Easy Ways to Make your Home Eco-Friendly & Energy Efficient

Entry #259, August 29, 2010

A few months ago i featured a post about activities you can take in your home to help save money and be more energy efficient.  Today, let’s talk about actions you can take for your home to be more energy efficient.  Some items will require you to spend a decent amount of money, while others are not expensive to do at all.  Regardless of the price your goal needs to be to make your home run the most efficient it can, while saving you money in the long run AND saving the Earth’s resources.

The U.S. Green Building Council has an article about ways to make your home more energy efficient. This site is an excellent resource for improving green practices in your home, I highly recommend it.

Tips for making your home more energy efficient

1.) Ensure walls are well Insulated:

Effective insulation slows the rate that heat flows out of the house in winter or into the house in summer, so less energy is required to heat or cool the house. If your house has no wall insulation, and it has more-or-less continuous wall cavities (such as conventional stud walls), blown-in insulation can greatly improve your comfort and save enough energy to be very cost-effective. (It rarely pays to blow additional insulation into already insulated walls.) If your attic is unfinished, it often pays to upgrade its insulation.

Your contractor’s expertise is more important than the insulation material you choose. Properly installed fiberglass, cellulose, and most foam insulation materials can all reduce the heat conduction of the completed wall system. The key is “properly installed.” Ideally, the contractor will use an infrared camera during or after installation to look for voids.

2.) Upgrade or replace windows:

If your windows are old and leaky, it may be time to replace them with energy-efficient models or boost their efficiency with weatherstripping and storm windows. It is almost never cost-effective to replace windows just to save energy. According to EnergyStar.gov, replacing windows will save 7 to 24 percent of your heating and air-conditioning bills, but the larger savings would be associated with replacing single-glazed windows. However, if you are replacing windows for other reasons anyway, in many areas the additional cost of Energy Star–rated replacement windows is very modest, perhaps $15 per window. This upgrade would be cost-effective—and increase your comfort to boot.

Replacing windows will keep your home cooler in the summer and warmer in winter

3.) Plant landscaping/trees/shrubs around your home for shade:

If your house is older, with relatively poor insulation and windows, good landscaping (particularly deciduous trees) can save energy, especially if planted on the house’s west side. In summer, the foliage blocks infrared radiation that would warm the house, while in winter the bare branches let this radiation come through. Of course, if your house has very good insulation and Energy Star or better windows, the effect is much, much smaller because the building shell itself is already blocking almost all the heat gain.

Plant trees and bushes around your home

4.) Replace your older furnace with a high efficiency one:

If your furnace was built before 1992 and has a standing pilot, it probably wastes 35 percent of the fuel it uses, and it is probably near the end of its service life. In this case, in all but the warmest climates, ACEEE recommends early replacement with a condensing furnace with annual efficiency of at least 90 percent. This type of furnace wastes no more than 10 percent of the natural gas you buy, and may save you as much as 27 percent on your heating bill.