Advice For Improving Your Energy Efficient Home The Simple Way
So you want to try your hand at an energy efficient home improvement, huh? Do you know anything about this kind of work? Do you know about all of the different kinds of tools and safety regulations? Do you know what entails a good job? If these questions raise more questions than you can answer, try looking at the tips below.
Every Year we spend thousands of dollars needlessly on wasted energy. The tips below are just some of the ways that you can make quick, inexpensive changes in your home that might save you enough money for that vacation you want to take, or some other Home Improvement.
Energy Efficiency Tips
Close curtains and doors
Whether you’re trying to heat a room in the winter or keep it cool in the summer, trying to maintain the whole house can be very expensive. When it’s possible, closed doors off to an area you are not using all the time and only heat or cool the areas that you spend the most time in. By closing your curtains in the winter after the sun goes down you will retain much more heat than you would if the curtain was open. The opposite is also true if you open your curtains or blinds when your window is receiving sunlight in the winter time you will get solar gain. Of course in the summer months, you want to do the exact opposite with the curtains, close them during the day, and open them at night after the sun has gone down.
Thermostat settings
Heating your home is very expensive, in fact, winter heating bills in Canada can result in as much as 40% of your overall utility bills. Every time you turn up the thermostat by even one degree over 20 it can add as much as 10% to your heating bill. You should always keep the thermostat set between 18 and 20 degrees. In the summertime, if you have air conditioning, set your thermostat a little higher so that it doesn’t turn the air conditioning on until it’s 25 degrees or higher in the house.
Start using a smart thermostat, these have the ability to learn your living patterns. you only need to adjust your thermostat a few times and it will then understand you’re living pattern. it will adjust the temperature based on times you are home or not home. Some even have proximity beacons built into them and know when you’re within 5 km to your house and will adjust the temperature accordingly.
Portable or zoned HVAC systems
If you’re using a portable air conditioner in your living room, turn it off when you leave the area for an extended time, or go to bed at night. If you have a zoned HVAC system you can adjust the temperature in individual rooms as opposed to the whole house. If you do not have a zoned HVAC system you can still adjust the temperature in individual rooms by using the dampers in your floor registers. For rooms that you are not occupying very often, close the damper about 80%. This will force more of your air to go to rooms that you are occupying.
Do your laundry with cold water
Did you know that you can save approximately $120 every year just by washing your clothes in cold water as opposed to warm, or even worse hot. You can also increase your savings by only doing laundry when you have a full load to do. There are plenty of detergents that are designed to work with cold water.
Operate your refrigerator efficiently
The refrigerator is one of the more energy taxing appliances in your home, this is because it is running all the time. There are a few things that you can do to reduce the amount of energy you spend with your refrigerator. the first thing is to make sure that the door seals are in good condition and close tightly free of all air gaps. Make sure that your fridge temperature is set correctly. According to Consumer Reports, your refrigerator should be set at about 3 degrees Celsius and your freezer should be set at -18 degrees Celsius. Your refrigerator uses an air conditioning coil to keep it cooling, make sure this coil is kept clean. the coil is usually located on the back of the refrigerator, simply pull the fridge away from the wall and vacuum the coil off. A dirty air conditioning coil is an inefficient air conditioning coil.
Eliminate Energy vampires
Your home is full of energy sucking vampires, these are the appliances in your house but go into standby mode when not in use. They are still drawing some electricity, it is estimated that these energy vampires use as much as 10% of your overall electric bill even though the equipment is not in use. One way to eliminate these little energy suckers is to Plug them into a Standby power controller that completely turns off their energy when not in use.
Kitchen appliances that really suck energy
All of our kitchen appliances use energy, but some use a lot more than others. An example would be using your stove to boil a kettle of water for one cup of coffee will be more expensive then microwaving one single cup of water. But using an electric kettle is even cheaper than using the microwave. When you’re using your stove top for cooking choose a burner that is the same size has the pots or pans that you are using. if your burner is an inch to 2 in diameter larger then the pan you’re using you could be wasting as much as 30% of the energy. Keeping a lid on your food when cooking will also reduce the amount of time it takes, that’s reducing the amount of energy spent. The dishwasher can be a very expensive Appliance to operate if not done correctly, only run when it is at 80% capacity or more and use the economy cycle, let the dishes air-dry as opposed to using the heating element built into the dishwasher.
Energy efficient light bulbs
By switching out your incandescent light bulbs and using energy efficient light bulbs such as compact fluorescent lights or LEDs conceive you as much as 80% in energy uses compared to a traditional incandescent bulb. These new energy-saving lights can also last 25 times longer in some cases. Simply by replacing your 5 most used lights in your home with energy-saving bulbs can save you as much as $100 every year.
The cost of energy-efficient light bulbs used to be very expensive, but they have always been a good investment and save you money in the long run. Today, however, the cost of these bulbs has come down significantly and switching Bob’s has become a no-brainer. You can now buy a 4-pack of a 19 energy efficient 620 Lumen light bulbs for only $8 on Amazon. This one switch alone could save you as much as $80 a year on your electric bill.
I really hope that you enjoyed these energy saving tips that you can perform around your house today. Be sure to check back as we will be experimenting with other forms of energy saving devices.
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