There are a number of valuable reasons for making your own personal home far more energy-efficient. Not only will you be contributing to the collective effort in reducing the population’s carbon footprint, but you will hopefully be saving yourself some money on your utility bills.
Making your home energy-efficient can be useful in the colder months when our heating bills go through the roof, and we find ourselves boosting the heating to cancel-out any cold drafts.
Where’s it all going?
Nowadays, most energy providers use an online platform to allow their customers who update their payment preferences and monitor their energy usage. This is the first useful step in improving your home’s energy efficiency. By looking at your energy provider’s online platform, you can get a sense of what most of your daily energy usage is pouring into.
Energy-efficient appliances
If you notice that the majority of your energy is, for example, being used on your oven, fridge, and television, you may want to assess the age and condition of these appliances. All appliances vary in their energy efficiency, which means that there are always more eco-friendly options to choose from. Picking new appliances that are at the top of their energy-efficiency ratings should help you to save money on your bills in the long-run.
Solar panels
Generating your own electricity and heating your own hot water is incredibly appealing, particularly if you happen to live in a sunnier climate. Some government schemes will even give you a rebate for the electricity you put back into the grid, helping to cancel out some of your energy bill. If you’re wondering whether your home would be suitable, then doing specific research into solar power for new homes, for example, will help you decide which solar panels would be best for you.
Insulation
Insulation is still to this day one of the easiest and cost-effective ways of making your home far more energy efficient. Older homes, while aesthetically more pleasing, just don’t have the modern methods of keeping heat in. This means that the money you spend on heating the four walls you live in is being wasted, as it will constantly escape through thinner, less robust walls. Insulation can be added to the interior or exterior of your house walls, or if you’re lucky enough to live in a modern home, it is piped into the cavity.
If you’re wondering how to best insulate your home, one of the best ways to discover the most effective insulation method is to discover your building’s envelope. This is essentially the entire indoor-only living space of your home. It’s the space in your home that you want to heat and protect from the outdoors. Once you’ve assessed all the rooms within your envelope, you can then assess how best to insulate them.
You may be worried about the total cost of making your home more energy-efficient. However, the purpose of making your property more energy-savvy is to give you savings in the long run. To do this efficiently, just assess where most of your energy expenditure is going.