As fossil fuel prices rise to ridiculous levels, green building techniques and energy efficiency are becoming increasingly crucial for the everyday homeowner. However, the average consumer is unaware of how much they can do to protect their home from heat transfer and air loss. A compact building envelope holds in cold air in summer and hot air in winter, shortening the operating time of central air conditioning systems (HVAC) and other alternatives. Home improvement services in Madera do not need to cost so much.
Here are six quick home repairs that the average homeowner can easily do to save money and energy.
Door and Window Sealing
The most common place where a house can lose energy is the wall openings – doors and windows. Carefully inspect these openings to check for drafts and airflow, then reduce your building energy loss by deciding the best way to insulate them. Sealing cracks and stoppings gaps are one way to prevent uninvited airflow between conditioned and unconditioned space. Spray polyurethane foam, or expanded foam products,can fill large areas between a wall and a door or window.
Don’t be afraid to remove the frames – you may be surprised at what you see! Here, repairs are cheap and bring immediate results.Renova Home Improvements provide air conditioning services in Merced, California, and its surrounding towns. Contact them for these kinds of services.
Seal Up Your Foundation
The part of your house that is in direct contact with the earth is also the most susceptible to moisture. A damp basement will cause mold and other health risks and reduce the efficacy of heating and cooling units. If you plan to carry out new construction, your foundation can be filled with filter fabrics made of geotextile materials to prevent water from entering your house through the foundation. Waterproof membranes and materials can be added on both sides of the base or slab for existing homeowners. This membrane can be made of clay or even rubber materials and can be easily applied or painted on with brushes to protect your home from unwanted moisture.
Wall Cavity Insulation
Many brick houses were built with an empty gap between two layers of external walls, and it is prettywidespread that your home might be one of them. This cavity acts as a poor heat absorber and can be primarily responsible for most of your energy bills. There is a lot of room for home improvement in this regard.
Fortunately, modern methods of insulating these wall cavities are simple and thoroughly effective. Spray insulation materials include fillers made of recycled cellulose, polyurethane, or polystyrene, which expand to fill the gap and eliminate unwanted drafts. If you live in a brick house and the walls feel and sound airy, you might need to look behind them and find out how much extra space you own!
Radiant Barriers
When your house fills with air conditioning, it tries to escape outside – and the escape pathway is most likely through your roof. A simple way to limit the escape of heat and cold from the top of the house is to install a radiant barrier. This simple equipment in its entirety is barely more than a thin sheet of reflective foil that you can spread out and attach to roof rafters to improve the airflow of your home significantly. Radiant barriers can also be installed on your attic floor or even on the house’s exterior walls. These barriers are not insulative but rather reflect the radiant heat into the house to keep it warm, or in the hot summer months, they can reflect up to 95% of the solar energy that falls on your roof, cooling the attic.
Buy them in panels or large reels – installation is simple, and the product is efficient enough to reduce your electricity bills by up to 10 or 15% per year, especially in warmer climates. Renova Home Improvements offers cool roof estimates in Hanford and its environs, just if you need to repair your roof and maybe “radiant barrier” it.
Use CFL bulbs
You’ve probably heard of them. Maybe you thought these spiral-looking bulbs weren’t attractive, or perhaps you don’t like the kind of light they emit. These excuses barely hold water anymore, as new CFL technology has created light bulbs that look like standard light bulbs and emit much whiter and cleaner light than ever before. CFLs will save you incredible amounts on light bills as they consume 75% less electricity than conventional light bulbs and emit 75% less heat! Compact fluorescent lamps have an 8 to 10 times longer lifespan than standard bulbs, and in almost all cases, the bulbs pay for themselves over their lifetime.
For homeowners who want to save energy, installing a CFL is a matter of when and not if in home improvement and renovation.