Top 4 Ways to Make Your Home More Energy Efficient
Thursday, August 4, 2016, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
Making buildings more energy efficient is all the rage these days, although many people have resisted because energy efficient products usually cost more.
While it is true that energy conserving appliances do cost more, that’s only in initial cost.
The truth is that homeowners save a lot more money in the long run by making the larger investment up front.
There are also a lot of low cost or free ways to reduce your carbon footprint and increase the energy efficiency of your home.
Here are the top four ways to do that.
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Do Little Things
Do you leave the lights on when no one’s in the room, or even at home? Take long, hot showers? Run the air conditioner when it’s nice outside? Turn off the lights, take shorter showers, and adjust the thermostat or open the windows to decrease your energy usage.
Making smaller changes like these will, over time, vastly decrease the amount of energy your home uses.
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Replace Light Bulbs and Windows
Using compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) or light emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of incandescent light bulbs is one of the most well-known and earliest changes environmentally-conscious people began making to their homes.
Windows are one of the main things, besides poor insulation, that leak hot or cold air from your home, meaning your furnace or air conditioner has to work that much harder to keep your house warm or cool.
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Purchase Appliances That Use Less Energy
When you purchase new appliances, slowly phase the old ones out and replace them with newer, more energy-efficient models. Newer HVAC systems use considerably less energy than older ones do.
The most common way to tell if an appliance is energy efficient is whether it has the Energy Star label from the EPA.
Energy Star appliances are even on Pacific Aire Inc’s list of top ten home energy upgrades.
Many Energy Star appliances are sold with a label that estimates the energy cost of running it each year, to also give you an idea of how much energy you’re saving.
You can even get tax credits for purchasing energy efficient appliances on that year’s taxes.
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Install Green Energy Sources
Unfortunately, these can be pricey, but if you can afford to install solar panels or even a geothermal heating system on your property, it will save you a lot of money in energy costs and may even nullify your carbon footprint.
If you can’t make drastic changes or buy a home with these already installed, you can do something smaller, like use solar-powered lamps to light your walkway at night rather than electric ones.
Making your home more energy efficient doesn’t just benefit the environment – it benefits the homeowner too.
Educate yourself about energy usage and see what you can do to make your home more energy efficient, starting with these first steps.
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