Cover Windows to Save on Energy Bills

For those who are in a sunny part of the country, even if only just during a warm season, you can live more comfortably and you can decrease your cooling properly protecting the sunny windows and keeping the heat out of your inside of the house, your rooms will be more comfortable and you’ll use less energy to maintain your home at a reasonable temperature.

There are a number of things that you can do to improve the shading on your windows including solar screens, films, and roller shades. We will go over just these three. When you are shopping for sun protection products check to see if they indicate the “shading coefficient” of the product. The SC is based upon of the percentage of solar energy that is let through by the item compared with a regular single glass pane. SC is a number between 0 and 1. The lower the SC number of the product the better it is.

Solar screens are an inexpensive and effective means of cutting down the amount of the sun’s energy entering through your windows. They are made of a metal frame with nylon fabric stretched over it. You can purchase them or build them yourself. If you purchase them they will usually cost you less than $75 for each one installed. Or you can buy the materials and make them yourself for less than $20 for each unit. You install solar screens on the outside. They do a good job of blocking the sun but they also reduce the view. If you want to keep an obstructed view from your windows, you might consider another window treatment option.

Reflective films are similar to the familiar window films installed in cars. Reflective films can block as much as 70% of incoming solar heat while only reducing light infiltration by only 30%. They have the added benefit of retaining the heat inside your house during the winter. The films are not easy to apply, so you will most likely want a professional to do this for you. Make sure that you trust the contractor you hire.

Another cost effective means of blocking the heat from the sun is the use of roller shades. Roller shades are easy to install and roll up when not needed. Roller shades are designed to preserve views while deflecting heat. They can be put on the interior or exterior of your home, but if they are installed on the exterior, they need protection from the elements. Windows that have large overhangs such as wide eaves are good candidates for the use of exterior roller shades. If your south facing have good overhangs, consider putting the roller shades on the bottom part. Large overhangs are good in protecting the upper portions of the windows so you’ll need the most shading at the lower section. By putting them at the bottom and having them roll up instead of down, you can pull them up to the height needed to shade the lower part, leaving a good view from the upper part.

With these inexpensive methods, you can dramatically cool down your warmest rooms, which will take some of the strain off of your air conditioner. When combined with a the use of a simple thermostat, window treatments can make a favorable impact on your cooling costs. If you are a do-it-yourself kind of person, the payback on these investments can be very quick.

The opinion expressed in this article is the opinion of the writer. For another view on real estate topics, look here.

Replace Light Bulbs And Be Green

We have replaced all light bulbs in our 2,300 square foot home with CFLs. This included having to order specialty bulbs where we had fixtures with exposed bulbs. The effect has been good for our budget, has reduced our carbon footprint, and has been a point of bragging for my husband.

My husband has pressured his family members and his employer to do the same. The upfront investment can be stiff but we can show in our monthly electric bills, particularly over the summer, that the bills have been lower. We have had some of the bulbs installed for more than a year and have yet to have to replace a bulb, either.

Individual Saving the Environment

As a family we recycle all of the items that we can. Having a 3 and 6 year old we encourage and teach them recycling. Disposing of the recycling items properly is our 6 year old’s job. This is a great step in teaching little ones the importance of re-using and saving the environment. In addition, to the recycling within our home our local county has taken recycling very seriously. So far as to create a law mandating everyone to recycle. This is a great step in the right direction and forcing everyone to take part in saving our environment for our future generations.

Within our house we have a front loading washer, which saves water usage. Also, recently we bought a new dishwasher. While purchasing it was very important to us to make sure to buy an energy star brand. For heating our home we are very conscious of the fuel we are using and try to conserve as much as we can. We make sure to turn down the heat when we are not at home, and also have it at a low comfortable temperature.

How I AM Helping The Environment

I own my home in the country. My house is on 7 acres of land about 2 miles outside of a little town in Wisconsin. Twice a year I walk up and down the road I live on with a 33 gallon garbage bag picking up the cans, bottles, and other garbage thrown there by uncaring people.I always get at least a half of a bag full. I then have to sort the garbage for recycling. This is one small way that I am helping the environment.

Another thing I have done is to change all of my light bulbs with the new energy efficient bulbs. I have cut my electric bill by 20%. So saving the environment also saves me money. We can all reduce our environmental impact by doing little things which when multiplied by a million homes has a huge effect.

Composting to Reduce our Carbon Footprint

In our home, we believe in Recycling and Composting. Recycling is easy, our community has a great program. Composting isn’t too difficult either, we have a personal composter in our backyard and use it regularly. In addition to reducing our carbon footprint, it also provides us with some great fertilizer for our summer garden. One thing that made composting difficult was winter. It was just too cold some nights to make the trek to the back of the yard. So we got a worm composter. Actually we made it ourselves and got the worms from a friend who had one. Wow, talk about an easy way to help the environment. Now we just dump our vegetable scraps in the worm composter each evening. Can those little worms ever eat. We can’t believe how quickly they work through our garbage. Again, we get great fertilizer to add to our garden. No mess, no smell and in three years, I have never seen a worm outside the composter. Simple, convenient and green!

Earth Hour 2009, the big event.

