Energy Efficiency in your Home

A few simple steps toward energy efficiency

It is easy to make small steps around your home to make big differences. It is much less daunting than you may think. Here are a few things every home needs.

Blinds

This might be painfully obvious, but let me tell you why this is important to increasing the energy efficiency of your home. In the summer, they block out the sun to decrease the demand placed on your air conditioner. This is small, but when done every single hot day, you will notice the difference in your power bill. In the winter, make sure the blinds are open for the home to absorb the sun. This acts as a natural heater that takes some of the load off the furnace. This is an easy way to increase home energy efficiency.

Open Windows

Yes, open those windows in the summer, no matter where you live. Unless the coldest temperature at night is going to be 80+ degrees, the chances are you can cool off your home for free. This gives you new fresh air and requires no conditioning. Why run the air conditioner, if you can easily improve the energy efficiency by going au natural?

Seal up the Leaks

It is not good for any building to have openings or gaps. These gaps, whether around doors or windows, need to be addressed. Often, it only takes weather stripping or caulk. These are both easy to buy and to work with. If a gap is too big to be resolved with either of these fixes, then consider buying the can of insulation, which will expand to fill up spaces.

Walk around your home and look for places where light comes in or where you can see outside. This is not good for your house. The expensive conditioned air is sucked out and the unconditioned air makes it way in. In the winter, there is more demand on the furnace, which lowers the energy efficiency of your home. Fill those gaps and use less energy.

Once you have addressed all of the inside gaps, walk around the exterior to fix those penetrations. These might be where gas lines or air conditioning pipes were installed. Sometimes the installers make holes that are too large and end up decreasing the homes energy efficiency. Try caulking up these holes to limit leakage. If you doubt you are going about this in the correct fashion, contact the contractor who installed the equipment and confirm your material choice. They would much rather have you call them before you fix it, than calling after it turns out that your concrete patch job just ruined your gas line. Often the material packaging is great at helping with this decision.

Insulate your Attic

When an attic is properly insulated, it is sort of like wearing a cap. It protects you from the heat of the summer sun and the cold from winter.

It is wise to put more insulation in the attic to increase energy efficiency. It is easy to add it if nothing exists there or add more on top of the existing insulation. Sometimes homes are built with an inadequate amount of insulation which really decreases the energy efficiency of a home. Most of the conditioned air, which is the air we heat and cool, escapes through the roof. By stopping the flow out of the roof, you increase your home's energy efficiency.

Windows

Get new Windows or Storm Windows if you have single pane windows or inadequate windows. Single pane windows, are not energy efficient. These are big, leaky energy losers that are slightly better than a hole in the wall. If you can’t afford to buy new windows, then consider buying storm windows which will affix to the outside of the existing windows. These are not necessarily cheap, but they usually cost less than new windows and will add an extra layer of glass to hold in the conditioned air and prevent the outside air from penetrating.

Better than storm windows are new windows. Upgrading to high performance, gas filled, dual pane windows will make a HUGE difference in the energy efficiency of your home. When installed properly, they will outperform any of the previous examples by creating more layers for the heat and cold to permeate.

Turn off the Lights

At this point you probably think I am a master of the obvious, to which I totally agree, but this little tidbit about lights seems to be skipped over ALL THE TIME. How often do you drive through a neighborhood at night and see houses all lit up? Is it every night? We need to talk some sense into these people.

If you are not in a room, even for a few minutes, turn off the light. Amazingly, that puppy will turn right back on the next time you flip it on. Crazy, huh. However, with this power, comes the responsibility to TURN IT OFF. If you are still reading this I know you are not the culprit of this terrible behavior. It is probably your cousins or parents. Anyhow, we need to turn off lights to make our homes as energy efficient as possible because it is better for the environment and our pocketbooks.

Remember, it is important to stop buying the old, incandescent bulbs and replace them with the new, fluorescent bulbs. These draw less energy and last longer, making for a more energy efficient home. This is good.

Use Less Water

Although more of the earth is water than land, most of this water is not potable. Salt water is very expensive and difficult to convert into clean water. With this in mind, we need to treat this natural resource with awareness. When we use less water, we become more energy efficient by spending less on water and lowering the demand on water companies.

Energy Efficient Appliances

Upgrade to energy star appliances. The technology used in appliances today is far more sophisticated than technology from just a few years back. The importance of improving the performance and efficiency of appliances has become the goal of many good manufacturers. As a result, there are now several energy efficient appliances on the market.

The appliances that are the biggest energy suckers are refrigerators and washers and dryers. Just changing these out, will make a big difference in your energy efficiency and monthly bill. Try it out and share your experience below.

Go Tankless

Convert to a tankless water heater because it is more energy efficient. For more information on this topic, check out this article I wrote: You Should Buy A Tankless Water Heater.

The bottom line with tankless water heaters is that they only come on when needed, which means the rest of the time, they do not require any gas or electricity. If you are at work or on vacation, it doesn't turn on and use natural resources. It is a great way to increase the energy efficiency of your home.

Recycle

When we recycle, the garbage trucks have less trash to schlep, which decreases their fossil fuel needs. Granted, recycling creates energy needs. However, it recaptures some of the existing natural resources, which offset the destruction of other natural resources, which ideally increases their long term availability. For some of my thoughts on this topic, check out Recycle.

If you have any ideas or suggestions about increasing the energy efficiency of homes, please leave a comment below.