ten times as long, and will more than make up for their initial cost in savings. If you have light fixtures where the bulb is visible, there are CF bulbs that are designed to mimic the bulb shape of standard incandescents. There are also CF bulbs to replace your outdoor floodlights, so don’t stop at the inside of your home!

2. For holiday or other decorative lighting, consider LED lights.
LEDs consume only a trickle of electricity, so you can let your lawn or patio glow like the sun without panicking about the electric bill. LED lights cost a few more bucks than standard, high quality light strings, but if you plan on using them a lot, you will reap the benefits. As the popularity of LEDs grows, more and more options of color, size, and shape are available; many mimic standard light strings, others incorporate features like color changing.

3. Use automatic timers or sensors.
If you want the lights to be on when you come home, an automatic timer may be your answer. Plug a lamp into the timer, and set it to turn on just before you are due home. Outdoor timers can be used for any plug-in outdoor lighting (there are particularly good for holiday lights). Light and motion sensors, commonly found in floodlight fixtures, can turn on outdoor lights when the light senses motion or low light levels.

WATER, HOT OR OTHERWISE
Some of you country folk might be surprised to know that many people actually pay for their water. While the city folk may be jealous of your ability to use cold water with reckless abandon, everyone pays for making that cold water hot. The following are tips for conserving water of all temperatures:

1. Install low-flow shower heads and faucets.
Water saving shower heads are fairly inexpensive, and you probably won’t even notice all that water that is not hitting you on the head. Modern low-flow faucets will help you save even more money. All new toilets are water saving by law, but if you have an older model, fill a milk jug or soda bottle with water (don’t forget the cap) and put it in your tank. The bottle will take up space formerly occupied by water, thus saving you one milk jug’s worth of water every time you flush.

2. Turn your water heater down to the lowest acceptable temperature.
Set the thermostat on your water heater to 120 degrees. Many water heaters come from the factory preset higher. If you find you are running out of hot water, slowly adjust the temperature until you find the lowest one that suits your needs.

3. Stop watering that lawn!
Seriously, dead lawns are so in right now. Okay, okay. Maybe you can’t stop watering your lawn or garden, but you can help it need less water. For gardens, mixing a spongelike material like peat moss in with the dirt will help your soil retain water. Mulch can also help keep the soil from drying out. For lawns and gardens both, water them deeply but less often, and only during particularly hot or dry spells. Brief and frequent watering encourages shallow roots, which will actually make your plants weaker and easily killed by a single dry spell that coincides with your week of vacation.

4. Turn off the water when you aren’t using it.
We all turn off the water when we are completely done with it, but how many of us leave the water running while we shave or brush our teeth? If a family of four brushes their teeth for two minutes a day, twice a day, then the faucets are running for almost two extra hours each week.

5. Take showers instead of baths.
Showers use considerably less water than baths. Unless, of course, you take hour long showers. Try to keep your showers under ten minutes, and shave afterward in the sink.

6. Fill up the washing machine.
A load of laundry uses an average of 55 gallons of water. Add in extra rinse cycles, and it can use even more. Make the most of your water usage, and only wash full loads of laundry.

HEATING AND COOLING
1. Insulate your home.
For most people, this entails sealing the drafts around windows and doors, as well as providing adequate attic insulation and ventilation. In an older house, the heat loss from drafty windows can be equal to leaving a single window open all the time, so get yourself a tube of clear caulk and some weatherstripping and seal up those gaps! If your attic could use some extra insulation on the floor, add it, and make sure that you don’t block any vents along the eaves of the roof. Exhaust fans can help keep your attic cool and dry, as well as prolonging the life of your roof.

2. Install window film.
UV blocking window film can block a good portion of the UV rays and heat that come through your windows. While tinted versions are available, window film can also be completely clear. In the winter, window film can help retain heat.

3. Use a programmable thermostat.
Programmable thermostats are relatively inexpensive, and can save you lots of money. Set the heat lower during the night (you are sleeping, you won’t notice!) and during times when no one is home. Of course, keeping your house a few degrees cooler in winter and warmer in summer will help too.

