Hacks For Making Your Home More Energy Efficient

In today’s increasingly environmentally conscious world, making your home more energy efficient is essential. Doing so can not only help reduce your home’s carbon footprint but can often save homeowners a lot of money in the long run. Fortunately, there are a variety of hacks that can be used to easily and cost-effectively make your living space more energy efficient. This article will explore some of these hacks and provide tips on implementing them.

Why Energy Efficiency Should Be A Priority

With resources becoming more scarce and increasingly expensive, energy efficiency is more important than ever. For homeowners, making energy-efficient decisions should be a priority to save money, reduce their environmental impact and ensure their homes are comfortable and safe. Not to mention, the government provides financial incentives for making energy-efficient choices.

For example, homeowners who make their homes more energy efficient can receive a tax rebate of up to $1,500 in some states. And if those aren’t enough reasons to make energy-efficient decisions, doing so can also help improve the resale value of your home. In some cases, energy-efficient features may even be a requirement for selling your home!

Hacks To Make Your Home More Energy Efficient

With all of those different benefits in mind, there are many different hacks that you can use to make your home more energy efficient. Give a few of the following ideas a try and see how you can improve your home’s energy efficiency:

Plant Some Shady Shrubs

Planting shady shrubs around your home can be a great way to reduce your household’s energy consumption. The foliage of trees and shrubs can help block out the direct sunlight that would otherwise enter your windows, potentially reducing your cooling costs by up to 10%, depending on the situation. This is why landscaping is essential for effectively using the sun’s energy and ensuring your home remains cool in the summertime.

Furthermore, when you install this kind of landscaping along the eastern and western sides of your home, winds can be deflected away from windows while maintaining natural airflow throughout your property. A well-thought-out combination of tree and shrub placement can keep out unwanted sunlight and direct comforting breezes where you need them most!

Set Your Water Heater To Warm

As simple as it may sound, setting your household water heater to warm instead of hot can significantly reduce the energy costs associated with heating water. It requires little effort but has a sizable impact on utility bills and the environment. The warmer setting also takes advantage of natural insulation in pipes, ensuring cold water requires minimal heating energy.

Additionally, users find that warm water works perfectly for everyday needs such as taking showers and washing dishes, so there is no difference in terms of the amount of comfort you experience in your household. This simple hack is a great way to become more energy efficient without sacrificing home comforts.

Use Your Pressure Cooker More Often

Although most people are accustomed to cooking everything in their conventional oven, a pressure cooker can be another great way to reduce energy consumption. A pressure cooker uses roughly 80% less energy than a traditional oven and can also help reduce the time required for cooking meals, often by several minutes.

The idea behind this hack is that pressure cookers can retain heat much more effectively than an oven. So, if you are looking for a quicker and more efficient cooking method, try switching to your pressure cooker the next time you need to prepare a meal! Not only will this help save energy, but it can also make cooking your favorite recipes faster and easier.

Switch Your Washer To Cold

Making simple changes to your daily habits can greatly impact the environment and your energy consumption, and switching your washer to cold is one of those changes. Not only does this decrease the amount of energy it takes for the machine to heat up the water, but it also helps promote more sustainable laundering practices that use fewer chemicals.

Cold-water detergents help dissolve and clean better than those intended for hot water, meaning they will be more effective in getting clothes cleaner while using less product. It’s so easy to make a positive impact while doing something as routine as laundry – all with one flip of a switch!

Use Your Ceiling Fan More

Did you know that using your ceiling fan can make a major difference in your home’s energy efficiency? Ceiling fans not only help to cool but also to heat. Heat rises, and so does the heat from your home heating system, making ceiling fans incredibly effective for circulating air. When used as intended within a room, ceiling fans can make it feel up to 8 degrees cooler during summer and 4-6 degrees warmer in winter.

They are efficient at temperature regulation and provide a cost-effective alternative to increasingly expensive air conditioning systems. A great way to use your ceiling fan to save energy is by remembering that in summer, the blades should spin counterclockwise to draw down cool air, while in the winter, they should spin clockwise to send hot air downwards – a simple change that you will notice on your energy bills!

Unplug Your Chargers

While it may not seem like it, the small action of unplugging your chargers when not in use can make a big difference in the energy used in homes. It’s pretty staggering when you look at how many electronics and appliances are still consuming energy when they are not even turned on. Not only does it waste electricity, but it also means more money is spent on the energy bill each month than needed.

Unplugging chargers for electronic devices such as smartphones is especially important as leaving these plugged in can contribute to overall electricity consumption by up to 10%. It’s an easy habit to develop and a simple way to be mindful of your electricity consumption.

Set Your Thermostat 2 Degrees Lower

How often can you tell the difference between a 2-degree temperature change? If you are like most people, not very often. But the simple habit of lowering your thermostat by 2 degrees during winter and raising it by 2 degrees during summer can significantly impact your energy consumption each month. It’s such a small change, but even if heaters and air conditioners are set to turn automatically, you can still save energy by reducing the temperature setting.

The amount of extra money saved on your energy bill may be small, but those savings will add up over time and significantly impact your overall budget. So why not start today with this simple lifestyle change? You’ll do your part in helping to conserve energy!

Try Some Simple Things To Make Your Home More Energy Efficient!

There are many simple and effective hacks to make your home more energy efficient, from switching your washer to cold to using your ceiling fan more. And while each of these may not seem like an earth-shattering change, they can significantly affect your energy consumption. Whether you are unplugging chargers or setting your thermostat 2 degrees lower, these small changes can help you reduce your carbon footprint and decrease your energy costs at the same time. So why not start today?