Saving energy in your home may be more simple than you think. Make 2017 the year YOU save energy, and money, with these simple home hacks.
As a homeowner, you are probably well aware of the environmental and economic struggles your property can bring. If you are environmentally conscious, you may be concerned about the amount of power and heat your home uses, and the effect this can have on our natural world.
From a more economical perspective, you may simply be sick of paying a huge energy bill every month; one that leaves you with very little cash to spare. Both of these situations are less than ideal, which is why a lot of people tend to resort to various measures to make their homes more environmentally friendly and cheaper.
This kind of thing usually involves replacing regular appliances with models designed for saving energy or installing alternative energy sources such as solar panels. But what can you do if this just isn’t an option for you and your family? After all, brand new appliances and solar panels don’t exactly come cheap. Thankfully, there are ways you can become more eco-friendly and save money along the way by making just a few simple changes to your home.
Saving Energy : Retaining Heat
Does it feel like you’ve constantly got your central heating on, but your home is never actually all that warm? You could be losing heat in a number of different ways. This marks your heating system as essentially redundant – not something you want when it’s eating a hole in your bank account every month! One way heat could be escaping from your home is through your roof. A roof with barely-there tiles is only going to leave your home open to the elements, meaning you’ll get a breeze throughout the property pretty much constantly.
Look into roofing insurance claims to make sure that the roof you’ve had installed will stand the test of time in all weather. You are also likely to lose heat through cracks around windows and doors, so try putting expanding foam sealant in these cracks around winter to make sure that you keep all the heat to yourself.
Saving Energy : Getting the Most Out of Your Appliances
Before you shell out money on a brand new ‘energy saving’ washing machine or dishwasher, think about the way in which you are using your current ones. A huge proportion of people lose money and waste energy due to not using household equipment to their full potential. For example, are you guilty of having used your dishwasher for maybe only five or six plates? Or do you tend to use your washing machine for just a few items of laundry at a time? This is a really common reason behind many people paying more than they need to for their energy bills. So, with this in mind, only switch on these appliances when they are full.
Saving Energy : Saying Goodbye to the Red Light
Keeping your electronics plugged in and on standby overnight is something nearly all of us do. After all, who wants to be messing around with plugs and switches when you get up in the morning to catch the pre-work news? But actually, those 30 seconds spent switching on the mains energy could end up being totally worth your while. We might think that standby means ‘off’ – but actually out electronics are still using power when they are in this state. Retrain your brain into thinking that ‘off’ means ‘off’ – that means saying goodbye to the red standby light.
We might think that standby means ‘off’ – but actually our electronics are still using power when they are in this state. Retrain your brain into thinking that ‘off’ means ‘off’ – that means saying goodbye to the red standby light.
