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Leaky ductwork often accounts for 10 to 30 percent of total heating and cooling costs.

Check for Air Leaks & Disconnected Sections
Look for holes or sections that are not joined together. If you use tape to seal your ducts, avoid cloth-backed, rubber adhesive duct tape, which tends to fail quickly. Researchers recommend other products to seal ducts: mastic, butyl tape, foil tape, or other heatapproved tapes. Look for tape with the Underwriters Laboratories logo.

Go Tankless!
The quickest way to save money is getting rid of the tank and going tankless. Tankless Water Heaters
has some great products that will allow you to do just that.Check out the site for far more information on this topic!

As for the rest of us with a tank – here’s some tips for you.

Turn down the Temperature
Your body isn’t going to notice a change from 140 to 120 – but your wallet may! If you don’t have an actual temperature readout on your heater you can reduce the temperature knob a little bit every day until you notice the change, then knock it back up a day or two.

Water Heater Blanket/Insulator

If you don’t already have one, get a water heater insulator blanket. The one pictured here costs $17.29 right now. You should be able to find them at your local hardware/home improvement stores for under $20 as well. If you have a gas heater make sure you don’t cover the top. With both gas or electric make sure you leave ample room on the bottom for ventilation. You should be able to install this easily in under a half hour.

Insulate your Pipes

Insulate your water pipes entering and leaving the water heater for at least the first 6 feet. You can insulate the hot water pipes even further to save more energy. Personally I found that insulating the entire path between the heater and the shower (only about 20 feet in my case) allowed me to reduce even further the temperature of my water heater.

The small gaps surrounding windows, doors and other areas in the American house, taken together, are like a nine-square-foot hole in the wall, according to EarthWorks Group’s “30 Simple Energy Things You Can Do to Save the Earth.” Plugging them can save you up to 10% on that heating bill, and the materials will pay for themselves within a year, ACEEE says.

Air that you’ve paid money to either heat or cool is escaping from your home. The more air that escapes the more expensive it is for you. Cut down on both heating and cooling costs by plugging those holes and sealing those gaps!

Note: it is easier to find these leaks in the winter, as cold air is coming in. In the summer cold air is going out – so it’s harder to find the leaks.
Doors
Run your hand, or better yet a candle, along and near the door frame. If you can feel the cold air coming it you’re wasting a lot of heat here. if only the candle flickers isn’t not as bad – but air is still escaping.
To solve that get some weather stripping. It’s very cheap and a single roll should be more than enough for a single door – maybe even 2. It’s self adhesive on one side and will plug the gap where air is escaping with foam. Make sure to clean the surface before you apply the adhesive.

Use a door sweep to help seal the bottom of the door.

Attic
Hot air rises – so hot air is escaping into your attic. if you have poor insulation you should add more. Use blown in insulation to fill gap.
Any holes in any ceiling (basement on up actually) should be sealed as well. Use expanding foam to seal the larger gaps, look around in the basement for large holes used to get pluming and electrical up to the floors above. You’ll want to push some foam insulation into those gaps or plug them with expanding foam. Remember, the goal here is to prevent air from going from one floor to the floor above.

Also – insulate the door into your attic as well. Use some of the weather stripping mentioned under doors to help seal the entrance.

Windows
Generally the same ideas as we had for doors above, weather stripping works great. Caulk the outsides of them as well.
Finally open the blinds/drapes/etc during the day to let sunlight in and close them at night to keep the heat in.

Provided that you don’t live in a region where it gets really cold, you may be able to completely turn off -or dramatically reduce – heat a night. Check out getting a programmable thermostat for making this happen automatically.
Minor note: Some refrigerators will not function correctly if the air temperate is below about 60F, you may need to experiment a little to find out at what temperature you can reduce too and still have a working refrigerator.

Overnight your home will leak heat over and over. Each time your heating system has to turn on and heat the home over and over. As a result it keeps running.
Contrary to popular belief it will not cost more money to heat from 55 to 67 than it will to keep a home at 67 all night long.

Throw on some extra heavy blankets and turn that heat off! Use some ceiling fans to help offset the temperature reduction as well.