4. Use ceiling fans during the summer.
Set the ceiling fan on “suck” instead of “blow”, and you will pull cool air up from the floor. Save your air conditioner for those truly unbearable days.

5. Consider installing a whole house fan.
Whole house fans are powerful fans installed in the attic hatchway. During the evening, when the temperature cools off, you can use them to quickly replace the hot, stale air in your home with fresh, cool night air. Just make sure your windows are open if you turn on the fan, or the suction can blow out your pilot lights and suck air the wrong way down your chimney!

OTHER TIPS
1. Adjust your fridge and freezer settings, and keep your fridge full.
Appliances that heat or cool generally draw the most power. For food safety, keep your fridge at least 40 degrees or cooler. If you keep your fridge full, it will have to work less to recool things when you open the door. (If you don’t feel like having a fridge full of food, use gallons of water.)

2. Dry your clothes outside during warmer weather.

Using some or all of these tips can help save you a considerable chunk of change on your utility bills. Invest that money wisely and buy yourself a sailboat when you retire! Or you could always blow it all on new shoes and fancy haircuts…

The following tips will help you in your quest for a drier basement.

EVALUATE THE SOURCE OF THE MOISTURE:
In order to get rid of basement moisture, you need to first identify where it comes from. The following are common sources of basement moisture.

Inadequate drainage: If you get puddles on the floor during heavy rainstorms, your moisture at least partially comes from inadequate drainage around your house.

Moisture released through the foundation: Many new foundations are sealed with a moisture on the outside of the foundation wall, but older brick and cinder-block foundations can absorb moisture from the ground and release it into your basement.

High water table: Areas prone to flooding, like those near rivers, often have higher water tables that can rise after heavy rains, causing your basement to fill with water.

Human-generated sources: Venting a dryer indoors, basement showers, or windows that let in humid air are all easy-to-remedy sources of excess moisture in basements.

TACKLE POTENTIAL SOURCES FROM BIGGEST TO SMALLEST:
The biggest source of basement moisture is often inadequate drainage. First, check your gutter system: are the downspouts emptying at the base of the foundation? A significant amount of water is collected off the roof of a home during a rainstorm, and you don’t want to dump all this water right where it can leach into your basement. Even if the ground slopes away from the house, you want to extend the downspout at least three to four feet away from the foundation wall.

Ideally, your property should slope away from your foundation walls on all sides. If your house is built into the side of a hill, however, this may not be an option. The trick is to collect any surface water before it actually reaches your house. Drainage ditches will often do the trick; just make sure they have enough slope to actually carry the water around the house and away. If the water is already being channeled to a particular spot (like down a path,) consider installing a drain and pvc pipe to carry the water safely away from the house.

Now that you have gotten rid of a major source of moisture, it is time to tackle the basement walls. Moisture that comes through old brick or cinder-block walls is not always obvious. (In fact, obvious moisture may actually be condensation from dryer vents or humid outside air.) Your walls may feel a bit damp, or there may be slightly darker spots in certain areas.

If you suspect moisture is coming through your walls (and ESPECIALLY if you plan on sheetrocking,) buy a good waterproofing masonry paint like DryLoc. These paints are designed to seal up the pores of masonry surfaces and block water from getting through.

High water tables can prove one of the more difficult challenges when it comes to keeping your basement dry. Sump pumps and french drains (perforated pipes in a bed of gravel) installed under the floor may be needed, depending on the severity of the water problem. Depending on the particular situation, this can be an involved and expensive process. Fortunately, high water tables only pose an occasion issue for most home owners. If you have no intention of finishing your basement, sump pumps will often be adequate to deal with occasional flooding due to high water tables.

Eliminate easily-controlled moisture problems by venting dryers and bathrooms to the outside. During hot, humid days, keep basement windows closed. Don’t hang clothes to dry in your basement, and make sure any leaky plumbing is repaired. Automatic dehumidifiers can remove remaining moisture, but the tank will have to be emptied every few days. If you can somehow route a garden hose outside your basement, perhaps by drilling a hole through a window molding, there are dehumidifiers that can drain through a hose, eliminating the need to empty the tank. (Just remember, the hose will need to slope downhill for this to work. You may need to place your dehumidifier on a high shelf to accomplish this.)

