Energy-Saving Steps For Your Home
We all want to do our part to help the environment, but where to start? The easiest place to start is in your home! With a few adjustments, you can make your home much more energy-efficient — and cheaper to maintain as well.
Switch To LED Lights
It wasn’t long ago that LED lights were fairly untested technology — they were hot, large, and expensive, with bulbs running upwards of $20 apiece.
Now, LED bulbs are as inexpensive as fluorescents, but they’re brighter, they turn on quickly and don’t flicker, and you can buy them in a range of color temperatures. You can even get smart bulbs that change color or turn on automatically!
Besides that, LED bulbs last a lifetime, so you never have to worry about changing them. They don’t contain mercury like fluorescents, so you don’t have to worry about pollution when they break, and they use a tiny fraction of the energy of incandescents or even fluorescents. For a small upfront cost, you can completely replace the bulbs in your home with LEDs and make a huge dent in your power bill — and your carbon footprint.
Turn The Heat Down
It’s a lot easier to wear a long-sleeved shirt than to heat your whole house to a balmy 72 degrees, but even if you like it warm, there are some steps you can take to ensure that your heating bill isn’t going through the roof.
We mean “going through the roof” literally — a lot of heat escapes through the roof of your house. Warm air rises, and a poorly insulated attic means that you’re just heating the world outside rather than the areas where you actually live.
If you get big icicles hanging from your roof in the winter, it’s a sign that your roof isn’t insulated well — the warm roof makes the snow melt, only to re-freeze as it drips off the edge. Insulation is cheap and easy to install, and it can make a significant difference in retaining heat in your home.
Another area to address is your windows. Replacing windows with double- or triple-glazing is by far the most effective way to insulate your home, but it’s also extremely expensive. Luckily, there are much easier alternatives. First, make sure your windows are sealed properly. Feel around for gaps that let cold air in and seal them up with caulk or foam.
You can also buy cling film that simply sticks to the window glass itself, reflecting infrared light back in to keep the house warm and UV away to keep it cool. It’s inexpensive and easy to install, and can lower your heating costs significantly.
Finally, just keep the curtains closed! Curtains add an extra layer of static air between your window and the rest of the room, making a makeshift bubble that keeps sunlight out in the summer and warm air in when it’s cold.
How Carpets Can Help
Believe it or not, carpets can make a big difference in the amount of energy your home uses. In winter, carpet feels much warmer underfoot, so you can keep your home a few degrees cooler and still feel comfortable walking around. In summer, carpets are more comfortable to walk on in bare feet, so you don’t need to crank the air conditioning!
In addition, carpets provide a valuable layer of insulation between the stories of your house. Between the loft of the carpet itself and the foam carpet padding underneath, carpets can keep heat from moving between floors, heating and cooling areas of the home that you don’t want to waste energy on.
You might think that replacing your carpet just to lower your heating bill is far too expensive to be worth it — but not at Sloane’s Carpet Secret! We offer brand-name carpets at discount prices, some as low as $1.00 per square foot. With the average home spending around $600 a year on heating, finishing a few rooms with our low-cost high-quality carpet will pay for itself in no time.