Increase Your Home's Energy efficiency
With energy shortages and global climate change in the headlines, more and more homeowners and renters want to know how they can increase their home's energy efficiency. Whether you own your home or rent, almost every resident can do something to improve the energy efficiency of their dwelling.
Eliminating Air Leaks
Air leaks in your home reduce energy efficiency because they allow heated air to escape from your home in the winter and cooled air to escape in the summer. If you think your home has no air leaks, conduct an easy test with a lit candle. To test windows for air leaks, move any flammable window coverings like curtains or blinds away, and move the lit candle slowly around the perimeter of the window, holding the candle about six inches from the window. If the flame flickers, you have an air leak.
Common places where air leaks occur are around electrical outlets and switch plates, around molding, like window frames, baseboards and doors, around fireplace dampers, and around wall- or window-mounted air conditioners.
To increase energy efficiency around your electrical outlets and switch plates, purchase inexpensive foam insulators specially made for this purpose. Use a screwdriver to remove the plate that covers the outlet or switch and fit the foam sheet over the hole. Replace the plate, and you're done. The foam insulator will absorb most if not all of the cold air coming into your house through the outlet or switch plate opening, and will prevent heated air from escaping through the opening, thus increasing the energy efficiency of your home.
Eliminate air leaks around molding by sealing gaps with caulk, a thick glue-like substance that you squeeze out of a tube like toothpaste. Apply caulk to the gap between the molding and the floor, wall, or ceiling, to add even more energy efficiency to your home. Other leaks can be sealed using inexpensive weather stripping or insulation.
Increasing Lighting Energy efficiency
Approximately 10% of your electricity bill is attributable to lighting. The easiest way to increase your energy efficiency and save money right away is to replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. The cost of these bulbs has decreased significantly in recent years. If you watch for these bulbs on sale, you will find them very reasonably priced, especially when you consider that they will last for several years and will reduce your electricity bill. Moreover, compact fluorescent bulbs are now available in a number of different light types, without casting the cold, office-like light that most of us associate with fluorescent lighting. Today, you can purchase compact fluorescent bulbs that mimic daylight and incandescent lighting.