Even if you have no plans for finishing your basement, using these tips to create a drier basement will be good for your health, the longevity of your home itself, and will make the basement a safer place to store things or set up a small work area.

1. Repaint.
Of course, this only works if your otherwise beautiful wall has been painted to resemble the murky depths of a stagnant pond, or a mural of the French Riviera that went horribly wrong. Repainting assumes that, underneath a few ugly color choices, your wall is not inherently ugly. If this is the case, get a good primer and a pleasing shade of whatever color makes you happy, and go at that ugly wall. You can also paint over dated paneling, those fake ceramic tile boards, and wood, as long as you use a good quality primer made for the purpose. Some primers even claim to adhere well to ceramic tile itself.

2. Hide it behind fabric.
Similar to sweeping your pile of dirty clothes under the bed, you can stick that ugly wall behind something pleasant to look at, and no one will be the wiser. Tapestries are a good choice; no longer are they just for castles or hippies, but come in a wide variety of styles and colors. Quilts are another good way to cover up an ugly wall. Draperies, hung from ceiling to floor, can be used to cover up the wall. Theoretically, you could hang fabric over all the walls in a room; as long as your fabric was not too dark, the effect would be pleasing. Practically, though, this might make finding light switches and outlets difficult.

3. Repaper.
Depending on the condition of your wall, fresh wallpaper might be able to save it. If your wall is not smooth and flat, most wallpaper will be difficult to properly install, but there is a very heavy type of paintable wallpaper that is designed to cover up cracks and minor imperfections. This paper is available in simple textures, as well as more intricate patterns that can help to hide particularly uneven walls. After you apply it, you can paint it the same color as the rest of the room, which will help your ugly wall to blend in seamlessly with its surroundings. Just make sure to remove all loose or peeling material from the wall before applying, or your new wallpaper will also start to peel.

4. Hide it behind enormous furniture.
While a gigantic dresser might be difficult to obtain, there is plenty of floor to ceiling shelving available. Instead of your ugly wall, you could be surrounded by floor to ceiling books, collectible plates, antique dolls, or your great grandfather’s prized collection of seven hundred porcelain elephants.

5. Posters.
We are not talking about your old college dorm, “101 Ways to Cure a Hangover” posters stuck in the wall with four mismatched thumbtacks. A group of posters, framed in cheap plexiglass frames and hung close together in a group, can be a great way to cover up an ugly wall and add some visual interest to a room. Posters that would have historically been posted on city walls or fences work best grouped so closely together: band posters, old advertisements, old movie posters, and theater bills all work well. Make sure the colors of the posters compliment each other and the room itself.

6. Work with the ugliness.
Hey, sometimes ugly can be cool. Just look at those interior decorators who spend hours making it look as though the plaster is crumbling off the wooden lath or brick beneath. And there you were, complaining that your plaster walls were showing the brick. Okay, maybe most of our ugly walls involve damaged drywall and peeling wallpaper, which are significantly less sexy than exposed brick. But you can still see if there is a way you can embrace the ugliness. Maybe stripes of paint or large flower shapes can make that plaid wallpaper attractive again. Maybe not, but it can be fun to find out. If your wall is horrifically ugly to begin with, what could you possibly do to make it worse?

7. Hang stuff on the wall.
Put up a bunch of wall hooks (assuming your wall is stable enough to accept hooks), and hang your coats, your hat collection, or a bunch of sparkly vintage dresses on the wall. Or put a few small shelves up and put some wildly trailing plants on them. Wall mirrors, old photos, framed flowers, your father’s collection of antique road signs; they can all cover up your ugly wall. Of course, now your room feels ten foot square and you are so overwhelmed by all the visual clutter that you want to cry, but at least you can’t see the wall behind all that stuff!

