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A Guide to More Efficient Home Heating and Cooling

Home heating and cooling is a crucial part of maintaining your home’s energy efficiency. As a matter of fact, estimates indicate that you might be spending up to 55% of your home’s energy usage on heating and air conditioning. That means if you can manage more efficient home heating and cooling, you’ll likely be able to cut down on your home’s energy usage phenomenally. Here’s what you need to do to maintain a more efficient home heating and cooling system.

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The Areas Where Your Home May Lose Energy

There are a couple of areas where homes tend to lose energy on the whole. If you’re worrying about home energy efficiency, here are the areas you should think about first and foremost:

  • Duct Register
  • Plumbing Vent Stack
  • Top Plate
  • Vent Fan
  • Dryer Vent
  • Windows
  • Doors
  • Sill Plate
  • Crawl Space

These are all generalized areas where your home may end up losing energy for one reason or another. Hot air during the winter tends to escape through the top of the home, while cool air during the summer tends to escape through the bottom of the home. If you want to make sure you’re retaining as much conditioned air as possible, these are the most common places you’re going to want to check first.

Tips and Tricks for Improving Energy Efficiency

What can you do to improve your home’s energy efficiency? There are a number of things that you can do to make your home even just a bit more energy efficient. Here are a few of the things you might want to consider to make your home more energy efficient overall.

  • 5-30%: Sealing air leaks with caulk, spray foam, and weather stripping
  • 10%: Using a programmable thermostat to turn down the energy usage while you sleep
  • 12-33%: Installing storm windows
  • 15%: Installing an EnergyStar gas furnace
  • 20%: Crawl space insulation and encapsulation

These are all things that you can do to make your home more energy efficient overall. Of course, these energy savings may vary depending on what you have for your current energy efficiency measures. However, especially if you don’t already have energy efficiency measures in your home, these can significantly decrease the amount of energy you’re using to heat and cool your home.

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Why Should You Consider Upgrading Energy Efficiency?

Some people might not know why they really need to upgrade their energy efficiency in their home. After all, if you’ve never had any issues with energy efficiency, you might not even know why energy efficiency issues could have an impact on your home as a whole. Here are just a few of the ways that energy efficiency measures can benefit you:

  • Energy efficiency is good for the environment
  • Although it can cost money up front to update your energy efficiency measures, they can pay for themselves with lower utility costs
  • You may be able to claim tax credit if you invest in home insulation
  • Your living spaces may be more comfortable even with less energy usage by avoiding issues with thermal performance

Upgrading your energy efficiency isn’t just good for your home. It’s good for the people who live in your home and it may even be good for your pocketbook. In the long run, it’s extremely likely that you’ll end up actually saving money due to your energy efficiency investments.

Conclusion

As you can see, energy-efficiency is an important element of your home’s performance. If you want to make sure you have a healthy home, you need to investigate energy efficiency measures first and foremost. If you follow these tips and tricks, including installing energy-efficient appliances and more, you’ll be able to maintain an energy-efficient and less-expensive home.

Gail P
I am a beachy type of person, living in Newport Beach, and oftentimes I’ll go for a swim with my daughter. When I’m bored, I’ll help make package boxes for my little girl’s sticker company on Etsy.