I am hosting a large event on USTREAM in hopes of creating a huge impact this Saturday. This Saturday as we all know it is the night of Earth Hour in which hopefully the entire world will go dark at 8:30 PM Central Time. My hope in running this webcast is to encourage people to further save the environment by having an Earth Hour in their day every day. Let alone having it all the time.

When you are not using a lamp, SHUT IT OFF! People think that if they shut off the lights they might never come back on which just annoys the hell out of me.

Another thing that people should be doing is driving their cars less, If they can walk or bicycle to the store down the road to buy something then do that. People need to get up off their lazy bums and do things the way they should.

People should also be planting more trees, if you cut a tree down plant two somewhere else.

Utilization of battery powered devices is surging, that does not mean we should leave them plugged into the charger all the time, this is especially true for cell phones. I am not saying you over there with your laptop unplug it and let it drain and die, I am talking to all of the bozo’s who leave their fancy assed BlackBerry’s plugged in 24/7 for days at a time. It does bad for the environment in two ways, consuming electricity, and producing harmful gaseous release from the battery.

Dream Home in the Twin Cities

My dream home is located in Minnesota, near the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul). The home would have a built-in garage because it can be very cold outside in the winter. It would also have a large yard with mature trees, preferably maple trees. The house would have at least 3 bedrooms, and at least 2 bathrooms. IÕd love to have a fireplace in the family room, and it would be ideal if the home had a basement that was finished. A huge selling feature would be the location Ð if the house was located in a quiet neighborhood on a tree-lined street with an established neighborhood association, that would be a definite plus.

On the edge of town…

My ideal home would be on the very edge of a small city such as Lawrence, KS. I would want to live close to a town where it was big enough that there are many activities one could do, but small enough that if I ever had kids I could come pick them up within 20 minutes in case they needed to come home soon.

The house would be two stories with a basement. The front lawn would have very little, if any, grass. Instead, it would have a path of rocks surrounding the perimeter, and in the middle would be wildflowers for anyone to pick. The house would have metal citing to help prevent termites and rotting. It would be a white house with dark green trim. The fences surrounding the backyard would also be a dark green. In the backyard fruits and vegetables would be growing.

The house would have 2.5 bathroomsÑa full bathroom on the top floor and in the basement, and a half bathroom on the first floor. There would be a small living room for movies, a large kitchen that has a dishwasher, a dining room, and another larger living room for musical performances and ballroom dancing. Upstairs would have 4 bedrooms. One is mine, and the other three are either guest bedrooms or for any possible kids.

In the basement the space is split into two sections. In the larger section one side would have a bar, complete with a kegerator (a refrigerator that has taps to dispense beer in kegs). Next to that would be a small kitchen set-up containing a stove, oven, mini-fridge, cabinet to hold cooking utensils and food, and a sink. Across from this there is a table for poker, darts, and a TV. In the middle there is a pool table. The smaller area is another guest bedroom.

All the floors, except maybe the kitchen, would be wooden. The kitchen would have a linoleum floor. There is a three-car garage, with one section used to brew beer.

This house does sound extremely big…perhaps I should have kids if I ever get this kind of house. Then they can help me clean it up!

If I could design a dream house

If I could design a dream house for myself to live in and I could choose where I would live, it would definitely be a tough decision. I would, however, choose a nice, open, cottage-chic styled house in Charleston, South Carolina. I have always enjoyed visiting Charleston, South Carolina and have always thought of it as a place where I would enjoy living. My house would be an extremely welcoming environment for everyone who enters through the front doors. I love to entertain, so the floorplan of my house would be extremely open and “party friendly.” When you walk in, you would find yourself in the foyer which opens up to the great room. This great room would exist of the family room, kitchen (opened up by an island along one wall) and dining room. All three of these room “sections” would be styled the same and would flow very nice together. Also on the main floor, I would include an office and a craft room that I could scrapbook and make jewelry, since I love being crafty. Upstairs would be three bedrooms, all with their own walk in closet. In addition, coming off of the family room on the main floor, I would have a sun porch that leads to a back deck, that empties out into the luschious back yard that backs up to a bunch of trees separating my yard from a neighbors yard.

My idea of the perfect cottage chic dream house.

If I could design a dream house for myself to live in and I could choose where I would live, it would definitely be a tough decision. I would, however, choose a nice, open, cottage-chic styled house in Charleston, South Carolina. I have always enjoyed visiting Charleston, South Carolina and have always thought of it as a place where I would enjoy living. My house would be an extremely welcoming environment for everyone who enters through the front doors. I love to entertain, so the floorplan of my house would be extremely open and “party friendly.” When you walk in, you would find yourself in the foyer which opens up to the great room. This great room would exist of the family room, kitchen (opened up by an island along one wall) and dining room. All three of these room “sections” would be styled the same and would flow very nice together. Also on the main floor, I would include an office and a craft room that I could scrapbook and make jewelry, since I love being crafty. Upstairs would be three bedrooms, all with their own walk in closet. In addition, coming off of the family room on the main floor, I would have a sun porch that leads to a back deck, that empties out into the luschious back yard that backs up to a bunch of trees separating my yard from a neighbors yard.