Tag Archives: Energy-Efficient Home

Create a Sustainable and Energy-Efficient Home on a Budget

  By | | , , ,
7 Comments

In the US, the typical home and family spend an average minimum of $2,200 on energy costs per year, according to the US Department of Energy. Understandably, homeowners are aiming to cut costs and seeking to save oodles of money down the road. With that being the case, it isn’t surprising to find that more and more people are turning to smart home technology. What about those that can’t exactly afford all the tech-led bells and whistles, however? Read on to know how to create an energy-efficient home on a budget:

1. Think Long-Term Package

Instead of looking at the things to put in a home, it’s smart to consider the entirety of the home itself—from conceptual plans to layouts and building materials. Planning and choosing a home that is affordable and fashioned to be conducive to a sustainable and energy-efficient build will save you thousands of dollars in the future.

sustainable-habits-for-ecofriendly-home

For example, you can try living in a mobile home. Lenders and lending institutions like mobile and manufactured homes so you won’t have trouble securing a loan. These types of homes come in a wide gamut of sustainable materials to choose from like recycled steel. So it provides a good marriage between budgets and sustainability.

2. Enforcing Helpful Practices

Beyond having a home that’s built to be conducive for sustainability and energy-efficiency, you need to take a long hard look at the habits of the people in the home. When you’re on a budget, fancy things like smart thermostats can be a tad out of reach. So what can you do? You can try enforcing helpful practices.

eco-friendly-business-practices

For example, lowering the water heating temperature can lower your energy consumption by 22% annually. Other good practices are sealing any air leaks so you can avoid any excessive use of heating. Not only will these help you save money but they’ll help keep everyone on the same page when it comes to being energy-efficient. But if it surpasses your budget, taking SMS loans in Sweden can be an ideal option to cover for the extra cost. By taking out this micro loan, you will be able to pay your bills while enforcing helpful habits to minimize your spending.

3. Seek Sustainable Technology

All the savings you get from a well-built home and sustainable practices will eventually give you more options. Sustainable technology can help boost your home’s energy efficiency. While tech like solar panels can be expensive, it is always worth noting that there are Federal Tax Credit plans that allow homeowners to claim at least 30% of installation costs, according to NerdWallet. Other good options are biogas digesters and active recycling posts on the property.

solar-powered-home

When it comes to creating a sustainable and energy-efficient home, there are always a lot of options to choose from. It is all a matter of doing the right research to find which solutions help you best with the budget that you presently have. Always remember that whatever you spend now toward sustainability will eventually mean triple in savings and more down the line.

Recommended Reading:

How to improve home energy efficiency

Energy efficiency guide for homeowners

5 Tips for an Energy-Efficient Home

  By | | , , ,
2 Comments

Living in a house is often comfortable or even idyllic but tends to get rather expensive. After all, a typical home offers significantly more space than most apartments. A lot of it is likely taken by numerous appliances, each one working around the clock to satisfy the home dwellers. When one of them breaks, it is normal to simply either repair it or purchase a new one in its place, but because of their numbers, the costs can skyrocket in an instant.

But even if nothing in your home breaks down and loses its good looks, there is still one dominant issue. Most of it requires a constant supply of power to function. The demand for electricity alone is enough to raise your bills so much that the home budget will be significantly lowered. Fortunately, there are some tips and tricks to keeping your home budget intact, including updating your HVAC systems, insulating your walls and the attic, mounting solar panels, switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, and getting tankless water heater. Explore the tips below and see for yourself how much your bills improve.

Energy-Saving Tips for Small Businesses

1. Modernize Your HVAC Systems

The main culprit to your monthly bills is likely your HVAC system, which makes up half of the monthly payments that you have to make to your electric company. Luckily, there are a couple of things that you can do to save a lot on these bills.

The first thing that you should do is to change your old, inefficient systems for new ones. Fortunately, there are still a lot of options for you to choose from. Consider a heat pump as an alternative. This system will work by pulling heat from the air and transferring it to the air conditioner to release it as cool air. As such, you can save a lot on your bills by using this system. Regular heat pumps, geothermal heat pumps, and air-source heat pumps work in different ways and come with certain advantages and disadvantages, but they all allow for energy efficiency and thus lower bills.

Another method that you can use is to change your floor heating for a more modern iteration. Cutting-edge ones like the hydronic radiant floor heating system might be complicated and expensive to install. However, they can effectively replace all other forms of warming up your home and still offer a big increase in energy efficiency over the other systems.

green heating and cooling technologies

2. Improve Your Insulation

It is also important for you to improve the insulation of your home. This way, you will be able to keep your HVAC systems running at their reduced settings and avoid drafts. As such, you will be able to save a lot on your heating bills.

You should know that two areas need insulation the most: in the attic and the walls. The first is especially important because it will keep the roof insulated and prevent unwanted moisture from entering the house. On the other hand, the walls will keep the warmth inside during winter and block excess heat during summer.

Some materials are better than others when it comes to insulating homes. The best are fiberglass blankets, foam boards, polyurethane panels, loose-fill insulation, blown-in fiberglass insulation, and wool insulation. You can use whichever option you prefer for your home, depending on your budget and what type of insulation is most available in your area.

3. Maximize Your Solar Panel Usage

You can also benefit from solar panels if you decide to mount them on top of your house. Solar panels are great for lowering your monthly bills because they harness the power of the sun to supply your household with electricity. It is also possible for you to choose them because they are getting cheaper over time. But before picking them, make sure that they can generate enough power for your household. Otherwise, they might not be worth the investment.

4. Opt for LED Lighting

LED lighting is also excellent for saving on your energy bills because of its energy efficiency. It can last up to 20 years or more without getting damaged or losing its capacity while consuming significantly less energy than traditional light bulbs. The latter uses around 60% less energy than incandescent bulbs while emitting less than half of its light. If you think about it, switching to LED lights has the potential of lowering your monthly bills by $5 or $10 every month or so.

energy efficient home

5. Install a Tankless Water Heater

Finally, you should also consider buying a tankless water heater. This way, you will avoid paying for the energy necessary to heat it beforehand in the tank. Since these heating units are designed to run on demand, they work much like the HVAC systems and thus use up a lot of energy. But unlike the latter ones, tankless water heaters can be adjusted according to your needs. It is important to know that they tend to be expensive, but you can install them yourself if you are tech-savvy enough.

Conclusion

After reading this article, you should know more about energy efficiency and how to maximize your savings on energy bills. The tips and tricks included here are sure to help you save a lot of money in the long run. All you need to do now is to pick the ones that work best for your home and start saving. So, if you have been looking for ways to save money on your electric bills, there is no better time to start than now.

As you start implementing the ideas given in this article, you will soon experience a significant difference in your monthly electricity bills. But remember that it is not enough for you just to do it once. You need to install the best equipment, upgrade your insulation, and change your light bulbs to achieve complete energy efficiency in your home.