The sunny San Luis Valley is the ideal location to be thinking about improving the efficiency of your home. As the prices of gas, electricity, and water creep up, more and more homeowners are seeking the savings that come with an environmentally-friendly household.
Are you interested in making your home more energy-efficient, and saving money in the process? Read on to discover what energy-saving opportunities you may be missing out on.
1. Get an energy audit
SLVREC offers an energy audit:
From windows and doors to heat pumps, there are tons of affordable upgrades available for your home or business. Take advantage of the San Luis Valley REC Electrify and Save On-Bill Repayment program (OBR) for a simple and transparent financing option.
If you want a personalized rundown of everything you could do to and for your house to make it more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly, an energy audit is a must.
2. Swap out your lightbulbs
Compact fluorescent or even LED bulbs are more expensive than incandescent bulbs, but they also last at least 10 times longer than incandescents and use only about 25% of the energy of an incandescent bulb.
As your incandescent light bulbs flicker out, consider replacing them with a greener alternative. And if you decide to swap them all out at once, you'll start seeing a difference pretty quickly in your utility bills!
3. Pay attention to the sun
There's a lot you can do to heat and cool your home without spending any money at all -- but you'll need to keep tabs on where the sun is in the sky.
- In the northern hemisphere, windows with southern exposure are going to get the most direct sunlight, so start with those.
- Make note of whether and when the sun shines into your home across every season, then adjust your habits (and your blinds) accordingly.
- For example, if the sun is shining directly into your house during the winter season, then you might be able to save some money on your heating bill by opening up all your curtains and blinds in the morning to allow the sun in. But if you're getting that direct sunlight in the dead heat of summer, then the opposite applies: Close your blinds and curtains in the morning to keep your house cool.
4. Weather-stripping your windows
Especially in some older houses, sometimes windows might not be entirely airtight -- meaning that you've got drafts from the outside sneaking hot or cold air into your home against your wishes.
A relatively cheap and easy fix is weatherstripping your windows to eliminate those drafts and ensure that what's outside doesn't creep inside and vice versa. It's as simple as a trip to a hardware store and a few minutes to weatherstrip each window back at the house.
5. Turn down your water heater
Hot water feels amazing in the shower, but here's the rub: your water heater is constantly working, and if you've got the gauge set at a high temperature, then "consistently hot" takes a lot of energy to maintain.
- Take a look at your water heater's settings and ask yourself if the hot water really needs to be as hot as you have it.
- Turning down the temperature ten or even five degrees can result in some surprising savings -- and you might not even notice when you're mixing that hot water with cold for your ablutions!
6. Swap out your shower heads
If you like to take long showers, this fix can be especially helpful: change your current shower head for a low-flow version that uses less water. These often have several settings for pressure and spray so that you can customize your shower experience -- and you probably won't even notice that you're using significantly less water once you make the change.
7. Buy a smart thermostat
You don't necessarily need a "smart" thermostat for your home (although it's always nice to change the temperature using a phone app from the couch -- just saying!), but if you don't have a thermostat that you can adjust to change the temperature at different times of the day, then you should definitely invest in one.
For example, you could set your thermostat to lower the temperature of the house by 10 to 15 degrees when you're at work during the day, and instruct it to start bringing the temperature back up to "normal" an hour to 30 minutes before you arrive home. Many thermostats even let you designate temperature by days of the week, so if you know that you're almost never home on Saturday night or Sunday morning, you can adjust your temperature accordingly.
8. Insulate (and maybe air-seal) your basement and attic
You may know that heat rises, and that applies as much inside your house as it does outside.
That means a drafty attic could result in a lot of energy spent keeping the house warm in the wintertime, and it won't do you any favors in the summer, either. An uninsulated basement can also let in cold air in the wintertime and out in the summertime. Check to see if your basement and attic are air-sealed and insulated. If not, consider investing in an upgrade.