Being energy efficient can make a huge difference to the overall cost of your energy bill. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are indicating towards big investments. Get ready to see your energy bills deflate and your home becoming greener without investing thousands of rupees on technology. Here are the top 7 ways to save energy at home.
Why Should We Be Conserving Energy?
Before we dig into the tips, it is first important to understand the very significance of energy conservation. Well, most of you will answer – “To Save Money”, that’s surely not a wrong answer, but there is much more that. Here are the top reasons to conserve energy:
- The biggest reasons – Conservation can save you money.
- Less electricity usage means less fossil fuels burned. Fossil fuels aren’t renewable sources, hence the more electricity we consume, the faster these resources would vanish.
- Less use of fossil fuel means less pollution and less greenhouse gas emissions.
- Energy conservation can also help in reducing the risk of oil spills and the coercion that oil and coal procurement pose to our ecosystems across the globe.
In simple terms, the two major motives for conserving energy are to save on utility bills and protect the environment. Now let’s move on to how to save energy.
7 Pocket-Friendly and Easy Ways to Save Energy at Home
There are several diverse ways to lessen your household’s energy use, ranging from meek behavioural adjustments to widespread home improvements. Here are the 7 most simples ones:
1. Use Light Color Paints
Paint your house and the roof with light colors. Lighter colors tend to reflect radiant heat from the home which further helps in saving on cooling cost. Painting the roof white or with a light color is another great idea to ensure that your roof reflects more heat. Also, there are several paints, seals, and coatings available for a roof, just know which ones to use on your roofing material. Also, these seals and coatings work great at increasing the life of the roof as well.
2. Reflective Coatings
Window films or tints help in reducing energy loss and lowering cooling costs by nearly 50 percent. In addition to providing energy savings, these reflective window coatings block annoying glare and also reject the UV light to reduce fading and guard interior furnishings.
3. Insulate Your Walls
Without proper wall insulation in your home, air (heated and cooled) can easily escape. It works the other way too, hot or cold air from the outside can make way into your home and make it hotter during hot months and cooler during the cold ones. Energy experts say that about 35 percent of heating and cooling is lost through the walls, hence to make a home energy efficient it is important that it is sufficiently insulated for your climate.
Identifying basic insulating materials are important. Here is a list of basic insulating materials; wool insulation materials, slag slabs, natural fibre insulation materials, Porotherm Bricks, gypsum board, vermiculite and perlite insulation materials, cementitious foam insulation materials, gasket cork sheet, insulation facings etc.
Read: Home Energy Savings: How Walls Can Save Energy
4. Seal Doors And Windows
An average home can lose up to 30 percent of its energy through air leaks. Most of the significant air leaks tend to occur around the doors and windows and can result in the wastage of precious home cooling and heating energy, hence it is important to seal all windows and doors. Replacing the old weather-stripping around the doors and the windows is a pocket-friendly way to save energy.
5. Shade Up With Plants
Planting shade trees, bushes and plants and creating areas of shade around your property makes your home feel cool and fresh. By integrating shading plants and trees into your landscape, you can easily reduce the solar heat gain, further reducing your costs of cooling. There are many trees which can reduce the surrounding air temperatures by at least 9 Degrees.
6. Choose Appliance With Energy Star
Replace all your appliances with the ones that have energy stars on it. These appliances have the power to reduce your energy bill to up to 29 percent, which means you can save thousands of rupees every year on those bills.
7. Low Energy And Eco-Friendly Lighting Systems
Lighting makes a huge difference for the atmosphere as well as the mood of your home. Eco-friendly and low energy lighting is energy efficient, tend to last much longer, and consumes much less energy than the conventional lighting systems, later, you get to save money on energy bills. Today there are a slew of energy saving light bulbs available in the market. While they might cost you a bit more on the upfront, they save you a lot of money in the long run.
Final Thoughts
Well again, being energy efficient can make a big difference to your energy bills. But, it doesn’t really mean that only big investments can get you that. Also, energy saving is essential not only to minimize electricity bills but also to preserve it for future. These pocket-friendly and simple ways to save energy do contribute a lot towards this goal. The only thing you need is to think and plan ahead!
Read: Fully Air-Conditioned Yet Net Zero Energy Building- Meet Dinesh Pagariya
Curated by editor at Wienerberger India
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