When it comes to organizing your home layout, energy efficiency and safety are two categories you should always take into consideration.
Whether you hope to accomplish this through putting up a couple of solar panels on the roof, or buying a bunch of low-wattage light bulbs, one thing is certain – whatever you do, it’s important to think about the long run rather than just the temporary solutions.
To make your home more energy-efficient, the goal is to reduce the energy expenditures as much as possible, while increasing your home’s energy-creating capacity. This can be achieved by several different measures, and it will usually take a combination of different techniques and approaches for this to effort to take effect.
In this article, we’re going to give you a couple of suggestions about how you can make your home safer and more energy-efficient. As you will see, there is several different options here, so you can combine some of them to make up something you find fitting or otherwise that fits the molds of your financial situation, so to speak.
The main focus is on how proper insulation of both walls as well as doors and windows of the house can significantly bring down the overall energy costs all year round.
The conclusion reinforces the idea that insulating your house properly is the best way to make it safer and energy-efficient, while adding some technical novelties such as solar panel can also help. While solar panels will carry a higher price tag, by installing them you can take advantage of various tax credits. To calculate how these deductions will impact your overall tax return, you will need a tax calculator—thankfully, there are plenty of good calculators available online.
Right then folks, without further ado, here’s the deal.
1) Use LED Light Bulbs
One of the simplest and least expensive ways you can save energy would be to replace all the light bulbs in your household from incandescent bulbs to LEDs.
Here’s the thing, even if you have halogen bulbs or any other incandescent variation, you should still probably think about getting these LEDs, because these semiconductor bulbs tend to be up to 5 times more energy efficient than their incandescent counterparts.
On the other hand, LEDs do cost more than the old type of Tungsten-based light bulbs, but they also last for longer, too.
Last but not least, LED light bulbs are also known to offer brighter light, that doesn’t emit any potentially harmful UV rays, so that would be another plus of going LED instead of the old models.
2) Seal Cracks & Gaps With Insulation
Nothing saps the warmth during the winter or the cooling in the summer away from your home as some sort of gap or a crack that remains unaddressed.
To prevent losing your home’s heating and cooling energy, what you may want to do is insulate the walls of your house properly. This will not only fill up any cracks or crevices, but also reinforce the heat retention factor of the walls themselves, thus further reducing your energy costs during the winter months. Of course, it’s the same story for summer months, as insulation wards off excess heat away from your home.
An important thing to pay attention to would be the attic, because most of the heat during the summer comes through the roof. So, if you insulate the attic well, chances are – you won’t have to spend that much on cooling come summer.
Another thing to keep in mind would be doors and windows, as this is where you can lose a lot of energy without even noticing. Even a well-insulated garage door can save you more energy than you think.
3) Replace Filters Regularly
Most of home owners have multiple kinds of filters all working at the same time all year round in their homes.
These include air filters, water filters, smoke alarm filters, and others.
Now, while changing the filter every six months may seem like a rough expenditure, what you have to remember is that if you don’t do it, the device that you didn’t change the filter for will be rendered practically useless.
So, as rough as it may sound financially, changing your filter regularly is an absolute must if you mean to keep the important in-house filtration systems up-and-running at all times.
4) Fit Insulated Windows
As far insulation in your house goes, your windows aren’t just magically going to have the same insulation properties of the surrounding walls, so if you want to achieve the same insulation value for all of the walls, you may want to fit some sort of insulated windows here, too. Companies like UPVC Windows World in Australia have seen some massive sales lately due to people becoming aware of the benefits of double-glazed windows. This may be partly due to the fact that Australia has a hotter climate, meaning people are much more likely to rely on insulation.
Insulated windows, just as is the case with insulated walls, can keep the warmth inside during the winter months and keep it outside when the summer comes. Also, insulation in windows helps with noise pollution, so if you want to ward off potentially aggravating sounds from your environment, installing soundproof windows can be an excellent solution.
5) Consider Installing a ‘Cool’ Roof
Cool roofs represent a special breed of roofs that can cancel out much of the heat, cold, and other temperature changes that befall your house via its top-most part, so to speak.
Of course, these cool roofs don’t boast 100% efficiency, but they are capable of reducing the overall cost of heating and ventilation during the summer significantly, so if you are looking for a good way to spend your money on your roof, setting up a cool roof can be an excellent idea.
By the way, if you do decide to do this and you have a couple of windows planned as a part of your cool roof setting, make sure these are also energy-efficient insulated windows, for good measure.
6) Shade Your Windows
One of the best ways to get rid of excess heat during the summer would be to cover your windows with a special protective layer that will block out the potentially dangerous UV rays as well as the heat during the hot summer months.
The thing is, one of the biggest culprits when it comes to wasting energy during the summer months would certainly be the ventilation bill, so if you can resolve this before the summer months come around, you’ll be in a situation to save yourself plenty of money + have a window configuration that will both look good and be able to deflect the potentially harmful UV rays.
Also, window shades help with preserving your domestic privacy, so if you plan on going on a family road trip soon, having these installed beforehand can be of massive use when you’re not home.
All in all, making your house more energy-efficient is mostly about managing the heat and the cold all year round. If all of your energy efficiency efforts amount to simply insulating your house and fitting new doors and windows – you would have still one an excellent job. Everything else on top of that such as LED light bulbs and solar panels would be an icing on the cake.
Sometimes it’s so hard to balance your ideas and your wallet. For sure, you want to have an efficient home that doesn’t drain your paycheck every month, but you also want to help preserve our delicate planet. It feels like a tough choice. Well, luckily for all of us, the home improvements of today often do both at the same time, meaning there’s no reason you shouldn’t dip your toes in some environmentally-friendly waters.
