From Guest Blogger Kimbery Grimms: Eco-engineering Your House — Energy Saving Starts at Home
Weather conditions have been freezing, you’re probably worried about your electrical expenses going over the roof again. You need all the heat you can get and it’s just as easy as turning up the switch, right? However, when the bill arrives, you’re doomed again. Wouldn’t it just be awesome if there are ways to cut down on those bills and still get the warmth you need from the stormy weather?
Now, how you can make your home conducive to stay in besides the cold temperature while keeping the expenses on the low. While this may involve re-engineering your house, these DIY tips are sure to make it easier and really cheaper for you to save energy. The great part of this is that you don’t only aim for economical home upgrades and save your pockets from being emptied, but you are also decorating your house and preserving the environment along with it.
1. Bring your plants inside the house through container gardening and let them add to the heat.
Not only will you add color and life in your house, but you will increase the amount of heat generated inside. Instead of using more light bulbs to further raise the temperature inside your house, grow plants in containers like pots or recycled plastic and window boxes. Through photosynthesis, they release oxygen and in the process, also produce heat. Besides, when you apply this, you don’t have to constantly worry about your plants dying outside in the snow. They will really look lovely inside.
2. Recycle your used decorated or colored plastic and paper cups and make them colorful strings of light.
Instead of buying colored bulbs that can consume a lot of electricity, in addition to the cost those have on your pocket when you buy them at the hardware store, take your decorated or colored plastic and paper cups, cut a small hole (just enough to allow the light’s wiring through) on each of them, and just insert on top of the bulb. This generates a more colorful environment against the boring flooding outdoor scene and allows for the heat to stay a little longer as they are concentrated inside the walls of the cup.
3. Create your own heater using a cardboard and paint.
Yes, all you need is pair of scissors, a cardboard, black paint and your window to create that DIY window solar heater. The black paint allows for a better absorption of heat from possible sources and retains it for a longer duration. The diy heater directs the air to flow from the bottom, up the slots wherein it will absorb the heat from the cardboard, and back out the top then into the room. You won’t even need electric power to make this work.
4. Block warm air from escaping into your chimney with an inflatable chimney balloon.
Fireplaces are useful during this type of season when lighted; however, when they are not in use, the warm indoor air escapes through them. To solve this, you can buy a very cheap chimney balloon. It blocks the airflow and you don’t really have to worry if you forget to take it out before you start the fire. It just deflates itself automatically.
See how it blocks the chimney’s air ways?
5. Avoid heated air from getting out of your house through those little holes by covering your windows and patio doors with inexpensive plastic films.
25 percent of heat loss can be accounted for from the use of windows. They may have these little slits that you don’t see, but can be covered up with clear plastic films. These are sure to wrap around those holes so that they won’t cost you your heated air. Also, they are just so cheap, costing you only around $6, and are easy-to-find within the nearest grocery store. You just got to wrap them tight until the edges.
6. Reflect the heat back to your house by utilizing the aluminum foil in your kitchen.
Just like light, heat can also be reflected back to your place by an aluminum foil. Through heat reflection, the foil prevents the heat from leaving the room. This lessens your need for additional warmth on a snowy day; thus, minimizing your consumption of electricity for heaters. If you don’t have any foil left in your kitchen, you can visit any grocery or hardware store with just $2 in your pocket.
So, you can have your house still looking cool even with foil around its parts.
7. Improvise you own insulator by using your decorative curtains.
Curtains can be as useful during the cold months as they are during summer when you need to keep too much heat from your living area. While serving their aesthetic purposes, these insulated curtains help in slowing down and avoiding heat transfer.
Your windows serve like membranes that as the heated air inside your house touches it, the cooler air outside absorbs the heat; thus, heat loss begins. To prevent this, your insulated curtain acts as a more efficient barrier compared with a regular curtain. You just need foam, any vapor blocker to avoid moisture absorption on the foam, any reflective film like tin foils and your curtain or any used fabric. To test your creativity, you can even put designs on your fabric adding to its decorative purpose on your room.
With this simple eco-engineering house tips, take your horrendous weather experience off autopilot. You do not just do energy-efficient home designs to save energy in style but cloak your house with eco-friendly and energy-saving frugal home improvement.
