subject: Save A Bundle With These Surprising Home Improvement Ideas [print this page] If making home improvements to address your energy use and utility bill is what you are thinking of doing, then you may be in for a surprise. In fact, the biggest energy change is not exactly what most people think.
What is the Surprising Home Improvement That Will Save You a Bundle?
There are a couple reasons for improving the energy efficiency in your home. You may realize we are impacting our environment and want to do your part to stop this. On the other hand, paying the ever increasing utility bills is something you just got tired of doing. Whatever the reason, you need to take a break before jumping in even if you are ready to do something.
Most people automatically think the biggest cost associated with energy use in their home is heating it in winter and cooling it in summer. This would certainly seem to make sense from a logical perspective. But logical fails the test in the case of energy.
Heating your water is the biggest use of energy in your home. Try to think it through even though this may be surprising at first. Exactly how many times a day is the shower or bath cranked on? Or how many times a week is the dishwasher cranked on? Do you own a pool? Do you own a Jacuzzi? Each of these energy requirements, particularly hot water for showers and dishwashers, will add up very quickly. You can make relatively painless home improvements to address these issues which is good news.
There is no denying we all need to take showers each day at least I hope! To improve your shower energy use, there are a couple of basic steps you can take. Getting a low flow shower head is the first idea. They restrict the volume of water coming out and they only cost a few bucks. The less hot water used, the less your water heater has to crank up. Don't worry, you will not notice a difference. Second, consider going with a solar water heater or a tankless system. Using a tankless water heater has advantages as well because it does not waste energy by firing up over and over during the day when you are not home even though solar works best because there are no energy requirements from your utility. Regardless of the reason, just make the change.
There are two solutions when it comes to dishwashers. Again, by heating the water without tapping your utility lines, solar water heaters can overcome the problem. Try to get an energy efficient dishwasher if you are not ready for that. What you are looking for is a product that has an Energy Star rating. According to this rating, the dishwasher is designed to minimize energy use with a savings of at least 25 percent compared to traditional machines.
If you want to go green, remember that it is not as painful as most people think. If you make small changes such as how you heat your water, can make a major difference to both the environment and your utility bill.
