All across America people are trying to find ways to cut energy costs. Statistics show that Americans spend more than $160 billion per year to light, heat, cool, and generally live in their homes. This is an enormous amount of money and is also one of the largest expenses a homeowner deals with in regards to their home. The following discussion includes a number of energy saving tips homeowners can use to help ease the burden of that dreaded utility bill. These tips are what we in the real estate world term “long-term investments” in lowering your utility bill. 

Corrections that Cost: Keep the heat and air in!

Although there are many free things you can do to help lower your energy bill, there are also a few expenses that are worth the output. Most of these expenses involved ensuring that the heat and air you are pumping into your home are staying there. 

Even if you have a recently updated heat/air system, you need to make sure that your home is insulated well enough so you are not “heating the neighborhood” as the saying goes. If your home was built around or before 1980, chances are it does not have enough insulation in the walls. Paying to have your home reinsulated is well worth the money. There are a few ways you can do this:

• Have insulation “blown in” to your walls. Insulation companies drill 2” holes, and blow insulation into your walls, capping these holes with a matching plastic cover.
• Using the same technique of blown-in insulation, add layers to your attic space as well. Because hot air rises, this can keep heat from escaping through the roof.
• You can also add rolls of insulation either in the ceiling or on the floor of your attic space.
• If it is feasible, consider adding insulation to your crawl space or basement. Lining the underneath side of your floors with insulation can help maintain the desired temperature in your home.

Speaking from personal experience, insulation is a justifiable expense. When we had our 1940’s home reinsulated this last year, we were told that our insulation did not come above the bottom 1-2 feet in our walls. Suddenly, not only could we tell a difference in the amount of times our furnace kicked on in a day, but we could no longer sing along with the cars driving by jamming out to their music. Blocking out the high schoolers’ rap music is an added benefit! 

Another way that your heat and air escape your home is through the necessary openings: that’s right, doors and windows! For an older home, the most effective correction is a complete overhaul of the door and window system. Older windows just were not built to the same insulating specifications as windows are today. However, there are much simpler ways that you can ensure the retention of your coveted kilowatts:

• On doors, check the weather-stripping to ensure that it is completely intact. Replacing weather stripping is a cheap and easy way to keep your air in.
• For doors and windows, quickly inspect the lining caulk. If the caulk is cracked, worn, or missing, there’s a good chance that it’s not doing a good job insulating the openings. If the gap is minor, get a tube of caulk from the local hardware store and patch it up! If the problem looks major, hire a window installer to re-caulk all of your windows and doors.
• A completely free solution, make sure that all doors and windows are completely shut and locked. Locking your windows will ensure that they don’t pop open as the weather changes. And we all know that in Rolla, MO, quick weather changes are inevitable.

While this article focuses mostly on cost-effective solutions to help insulate your home, there are free and easy ways to do the same thing. For more tips, check out the next article “Keep Energy from Being a Drain: Part II.”