Collaborative Post
If you are keen to do whatever you can to try and reduce your impact on the planet, then as with much of charity, it is going to start at home. Your home is where you can have the greatest impact one way or the other, and as such it is the main place that you will want to focus on when you are trying to do your best to be energy efficient. The whole thing about energy efficiency can be very confusing at times, but as long as you are happy to put the necessary effort in, you should find that it is much easier than you might have thought. In this article, we will look specifically at a few of the changes that you might consider making at home in order to improve the energy efficiency of the home as a whole.
Upgrade Your Windows
The windows are one of the main places that lose heat from the house. When you lose heat at a fast rate, that obviously means that you need to then replace that heat – which in most cases will ultimately require the burning of fossil fuels. This is what we are trying to avoid, so if you can manage to avoid that heat being lost in the first place you will find that it really makes a difference to how much you need to heat the home again. That will mean that you need to keep your windows up to date, as older ones are more likely to lose heat. You’ll also need to look into whether you are using the best possible materials, as some windows are more likely to retain heat than others. The best chance is to go for timber alternative uPVC sash windows, which are likely to be much more energy efficient than whatever you might have at present.
Insulate Your Home
If your home is not well-insulated, then that is another way by which you are going to lose heat, and ultimately that will mean using the heating more and burning more fuel. It will also have the unfortunate effect of costing you much more in energy over the year too. If you want to try and do away with that, then you will have to ensure that your home is as well-insulated as possible, which is going to save you a lot of money in the long run even if you have to spend a little upfront at first. If you have solid walls, which you probably do, then you can choose to either go for internal or external insulation. You could save hundreds a year in any case, and it is absolutely one of the major things that you need to focus on if you are hoping to be as energy-efficient as possible in your home.
Change Your Lighting
The lighting accounts for a decent amount of the energy used in your home. If you can manage to work on improving the efficiency of the lighting, then you will be making a huge difference to your home’s energy efficiency on the whole. Changing the lighting is easy enough, but you first need to know what your best options are, so that you can ensure that you are going to change it to the right thing. The best that you will probably want to go for is LED lighting. This form of lighting is extremely powerful, but most of all it is highly efficient, and you should be making a point of using it wherever you possibly can in your home. With LED lighting, you will be saving so much energy, and you will be amazed at the kind of money you are saving too – which is always going to be something of a bonus.
Install Renewable Energy Sources
Finally, if you really want to do as much as you possibly can to help the planet, then you will want to think about switching to more renewable forms of energy consumption in the first place. Reducing the amount of energy you use is great, but it’s even better to simply ensure you are using renewable energy first and foremost. One of the best forms is solar, which you can make use of easily these days by simply installing a few solar panels at home. These pay for themselves, usually within a year or two, and you might even be at the point where you can sell energy back to the grid after a while. This is absolutely something that will benefit your pocket and the planet.
The smallest changes often have the biggest impact