Something most people can relate to is looking at their electricity bill and wondering how in the world it managed to get so high.
All that frustrated worrying and wondering can now come to an end, well to an extent. Although there can be countless reasons as to why your electrical expenses are high, a commonly overlooked one is that maybe your home isn’t energy efficient.
The simple things like leaving the lights and television on all day are obvious frontrunners but other things around your home like the windows and window treatments could be costing you as well. It may not be something often thought about, but windows let in a lot of external light which in turn means they are letting in a lot of heat.
This is an important problem to address if you want to conserve energy because the more heat that seeps into your home the harder your air conditioning units have to work in order to maintain a comfortable temperature.
Overtime the energy spent on regulating the temperature within your home adds up and becomes quite expensive. And it doesn’t only apply to heat seeping into your home but also, in the winter when your heater is trying to keep your home warm windows allow that heat to seep out.
Since it works both ways your house has to expend more energy than should be necessary year-round. Luckily, there are some options to help increase the energy efficiency of your home without breaking the bank.
Using Energy Efficient Window Treatment Fabrics
One of the ways to improve your homes energy efficiency is to utilize energy efficient fabrics on your window treatments. This prompts the question of what exactly energy efficient fabrics are and how can some fabric possibly save you money on your electric bill. Energy efficient fabrics are used in shades and blinds to prevent energy from escaping your home by moderating the outdoor light that enters your rooms.
Roller shades are especially useful for energy moderation because they allow the homeowner to choose how much of their windows is covered. This alone helps but also having them made out of an energy efficient fabric that blocks most of the light energy from getting in to the home is even more effective.
However, they aren’t the only form of shades or blinds that come in energy efficient fabrics. Even though they come in different forms there are still some misconceptions to using these fabrics to make your home more energy efficient. One of these misconceptions is that in return your house will be dark and gloomy. This is incorrect because even though the fabric does work at reducing the light that gets into your home it doesn’t entirely block all the natural light. Instead they give you, the owner, more control over how much energy you want to expend when previously you had no real say.
If Fabrics Not Available, Settle for a Lining
Obviously not every pattern you pick out for the shades in your home will come in an energy efficient model. This should not discourage you however because there is a simple way to get around this. Energy efficient linings can be added to the backs of your shades and help them act in a similar way to the energy efficient fabrics.
A popular example of linings being used is with the Roman shades. The Roman shades are a hot pick for window treatments since they have a wide variety of styles, colors, and designs. They also still provide a full window view when completely raised so you don’t have to permanently compromise your natural light.
But when closed they give you a lot of privacy and a nice glowing ambiance. These are very popular shades that come in fabrics that aren’t energy efficient but are often paired with energy efficient linings to make up for that fact.
These are two fairly simple and inexpensive ways to increase the energy efficiency of your home without compromising style. Fabrics and linings are a great place to start on the way to turning your house into an efficient money saver from an energy wasting money guzzler.
Of course, there are other ways to prevent a useless loss of energy but as the clichés go; you’ve got to start somewhere, and something is better than nothing. So now you’re on your way to saving money on your homes electrical bill but why stop there when there are other places this knowledge can save you some serious money.
Save Energy at Work
If residential expenses are important it makes sense that corporations and business owners are concerned with how much they spend on their building since it is a major expense they have to take into consideration. The premise of using energy efficient window treatments to save money on electricity can also be applied to your business.
That large office building with all those floors full of windows can be letting a lot of energy seep out and those cheap blinds that don’t even block the sunlight during meetings certainly aren’t helping. Luckily, the shades made from energy efficient materials are available on a commercial scale. As are the liners although for practicalities sake changing the shades altogether would most likely be a more cost-efficient investment.
An immediate concern might arise being that replacing or adding shades and/or blinds to the entirety of an office building sounds like a big-ticket request. However, it is important to keep in mind the amount of energy that will be conserved in the long run.
Upgrading the energy efficiency of the building will also benefit employee morale because there will be more control over the amount of light allowed to be filtered into their workspace. Since some people work better under partial natural light this could also be a benefit to the productivity of the workers and in turn save money that way as well.
The investment of energy efficient window treatments to your workplace can help save the company a lot of money. Whether for commercial or residential reasons the switch to energy efficiency is a beneficial investment and worth looking in to.
