As we head towards the winter season, Alex Capozzolo of Brotherly Love Real Estate provides some excellent tips to save energy in your home.
An energy efficient home doesn’t always mean “overly expensive and difficult to achieve.” While there are homes that are built from scratch to be energy efficient, there are simple upgrades you can add to your home today to make it way more energy efficient than it currently is. If you’re looking to save energy bills, while also being eco-friendly by reducing your carbon footprint, consider these 5 simple energy efficient upgrades
These features not only affect homeowners who plan to stay in these homes for a while. It also affects homeowners preparing to sell. If you live in a hot area, like Los Angeles, energy usage is constant. Depending on your timeline, you may be thinking “I need to sell my house fast or else”. Energy efficient home features will help with that too.
- Insulate
What’s the best way to prevent the loss of heat or air condition? You guessed it — insulate! Home insulation varies from blanket insulation and concrete block insulation with foam board, to structural insulated panels. Now, these might sound expensive, especially if you really cannot afford a full home insulation project. However, you can still target specific areas such as the attic and other walls throughout your home. Making sure your attic is well insulated can go a long way in saving energy, as it is often the most-ignored part of the house. More often than not, insulation is not a DIY job. Do your best to find a professional to help with this.
- Natural Light
Besides the fact that homes with really large windows and glass doors look beautiful, having more natural light flowing into your home will save you energy and lighting costs. While installing full-length windows may have you worried about being too exposed, you can always opt for only small windows and skylights.
- Programmable Thermostats
Adding a programmable thermostat to your home will not only make your home a much smarter home, but it will also help you save energy. With this upgrade, you can control the temperature of your home right from your phone, no matter where you are, as long as you have access to wifi or cellular data. This way, all those unnecessary lights and appliances you left on can easily be turned off whenever you’re not using them. Also, consider upgrading your appliances to more energy-efficient ones.
- Airtight Doors and Windows
Doors and windows are often guilty of letting precious cool air out of the house, meaning your HVAC unit will be working in overdrive to keep the house cool. Check for air drafts around your windows and doors. You can make your home more energy efficient by replacing your caulking and weatherstripping. Better yet, simply adding transparent plastic sheets on the outside of your windows will go a long way in saving energy. With any modification, ensure you do not lose good ventilation in and out of rooms in your home.
- Install LED Lighting
An easy fix, and something that nearly every homeowner can do to improve the efficiency of their home is updating their lighting and lightbulbs. LED lighting is estimated to be 80-90% more energy efficient than traditional lighting.
With these simple upgrades, you can drastically decrease the energy output of your home, and make your home more energy efficient.