Your home is your place of refuge. It’s where you spend the majority of your time, and where you recharge at the end of the day. And since you spend the most of your time there, it makes sense that you start at home if you want to make some significant improvements to your lifestyle and habits to positive impact the environment and reduce your carbon footprint. Here are a few ways that you can build an energy efficient home and home life.
Use energy-efficient appliances
If you have worn out appliances, like refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, washers, dryers and more, that you need to upgrade, opt for Energy Star appliances. These types of appliances meet energy-efficient specifications set by the Environmental Protection Agency, and use 10-50% less energy than standard appliances and help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
If you want to take a closer look at your energy impact, you can also get an energy audit of your home done. A company like Electricity Monster can easily help you with this, and assist you in evaluating where this is inefficient or wasted energy usage in your home.
Install solar panels
If you’re able to make a long-term investment, one of the best things you can do in your home is install solar panels. They aren’t necessarily cheap to install when you look at the up-front call, but the impact overtime is lasting and significant. By installing solar panels, your home will be able to generate its own energy, which is pretty cool on its own! In addition, over time, solar panels can reduce and even altogether eliminate your monthly energy bill, promote lower fossil fuel usage and may help you qualify for annual tax incentives.
Add in some insulation
If you have an attic, you can improve energy efficiency in your home by adding insulation, which can help improve heating and cooling costs in your home. This is a fairly low cost upgrade you can make to your home that will have a big impact. You can also make sure that all windows in your home are sealed up tight, and not letting excess air in or out of the house.
Optimize your yard
Energy efficient changes don’t need to happen just inside the house – you can also look outside to make impactful changes. For example, you can start a compost pile, which you don’t need a ton of space to do, just some time and effort. Start a compost pile by stockpiling organic waste in a pile or container so it decomposes over time instead of going into a landfill. Plus, your compost pile can become valuable fertilizer for your lawn, and reduce your daily trash output.
Making significant environmental changes to your home doesn’t take a lot of time, or even a lot of money, it just requires some research and effort. And the changes will last long into the future for your home, and your family. Do the legwork now and you’ll reap the benefits for years to come!