Energy Efficiency - Energy Saving Tips

Essentially, the way the greenhouse effect works is that sunlight is transmitted through the glass of a greenhouse which in turn is converted into heat.  The same glass that the transmitted those heat rays from the sun then serves as insulation that holds the heat inside the greenhouse.  The greenhouse effect is also what causes your car to be hot when it’s left out under the hot sun.  How can you make efficiency improvements to your home by utilizing the greenhouse effect?

1. When the sun is shining and you want to heat up your home, open up all of your blinds, or whatever type of window treatments you may have.  If your blinds are closed, they will prevent the sun’s rays from entering your home, not enabling you to take advantage of the greenhouse effect.
2. Use your blinds to insulate your home when you want to either retain hot or cold air.  On cold winter days close the blinds when there’s not a lot of sunshine to increase your home’s insulation and thereby make your heater function more efficiently. 

One of the best (affordable) investments that you can make to help reduce your energy costs is to buy a programmable thermostat. They are easy to afford and easy to install. A programmable thermostat allows you to automatically control the temperature of your home by programming when your HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) unit is on. Programming it to a high temperature in summer and a low temperature in winter when you will be out of the house for an extended period of time can save you a decent amount of money on your heating and cooling costs.

Everyone has a room or rooms in their house that they don’t spend a whole lot of time in, so why pay to heat or cool them when it’s not necessary?  Close the registers and doors to those rooms to seal them off.  Take it a step further by laying something across the door’s threshold, like an old towel, to further seal it off.

You can also consider closing registers and doors to block off bathrooms and laundry rooms, which really don’t need HVAC very much. 

If your family spend most of the time at home in the family room, or another room, consider using a portable heating device rather than using the whole-house heating system. This, too, can save energy usage and cost. Just make sure that you are using portable heaters safely and never around children.

Another way to be sure you use your HVAC system less is with the installation and/or use of ceiling fans. A person’s comfort level is not necessarily dependent on the temperature of the room they are in, but on the temperature of their skin. For that reason, a ceiling fan can help you to feel cooler, even if the temperature of the room isn’t changed. Actually, if anything, a ceiling fan heats up the air in a room – so never leave a ceiling fan on when no one is in the room.