Make Your Home Energy Efficient For Winter

 
Saving energy is top-of-mind for Sask homeowners and renters alike. Energy costs continue to rise, as does awareness of environmental issues. As we head into the heavy-usage winter months, finding ways to conserve is a big priority. Here are our top 15 to-dos to make your home more energy efficient for winter.

1. First off, book an energy audit. An accredited energy advisor can perform an energy evaluation of your home, identifying energy-wasters and suggesting improvements and upgrades.

2. Pump up your insulation. It's an effective way to reduce heat loss so you don't have to work the thermostat so hard.

3. Weather-strip your exterior doors. It's inexpensive, easy, and keeps warm air in and chilly drafts out.

4. Load up on stylish cardigans and bunny hugs and chic throw blankets. Use them to stay snug when you lower your thermostat by 1°C. Each degree lower you set your thermostat, you'll save 3% on your heating bill. Turn it down another three degrees when you leave the house or go to bed.

5. Install an inexpensive (from $30!) programmable thermostat. That way, maintaining the correct temperature throughout the day and night is a no-brainer.

6. Switch to a high-efficiency heater. It's another opportunity to cut energy use.

7. Buy new furnace filters. Keep your furnace filters clean and regularly replace old ones so your furnace can run more efficiently, thus cutting costs. If your filters are disposable, replace them once a month. If they're washable or reusable, clean them every two or three weeks during high-use season and only replace them when they become damaged.
8. Caulk your windows. Cut drafts around minute window cracks. Use an interior formula caulking indoors and an exterior formula outdoors for best results.

9. Shrink-wrap the windows with a dedicated plastic film from the hardware store. It's fast, cheap and adds an insulating thermal layer that can reduce heat loss through the window by 25 to 50%!

10... Or replace them altogether. Older windows can be upgraded with EnergyStar-rated windows that will reduce heat loss in winter (and heat gain in summer). This is an expensive alternative but will pay off in the longer term through increased home value and decreased energy costs.

11. Turn on your ceiling fans. Reverse them from the summer setting, and you'll push warm air back down from ceiling level into your living area. Fans use less energy than the furnace.

12. Vacuum the coils at the back of your fridge. Consider this seasonal maintenance. The coils disperse heat taken from inside the fridge and when they're covered in a layer of dust, they disperse the heat less efficiently, meaning your fridge uses more energy to keep its cool. And that's not cool.

13. Switch to heavier drapes. Velvet drapes will cut drafts, and a change of window treatment always provides a nice transition between seasons anyway. Be sure to keep the drapes of south and west-facing windows pulled back on sunny days, so your home can absorb plenty of ambient heat.

14. Wrap your air ducts and hot-water pipes to reduce heat loss. Use pipe insulation wrap or polyethylene or neoprene pipe sleeves.

15. Close heat vents in guest rooms, attics, store rooms and other unused spaces. Why divert heat and up your energy consumption for rooms that aren't in use? Close the vents, then close the doors to these rooms. Just don't forget to open the ducts when guests stay over (unless you don't want them staying too long!)