The Top Energy Saving Products For Your Home

Environmental issues are getting an ever growing number of mentions in newspapers, on television and on the internet, increasingly making society aware of how our everyday behavior will one day have a catastrophic impact on our planet unless we start to change. Unfortunately, the thought of making a small contribution to a long term process doesn’t encourage people sufficiently to want them to make a difference to help reduce their carbon footprints. This is where money and savings can have a vital role! An upside of rising energy prices is that people are getting much savvier when it comes to potential savings to be made through improving their household’s energy efficiency to save money in the long run, thus indirectly cutting emissions. This is a quick guide to where in your home you could potentially make the greatest savings, and it also provides the the payback periods of different energy saving products for your home to help quantify which options are the most valuable. Disclaimer: this is a rough guide to give you a good place to start investigating, so all figures are approximate.

Inside Your Property – Home is Where the Heart Is

Change your shower heads. This will slash water use from 30% to 45% in your shower, and will cut costs by approximately $0.35 for every 10 minutes of use.

Seal any leaks in your air conditioning ducts. These are particularly likely at joints and corners, even when the ducts are wrapped with insulation. These are so harmful to efficiency because any gaps could be pulling in air up to 130F from the attic into your air conditioning system when you’re trying to cool the house in Summer, or as cold as 0F from air outside the house when you’re trying to heat your property in winter. This process done by a professional will cost a couple of hundred dollars, but will only take about 1.5 years to pay itself off.

Programmable thermostats are a great way to reduce bills and energy waste by ensuring you don’t heat up or air condition your property needlessly; if you’re at work, who cares if it’s hot in your house?! They cost from $100 to $125 to install, but if used properly will start saving you $200/year in an average sized home, or much more for a commercial property, hence it’s another measure which can pay itself off in under a year.

Replacing an old furnace with a new one is not a cheap process, but it is one of the most significant energy saving measures you can take, costing from $1,000 to $2,000, but paying itself off in approximately 4 years with up to 40% of energy saved.

Structural Changes – If These Walls Could Talk

A typical property loses up to 30% of its energy through its windows. Switching them for models with greater efficiency ratings will cost approximately $450 per window, taking 5-6 years to pay themselves off, not to mention the benefit of reducing noise from outside and meaning you can skip one round of window cleaning!

A new trend in architecture is thermal mass flooring, which has the ability to absorb a lot of heat energy to act as a buffer against fluctuations in temperature. It is, quite simply, flooring made out of much heavier materials like concrete or heavy woods, because these sorts of materials can absorb a lot of heat. This means they can either absorb the increase in temperature when it’s hot outside or they can stay warm when the weather is cold. The installation will cost from $3,000 upwards, but it will pay itself off in less than 10 years.

Cavity wall insulation costs from $200 to $800, and will save up $270 per year, typically covering its installation cost within 3 years. Insulation laid on the floor of your loft is cheaper still – from $100 to $700, saving more energy with just a 2 year payback period.

Radiant floors, or under-floor heating, are an alternative to thermal mass floor systems. Since heat from the floor rises and can come from the centre of your room, less energy is required to make sure you’re warm and cosy! It’s not cheap, starting at $4,000, but it can slash heating costs by 35%, taking under 10 years as a payback time.

Outside Your Home – A Breath of Fresh Air

Heat pumps are a brilliant technology that has become widely adopted in parts of Europe – the temperature underground stays fairly constant throughout the year. Heat pumps can harness this energy and concentrate it to provide heating for your home. They are expensive and tricky to install, but they’ll generate hot air and water, so the savings are very large and many states have incentives. They cost approximately $30,000, so a healthy bank balance or bargaining skills to get a loan may be required, but after paying themselves off in 10 years, you’ll earn a further $30,000 of profit over an assumed working life of the system of 20 years.

A popular option with keen gardeners is to collect rainwater to use as irrigation. Households are starting to become enamoured with this idea too – a large-scale system will set you back $2,000, but it will typically pay for itself over 10 to 12 years depending on the household’s water use and regional water costs. A cheaper alternative would be install rain barrels under your gutters.

Your Roof – The Sky’s the Limit

The material the roof is constructed with is important – “smart roofing” is built with reflective shingles that limit heat transferred out of your attic in the winter or into your loft in the summer. This measure will cost about $2,000 for the installation, but will pay for itself within 7 years, and is a great option if you can’t afford the next pair of suggestions…

Solar panels to generate electricity are eligible for a wide range of federal and state incentives, which mean that payback periods vary dramatically, possibly down to 5 years in certain states such as New Jersey, and around 9 years on average. The smallest systems cost approximately $11,000, and you can spend anywhere up to about $30,000 for a very large household solar power set up (which may pay itself off more quickly).

Solar panels can also generate hot water. These panels are a totally different type. They are cheaper to install, from $3,000 to $10,000, with a payback of approximately 10 years. They require a storage tank for the hot water that they produce, so if you have a combi-boiler, then their installation can be quite a lot more expensive because this additional tank will need installing, otherwise they’re yet another option to save the environment and your cash.

The range of measures is wide – this list is in no way comprehensive; if you got everything mentioned installed, then you’d be spending tens of thousands of dollars. There are also diminishing returns – the first thousand dollars spent will save the most carbon dioxide emitted, because if your energy use is already low, cutting it by 40% will make much less of a difference compared to a household with a much higher energy use. Carefully researching products to see the potential improvements they could mean for you, financially and environmentally, is the best way to go about making investments in efficiency. And don’t forget that many savings can be free, so go forth and do some research, take quick showers, and turn down your heating – compared to everything here, a nice cozy sweater would probably have the lowest time to pay itself off!

Guest post by James Hawkins, creator of Talk Solar Panels.

Related posts:

1. Available Energy Rebates For Going Green At Home.
2. Energy Saving Ideas For Green Houses And Cabins
3. Importance Of The Systems Inside Your Energy Efficient Home.
4. Saving Money, Saving Fuel, Saving The Environment.
5. Rooftop Solar Panels For Home Energy And Hot Water.

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