3 Ways You Can Help Reduce Your Home's Energy Use

Excessive energy consumption is an issue that many homeowners and environmentalists consider daily, as it increases utility costs and affects the environment. Changes you can make to your home's energy consumption can help ease the burden on your budget and also reduce the demand for local energy use. Here are some tips you can implement in and around your home to keep your home cooler and more energy efficient this coming summer.

Use Window Coverings

Window coverings on the interior and exterior of your home will boost your home's energy efficiency throughout the year, but especially during the hot summer months. The glass of your home's windows allows heat to transfer through, allowing heat from the outside to enter your home during summer.

If you install window blinds, like those from World Class Window Coverings, on your home, you can greatly reduce the amount of heat that enters your home, especially when direct sunlight comes into any widows on your home. Window blinds can be exterior manual or electric blinds, and interior vertical or horizontal blinds. You can also install and use interior curtains and exterior window awnings.

Use curtains to block incoming sunlight on windows facing east, south, and west throughout the day, which prevents the sun's solar gain from heating your home interior. Window blinds are efficient in blocking direct sunlight to reduce solar gain, and when you angle the slats upward it can allow indirect sunlight onto your ceiling to illuminate the room. This prevents your having to turn on a room light to see.

Grow Full Yard Landscaping

The landscaping you choose to grow in your yard can also help lower the temperature in your home during summer. Vegetation growing around your home, such as a lawn, shrubbery, and other plants, can reduce the outdoor temperature versus a concrete or asphalt surface, which absorb the heat from the sun. A lower temperature around your home exterior can help keep the interior cooler.

Large trees that grow in your yard can cast shadows onto your home to reduce the sun's heat absorption into your home through its exterior. Shade created by trees can also shade your home's exterior windows to make your interior more cool.

Install Energy-Smart Roof Shingles

When it is time to replace your home's roof and shingles, the type of shingles you select for the replacement can affect the temperature of your home. Lighter-colored shingles installed with a reflective coating will reflect the sun's ultraviolet rays back off your roof and keep your attic space and home interior more cool than a darker-colored roof without a reflective coating.