The Essential Guide To Energy Efficient Homes'

 If you are eager to tighten the purse strings, you might be keen to see your home save you cash rather than become a money pit. It’s all too easy to keep the heating on all winter and leave the windows for another year before you invest in some more double glazing. As your home costs you more and more money, your home becomes less and less efficient. Sustainable, green, and environmentally friendly are the buzz phrases of the moment. Our homes can help us to save money and save the planet at the same time.

If you are eager to make your home more energy efficient, you need to understand the methods that you can invest in to help keep more heat in your home during winter and to maintain a cool atmosphere in the balmy summer months. Take a look at this guide to energy efficient homes.

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Heating

The heating of your home will cost you a small fortune every winter. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, you need to ensure that you have enough insulation in your loft. This foamy material acts as a cushion to stop the hot air rising from leaving your home. The rooftop of your pad also needs to be inspected. A roofing contractor will soon tell you if you have a missing or slipped tile that could let cold air in and hot air out of your humble abode. Fixing this tiny issue will allow your home to become more heat efficient, saving you money.

Ensure that you move away from the traditional thermostat and opt for a smart alternative instead. The Internet of Things is a marvellous concept that has allowed your home to become semi-automated. As long as you have a 4G or WiFi connection and a smartphone, you can control the heating of your home from your device anywhere in the world. If you are heading home from work one winter evening and it is warmer than usual, you can turn your thermostat down rather than having to pay for unnecessary heating bills.

Look to your windows and check them for drafts. You can be paying for as much heating as you possibly can and yet a cold draft will negate all of your boiler’s power. Get some new glazing installed and enjoy a more constant temperature within your home.

If you’re still concerned about the size of your electricity and gas bills, try comparing prices online and getting better deals. As Amigo Energy points out, lower rates are available, provided you have the right discount codes. You can also use publicly-available information to choose a provider based on things like transparency of service, customer assistance, quality of billing and so on. If you're concerned about the environment, you can check the source of your electricity. Some providers offer green energy from solar, wind and tidal. 

Off-Grid

If you are keen to investigate more radical energy efficient ways of saving money in your home, think about installing solar panels on your roof. While they are expensive to fit initially, they can pay for themselves within a decade. The solar panels will use energy from the sun and convert this into electricity for your home. This means you will no longer have to pay a utility company and you can generate your own power. Going off-grid is empowering and can help you become more mindful of the electricity that you are using within the home. If you generate extra electricity, you can actually sell this back to the grid, making you a little profit.

If solar panels aren’t your thing, consider installing a mini wind turbine in your garden or on your roof. These harness wind power to generate energy for your home in the same way as the sun powers up solar panels.

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Maintenance

Any energy efficient home needs to be well maintained. The holes in your brickwork will need repointing - infact, your roof might also need someone like this roof repointing melbourne company to come out and see to it. Additionally, the slipped tile under your bay window will need replacing, and your home needs to be watertight. Ensure that you have the professionals in to service your appliances as necessary. A yearly service of your boiler is crucial to ensure that it works in an energy efficient way. Often, gas combi boilers can lose pressure and sometimes pipework can become blocked or freeze over. This can result in a massive outlay to get these problems fixed. An annual service will ensure that this doesn’t occur. Preventative measures are always cheaper and less hassle than waiting to fix more costly issues.

Becoming energy efficient is difficult if you don’t know where to start. The costly nature of energy efficient appliances, tools, and gadgets can appear prohibitive to many. However, with government grants and energy efficient schemes, you don’t always have to fork out the full amount to make your home more sustainable.

If you are eager to generate your own electricity, you want to go off-grid, you want to lower the running costs of your pad, and you are eager to do your bit to save the planet, follow this guide and make your home energy efficient.