Tips for Reducing Your Heating & Cooling Bills
Tips for Reducing Your Heating & Cooling Bills
For most of us, the electric bill is the largest utility expense we have each month. And with the cost of common fuels rising sharply every single day, this expense is only going to get worse. The best thing we can do, is to start reducing how much electricity we use in our homes. There are actually many easy ways to do this too.
For most of us, heating and cooling the home is at least 50 to 70% of our monthly electricity bill. So many of these tips will address ways to heat and cool for home more efficiently.
1. Insulate your home. Older homes particularly have many cracks and crevices where air can come in or escape. During the summer, the cooler air from inside will rush out, or the hot air will come in. You can help reduce this loss by simply adding insulation around doors and windows.
2. Insulate your windows. Even after you install weatherstripping around the windows in the cracks and crevices, you may still be allowing heat in during the summertime if the sunshine strongly into a window. Likewise, in the winter time cold can come in through the window panes as well.
One of the best ways to insulate your windows, is to simply hang curtains, shades, or blinds. There are insulating curtains which can be hung at your windows in both the summertime and wintertime. These insulating curtains help block the hot air in the summer, and the cold air or in the winter. They have the added benefit in the summer, of keeping the strong hot sun from coming into your home and fading your furniture, or simply heating up the air.
3. Create your own shade. You can easily create your own weather control around your home, by simply planting bushes and trees, or installing awnings and porches. Bushes and trees are the easiest and least expensive, but they can’t take time to get the most benefit from if they are small when you plant them.
Planting a bush approximately 5 to 6 feet tall in front of a window which gets lots of sunlight in the summertime will help shade that window, and it will help cool the air that passes by it. You can also plant a tree which grows from 12 feet to over 25 feet tall, and it will provide shade for the roof of the home. When planting trees to create shade in the summertime, make sure that you choose one which will shed its leaves in the winter. This way it will not block the sunshine in the winter when you need it or to help heat your home.
If you don’t have the room or desire to plant trees and bushes, simply try a well cared for lawn or garden instead. The simple act of having lush greenery around your home, even in the form of simple grass, can lower the temperature by several degrees.
