Making Your Home More Energy Efficient

We live in a time where we have an abundance of technology and information helping us to improve our homes. There are smart thermostats that can regulate the temperature in your home to keep us comfy 24 hours a day, smart lighting that turns itself off at certain times, and many other innovations. We can make sure that our homes are much more efficient by adding some technology and throwing in tried and true tools as well. Simple changes really can make a difference when making your home more energy efficient.

Starting a compost heap

For a lush garden without the use of harmful, chemical filled products, organic compost is the way to go. You don’t need a ton of space to start composting, you can purchase bins that are specifically designed to create and store useful compost. Natural compost will add valuable nutrients and beneficial organisms into your soil, helping to create an environment that encourages healthy plant growth.

Composting also recycles your kitchen and yard waste, allowing it to decompose over time keeping it out of landfills. That, in turn, helps the environment overall.

Add energy efficient windows

You probably lose most of your homes efficiency through the windows. Heated air can escape in the winter and cool air in the summer. Because our windows are generally covered by blinds and curtains, we generally don’t even think about what’s going on in and around them. Take a closer look. Do you notice your drapes moving as if in a breeze? If you don’t have the window open and you notice that kind of movement, the air is coming from somewhere. 

It’s possible it’s time to replace your existing windows. If your home is over 25 years old, it’s likely you have single pane windows. Adding double hung windows replacement, can reduce your energy costs at much as 20% depending on where you live. It’s absolutely worth the investment to replace those old windows.

If you want to make a change to your home to make it much more energy efficient, then replacing your windows is a good choice. When you have old windows that let out a lot of heat (and let the cold air in), then you will be constantly trying to heat up your home. This is going to cost you a lot when it comes to your energy bill, but also be a bad thing for the environment, using up more energy than you need. You could think about getting to keep the energy in. But when needed, they’ll open in the unique double-hung way. If your budget isn’t stretching to replacements at the moment, then make sure that you have any cracks around the windows, or in the glass themselves, sealed up or replaced.

Install Solar Panels

If you’re planning on keeping your home, investing in solar panels may be an investment worth making. Adding solar panels to your home is not an inexpensive proposition. You won’t see a short term return on your investment, but certainly will see a reduction in your monthly energy bills. You have to think of solar panels as a long term investment. If lots of people take advantage of being able to harness the natural power that comes from the sunshine, it could actually help with the pull on the electric grid and therefore may just help the entire community stay in the light during big energy use periods. 

Wash laundry in cold water

Washing your laundry in cold versus warm water seems like a small thing, and it is, but keeping your water heater from having to power up to replace the hot water used, can be reflected on your energy bills. 90% of the energy consumed  by washing machines comes from heating the water used. It’s not a gigantic savings, but you can actually save up to $70 a year by washing in cold. Thinking in terms of global use, if everyone did this, there would be a significant reduction in energy use overall.

Whether small changes or big investments, everyone can benefit from making your home more energy efficient.