For Americans, it's a fact of life: oil prices are at near record highs. That means it's costing us more to heat, light, and cool our homes no matter where we live.

Hi, I'm home improvement expert Don Zeman. Whether or not we like it, energy costs are on the rise. I'm here to tell you there are things you can do to your home right now that will save you money, improve energy efficiency, and help protect the environment.

Improving energy efficiency is an important step in the growing trend of "green construction" or "green remodeling." That's because the energy we use in our homes often comes from the burning of fossil fuels at power plants. This contributes to smog, acid rain, and global warming. So, the more energy we use in our homes, the more air pollution we generate.

Believe it or not, power companies are concerned about the amount of energy that we as consumers use. Wayne Grimes….at Georgia Power explains some of the reasons why power companies are concerned:

Wayne Grimes with Georgia Power says, "Well, one of the reasons we're concerned is that the less energy customers use, that's less energy we have to produce at the plants and also that's less energy that has to come off the grid. And for environmental reasons, the less energy that customers use, that's less coal that we have to burn."

When consumers use too much energy, power companies have to purchase more energy from the power grid. This in turn drives up energy costs for consumers. For this reason alone, it's important for energy companies to educate consumers on how to make their homes more energy efficient.

When determining how energy efficient a home is, power companies consider a number of things:

"We look at windows, the type of windows they have in their home, we look at insulation, whether they have enough insulation, we help look at whether the doors and windows are sealed and caulked properly," says Grimes.

Coming up this week, Don will show both homeowners and renters different ways to improve energy efficiency in their homes and apartments. This series is very important because not only am I going to show you how to save money, but also how to save the environment.