Designing a more eco-friendly home is something many of us think about, but it can also be prohibitively expensive. A full solar array can set you back thousands, and re-insulating a home can be similarly costly. This doesn’t mean there are no options, however, as there are some more cost-effective ways to improve your home’s energy consumption. The savings here will eventually add up, so let’s explore what options are available.
The Smaller Additions
The trick to making smaller green additions to your home worthwhile is to calculate which kind of savings they can net you over a year. This is best illustrated by lighting choices to save money with LED bulbs, which use around 90% less energy and last up to 25 times longer than their incandescent cousins. This one change can save a single house about $225 in a single year, which is enough for something special or to invest in even more green systems.
Next up are programmable thermostats, alongside the installation of smart switches hooked into a home network. According to breakdowns from Energy Star Smart Thermostats FAQs, a programmable thermostat can save around $50 per year on heating and cooling costs, and smart switches can mean you can also turn air conditioners off remotely in case you forget.
Source: Unsplash
Smart appliances can be similarly helpful in saving money by powering certain processes during off-peak hours. If you have a washer/dryer combo, for example, a smart system could help you plan these cycles for when electricity is the cheapest, avoiding costly surprises when the bills are due.
While a little more unusual, buying the preserved food you enjoy in bulk is also a valid choice. The more you buy in one trip, the cheaper it can be, and buying more and once means fewer car trips, so lower gas use and less pollution produced.
Larger Potential
The smaller additions to your home will tend to be the most available, but other elements need to be similarly considered. The first is that, in some cases, there will be larger savings available for more traditionally costly green additions to your home. Government grants for solar installations are one such example, or clearance sales for insulation well below regular prices can sometimes be found.
Green additions to your home can also manifest later as increased valuations of your property, helping earn more in a sale. If I were curious about how much I could get if I sell my house for cash, for example, modern online sales systems take this into account. These can also feature no hidden fees and the ability to sell in a personalized timeframe. This can help earn more for your home and potentially upgrade to an even greener house if one enters the market unexpectedly.
“House Sold” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by aag_photos
As green technologies become cheaper and more widespread, it keeps getting easier to adopt a more eco-friendly lifestyle. If you’re curious about what’s possible here, run the calculations on long-term savings, and see how much you could benefit after a single year. Even if the financial returns are minimal, helping the environment is a win in itself that you can’t put a price on.
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