How Full Home Energy Audits Save On Homeowner Utility Costs
Homeowners can increase their home's value by setting up routine home maintenance tasks with an eye on how to reduce energy costs at the same time. Full home energy audits will pay off handsomely because they lower homeowner utility costs.
1. Hire A Home Audit Professional: Professional energy audits find the most common home-efficiency issues with answers to where a home is most vulnerable, generally beating do-it-yourself efforts.
2. Draft-proof All Exterior Doors: Adding weatherstripping to seal cracks exterior doors, or use a strip of pipe insulation. Do both sides, ensuring the insulation is on the softer side as the stiffer installation doesn't work as well.
3. Draft-proof All windows: For drafty windows, buying replacements windows will be most effective. To keep 25 percent of a home's heating costs from flying out of the window, use an insulation kit. Outside air comes in and warmed air escapes through leaky frames, accounting for 10 to 25 percent of heating costs.
4. Add Attic Insulation To Lower Home Energy Bills: To obtain an R35 or more, homeowners add 10 inches of cellulose on top of the existing insulation or whatever amount of insulation is needed per individual home's energy audit. Ask local city officials to find your home's best breathable balance is and calculated dew point.
5. Unplug Large Appliances When Not In Use: Modern digital appliances can become power suckers in your home and huge amounts of energy even when they're off. Unplugging flat-screen TVs, media playing centers, and music centers.
6. Service Home Heating Systems: Regular fall furnace maintenance to check furnace filter keeps it clean and changed. When furnace filters get dirty they make it really hard for air to get through which makes the motor in your furnace to work harder. Keep flex ducts straight and free of kinks. Seal loose connections around air handlers.
7. Update to Programmable Thermostats: It has been tested and proved true that homeowners use less energy when they turn down the unit during the day and program the unit to turn back up before return at the end of the day's activities.
8. Choke Your Home's Chimney With A Damper: Replace throat dampers in older homes built with masonry fireplaces.
Enjoying lower utility bills and the ability to contribute to saving on natural resources along with a more comfortable home are high pay offs of home improvements gained by conducting a home energy audit.
Home Destination, a Minneapolis residential Realtor and real estate consultant for sellers, home buyers, and Twin Cities home investors provides real estate advice and housing news. Read the full article on Lower Home Energy Bills and save on your homeowner utility bills. Call 612-396-7832 for a FREE consultation and help on real estate decisions.
Article Provided by Jeannie Hill
Homeowners can increase their home's value by setting up routine home maintenance tasks with an eye on how to reduce energy costs at the same time. Full home energy audits will pay off handsomely because they lower homeowner utility costs.
1. Hire A Home Audit Professional: Professional energy audits find the most common home-efficiency issues with answers to where a home is most vulnerable, generally beating do-it-yourself efforts.
2. Draft-proof All Exterior Doors: Adding weatherstripping to seal cracks exterior doors, or use a strip of pipe insulation. Do both sides, ensuring the insulation is on the softer side as the stiffer installation doesn't work as well.
3. Draft-proof All windows: For drafty windows, buying replacements windows will be most effective. To keep 25 percent of a home's heating costs from flying out of the window, use an insulation kit. Outside air comes in and warmed air escapes through leaky frames, accounting for 10 to 25 percent of heating costs.
4. Add Attic Insulation To Lower Home Energy Bills: To obtain an R35 or more, homeowners add 10 inches of cellulose on top of the existing insulation or whatever amount of insulation is needed per individual home's energy audit. Ask local city officials to find your home's best breathable balance is and calculated dew point.
5. Unplug Large Appliances When Not In Use: Modern digital appliances can become power suckers in your home and huge amounts of energy even when they're off. Unplugging flat-screen TVs, media playing centers, and music centers.
6. Service Home Heating Systems: Regular fall furnace maintenance to check furnace filter keeps it clean and changed. When furnace filters get dirty they make it really hard for air to get through which makes the motor in your furnace to work harder. Keep flex ducts straight and free of kinks. Seal loose connections around air handlers.
7. Update to Programmable Thermostats: It has been tested and proved true that homeowners use less energy when they turn down the unit during the day and program the unit to turn back up before return at the end of the day's activities.
8. Choke Your Home's Chimney With A Damper: Replace throat dampers in older homes built with masonry fireplaces.
Enjoying lower utility bills and the ability to contribute to saving on natural resources along with a more comfortable home are high pay offs of home improvements gained by conducting a home energy audit.
Home Destination, a Minneapolis residential Realtor and real estate consultant for sellers, home buyers, and Twin Cities home investors provides real estate advice and housing news. Read the full article on Lower Home Energy Bills and save on your homeowner utility bills. Call 612-396-7832 for a FREE consultation and help on real estate decisions.
Article Provided by Jeannie Hill