8. More joint compound!
If your walls are strong and stable, but suffer from someone’s attempt to create a stucco texture that does nothing but collect dust and scrape your elbows when you walk down the hallway, try scraping off the highest points and smoothing joint compound over the rest. You won’t end up with perfectly smooth walls, but you should be able to improve the texture significantly. Instead of sanding the walls when you are done, a slightly damp sponge can be used to smooth it out, creating much less mess.

If all else fails, there is always the sledgehammer and a trip to the home improvement store for new sheetrock. In most cases, though, you can make your walls a lot more attractive without resorting to wall-directed violence. And remember: a wall doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.

LAWN: Your lawn should be well maintained. Mow often and set your mower higher: grass that is clipped too short will be more prone to drying out and weeds. Take the extra time and edge sidewalks and paths.

REMOVING PLANTS: Obviously, weeds should be removed. Overgrown plants and bushes should be pruned, and if they look too bedraggled, removed. If you have the time, some shrubs (like forsythia) can be brought back to life by cutting them back to a foot or so off the ground. They will grow back lusher and more full, but this will take time. Overgrown perennials can be dug up, divided, and used to plant new areas. If you have extra plants in areas that aren’t easily seen, move them to more obvious locations.

CHOOSING PLANTS: Landscaping plants, bushes, and trees all take time to establish themselves and grow. Of course, you can buy full-sized bushes and fifteen foot trees, but these can cost a significant amount of money, as well as needing specialized equipment to plant them. If your current landscaping is spartan or nonexistent, a wise choice is often to purchase one largish bush or small tree as a focal point, and surround it with smaller, cheaper plants. Annual plants (plants that die off each year) can provide a show of color and take less time to fill out than perennials. Annuals can also be significantly less expensive, especially if you grow them from seed. If you have a couple of months before you plan on listing your home, flower seeds like zinnias or alyssum grow quickly and provide a good show of color. Ornamental grasses can provide interest and height, and may grow faster than flowering plants or shrubs.

PLANT LOCATION: Choose a highly visible area for your planting; near the front of the house or next to a front path or stair is usually a good choice. Landscaping should match the style of the house: a small cottage will look good with a little plot of mixed wildflowers in front of the front porch, while a neo-classical or modern house may look better with a single sculpted evergreen and several smaller plants. Most smaller plants look best in odd-numbered groups: group 3 or 5 plants together instead of having one of everything. Plant smaller plants in front and larger plants in back. If your planting is not next to a house or wall, surround a taller plant with gradually shorter plants.

MULCH: Mulch can make all the difference when it comes to getting that manicured, landscaped look. Not only will a good layer of mulch keep the weeds down and retain moisture for the plants, but it can make the garden areas around your house look well cared for. If your planting areas border your lawn, use flexible edging to keep the mulch neatly in place.

HARDSCAPE: Hardscape refers to the non-living elements of your landscaping. If your property is overflowing with rocks, consider edging areas with stone, or if you have larger rocks, arrange them in a pleasing configuration and surround them with mulch. Add a ceramic bird or two for a dash of color and interest. If you live in a dry, arid climate, use Zen gardens for inspiration; arrangements of gravel, sand, and stone can be just as beautiful as plant life. Benches and bird feeders can beautify side and back lawns, especially when they are placed against a backdrop of taller plants. (A note on garden gnomes, ceramic ducks, plastic flamingos, and the like: while you may love and treasure these things, you should be aware that potential buyers may not be of a similar mindset. It is best to remove any inanimate objects that possess a face from your yard before showing your house.)

The trick to landscaping a house to sell is to get the most selling advantage for the least amount of money. Focus on the main areas: near the front entrance, along a path, and the front of the house. Choose one or two larger plants or shrubs, and surround them with smaller, cheaper plants. If you choose flowering plants, make a note of when they flower and how they look after flowering. A mass planting of tulips will look gorgeous while they are in bloom, and terrible later in the summer.

If you are completely lost as to which plants to pick or where to plant them, consult a gardener friend or ask advice from your local nursery. (Gardner friends are also sometimes a useful source of extra plants.) When in doubt, you should be pretty safe planting three different heights of plants next to a foundation wall, as long as you make sure they get the required amount of sunlight.

For more articles by this author, please go to Helium.com