Sometimes the hardest thing about making a change is knowing where to start. That’s why we invited members of the Kashi Community to join us on a tour of a home in San Diego where the residents have taken steps to make their lifestyle and home more environmentally sustainable. With Jennifer Schwab, a Sierra Club Green Living Expert and the knowledgeable homeowner as our guides, we discovered that with a little effort it’s pretty easy to make our living spaces healthier for the environment and ourselves.

The idea of going green at home can be overwhelming. But with the right tools and information, the process to make your home more energy efficient, sustainable and healthy can be easy and affordable. You don’t have to hit the ground running—sustainable living can start at a simple CRAWL, which is an acronym to help you get started on your green journey. By making a few simple changes at home, you can help make a huge impact in preserving the environment:

C – CFL’s. These eco-friendly light bulbs use 75 percent less electricity than traditional light bulbs)
R – Recycle (find a drop off location near you)
A – Air seal (Find the leaks in your home and seal them with water-based caulks to save up to 20 percent on your home energy costs)
W – Water off while brushing your teeth (Simply turning the water off can save up to 2,880 gallons of water a year)
L – Lights off (Switching the lights off every time that you leave a room can save up to 35 percent on your power bill)

Once you have mastered the CRAWL, you can start to incorporate the following low-to-no-cost practices into your life and before you know it you will have created a healthier home environment.

Green for Free

When does “off” not mean “off”? When you’re talking about TVs, DVD players, cordless phones, battery chargers and dozens of other home electronics. If a product has a digital clock, electronic display, “instant-on” feature, remote control, or external power adaptor, it still draws standby power even when the device itself is turned off. This “leaking” energy, also known as “phantom load,” accounts for about 25 percent of the total energy used by home electronics. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution: unplug these devices from the wall outlet when you’re not using them. If they’re plugged into switched outlets, just turn off the switch or plug them into power strips that you can easily switch on or off as needed. This way, no current flows to the electronic devices, so they don’t consume any electricity.

Dress for the occasion. In the winter, put on a cozy sweater and set your thermostat a notch lower. About 68°F is comfortable for most people, but you might feel fine with the temperature even lower. In the summer, turn on the air conditioning only when you really need it, and set it to 78°F or higher. Raising the thermostat by 1 degree in the summer can reduce your air conditioning costs by 3 percent to 5 percent.

Be a smart cookie. When cooking smaller meals, save energy by using a microwave or toaster oven rather than heating up the full-size oven. On the stovetop, keep a lid on pots and try not to boil larger quantities of water than you need. Also, be mindful about how your food choices affect the environment. Whenever possible, eat local and opt for minimally processed natural, organic and sustainable foods.

Let the sun shine in (or keep it out). Window coverings are more than just window dressing—they can actually help manage your heating and cooling bills. On hot summer days, try closing window coverings on the sunny side of your home to keep it cooler. If winters are cold where you live, thick insulating drapes or shades will help keep warmth in at night. On sunny winter days, open the window coverings so the sun’s rays can help heat your home.

Chill out. If you’ve got an extra fridge or freezer idling away in your garage or basement, it could be costing you $200 or more every year to keep it humming, depending on the model’s age and size. Spare your wallet and the planet by unplugging it. Many local utility companies will recycle your old refrigerator for free, and some will even send you a check after they take away the old watt-guzzler.

Hang up and dry. Take advantage of the sun’s free energy and dry your clothes on a line. If it’s raining or you don’t have space outside, hang clothes indoors on lines or racks. If you do use a dryer, clean out the lint trap before every load—a lint-laden trap makes the dryer work harder.

Spend a Little, Save a Lot

Time for a change. If you have a forced-air furnace (the most common heating system in the United States), inspect the filter once a month during the heating season. If it looks dark and clogged, replace it. A clogged filter means the furnace fan has to work harder, which wastes energy. You can buy a basic filter for a few dollars at home improvement stores, but for better indoor air quality, spend a bit more ($10 to $20) for a filter that’s designed to capture microscopic particles and allergens.

Tighten up. Unwanted air leaks in your home can add 20 percent to your heating and cooling bills. Many basic air tightening tasks are easy and inexpensive. These include caulking gaps around windows, putting weather stripping around windows and doors, sealing heating and cooling ducts, and installing door sweeps to keep air from sneaking in under exterior doors.

Lighten up. Efficiency experts have been telling us for decades to replace our conventional light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) because they reduce energy use by 75 percent and last 8 to 10 times longer. Despite all the talk, only about 6 percent of American households use CFLs. Now that the price of CFLs has plunged (with good quality bulbs to be had for less than $2) there’s no excuse not to switch.

Set it and forget it. You may have the best of intentions, but it’s easy to forget to adjust heating and air conditioning systems before you go to work or to bed. Instead of relying on your memory, automate the process by installing a programmable thermostat. It ranges in cost from $40 to $200, but may save you as much as $180 per year.

Be a control freak. Lighting accounts for about 20 percent of a typical American home’s energy use, and much of that goes toward lights that are left on longer than necessary. With lighting control devices, you can avoid much of that waste. A motion sensor can switch off a closet light after you’ve closed the door. A stairway light switch can be wired to a timer that automatically turns off the light a certain number of minutes after you’ve switched it on. If you want a porch light to stay on all night but not burn during the day, you can wire it to a photocell so that it automatically comes on at dusk and goes off at dawn. You can install basic lighting controls yourself, if you’re handy; more sophisticated controls may require an electrician.

Avoid waste whenever possible. Becoming greener is all about avoiding waste. It’s not necessary to go out and purchase all new eco-friendly products to replace old ones. Simply think twice and consider your eco-friendly options when the time comes to make a future household purchase.

Finally, the best thing you can do is become more educated in making eco-friendly choices and realize that everything you do can make a difference!

Jennifer Schwab is the director of sustainability for Sierra Club Green Home (SCGH), a new website from the Sierra Club. Sierra Club—America’s oldest, largest, and best-known environmental organization—developed SCGH to educate aspirationally green citizens on energy efficiency and environmental sustainability as well as to help implement green solutions in the home.