Lighting your home accounts for around 16% of your hydro bill over the light summer months and for even more when winter sets in. There are many innovative ways to reduce your lighting bill that won’t involve you yelling at the kids to turn off the lights.
As the cooler weather moves in, most homeowners are dreading those high energy bills. Luckily, there are ways in which you can reduce your energy consumption significantly.
Whether you are retrofitting your existing home or thinking of a new addition, you can take this opportunity to improve your home’s energy efficiency. Having an efficient building envelope will save on your monthly bills, increase your resale value and it’s great for the environment.
If winter heating is your biggest utility expense, then use these quick and easy steps to lower your bills, save money and reduce the negative impact you have on your environment. While some improvements in the efficacy of your building envelope are cheap (like caulking cracks and holes), others may be more costly (like replacing your furnace with an Energy Star one). In instances where you are spending more, check whether the government incentives and tax cuts to promote energy efficiency cover some of your costs.
Tankless water heaters make sense in theory. It does seem like a waste of energy to have a large tank of water being continuously heated in your home, even when you don’t need it. Tankless water heaters use gas to heat water on demand and boast savings of up to 20% on your utilities bill. They do come with some drawbacks, the most prohibitive of which is the considerable cost of these units. We take a look at the pros and cons of tankless water heaters to decide if they are a worthwhile investment.
There is no recipe for the perfect net zero home, but there are principles that guide the design professional in creating a structure where all the components work together in a harmony of energy conservation and generation. Energy is conserved with an effective building envelope, efficient appliances and structural orientation while a source of renewable energy provides all the power you need for a clean energy slate. Here are the (arguably) five most important elements in creating an effective net zero structure.
Creating energy is a complex and surprisingly inefficient process. This process is especially inefficient when we use fossil fuels to generate electricity like natural gas and coal. When these fossil fuels are burned, large amounts of heat energy is lost. We then send electricity through miles of cables where further losses occur. This means that when you save 1kw of energy in your homes, you’re actually saving three or four; now that’s a great return on investment.
The reasons for investing in an energy efficient home are legion. As green technology improves and prices drop, energy efficient homes become more competitively priced. With energy consumption accounting for up to 15% of home ownership, homeowners are making the obvious choice. The savings taken over the lifetime of the home mean that home buyers can opt for higher priced homes or for more expensive finishes.
The building envelope is the shell that keeps the interior of your building at a comfortable temperature. An efficient building envelope will drastically reduce your energy consumption (by as much as 50% in some cases) which helps you to save money and reduces the carbon footprint of your home or business. Whether you are planning to retrofit an existing building, or are embarking on a new build, establishing an effective building envelope is the key to green building success and energy savings.
Older homes are a great buy for the home improvement enthusiast, but they harbour outdated, often dangerous electrical wiring that needs to be replaced by a qualified electrician. While homes built in the ‘70s and ‘80s may be structurally sound, various building projects have, over the decades, reduced the electrical system to a shambolic accident waiting to happen. Here are some tips to make upgrading as seamless as possible:
