Energy efficiency may be something that is very important to you, or you may not care about it much, but either way, it’s something you need to think about when building a new house.
Most areas are raising their energy efficiency requirements, and it’s up to you as an owner builder, to decide how you will make your home more efficient to meet those requirements. In my county in 2016, they more than doubled the requirements. For Farmer and I, this was a very big deal because it caused us to have to add several things to our house that we weren’t planning on.
In general, making things more energy efficient is more expensive up front, but saves you even more down the road. Usually, the question is not IF it will pay itself off, but WHEN.
There are a lot of ways to look at building a more energy efficient home:
- How can I make my home as energy efficient as possible, no matter the cost or hassle?
- How can I meet the energy efficiency requirements as easily as possible?
- How can I meet the energy efficiency requirements as cheaply as possible?
There are a lot of other ways to look at it, but I feel like these are the most common.
So, today I want to tell you some of the easiest ways to make your home more energy efficient.
LED LIGHTS
One of the simplest ways to make your home more energy efficient is by using a more efficient item in place of one you would have already been using. You will already be putting up lights in your home, why not spend a few extra bucks to get ones that will last significantly longer and use less energy. LED lights pay themselves off very quickly. In fact, ours have almost paid themselves off in the first year of living in our house, and they still have roughly 19 more years off life in them.
Yes, LED lights are more than double the cost of a standard light bulb, but your power bill will be much lower, and holy cow they have a WAY longer life span.
This is especially nice with vaulted ceilings. Who wants to try and change light bulbs on a 15 foot ceiling every year?? Not me!
One other note about LED- they put off more light so you don’t need as many of them. We put dimmer switches on all of ours and use them every day.
HEAT PUMP HVAC AND WATER HEATERS
Just like LED light bulbs, this is just a matter of purchasing a more efficient version of something you would have already been purchasing. A heat pump is something that pulls heat (or cold) from the air around it. Our HVAC system runs off a heat pump and uses electricity as a backup for when temperatures are too cold to pull enough heat from the air. (ours is set as anything less than 25 degrees)
We also purchased a heat pump water heater. It cost a few hundred dollars more, but will pay itself off in just a couple years of power bills.
U VALUE IN WINDOWS
Windows are often a source of lost air and heat. If you have a ton of windows, you pay for it in your power bill. But they are making better and better windows all the time that are more energy efficient.
Purchasing windows with a lower U value will ensure you have the most energy efficient windows possible. It’s worth the extra money because of how big of a difference they make in the amount of air and heat lost through them.
Also, windows are not something that are replaced often. Consider how much money you will save over the life of your windows.
This goes for sky lights and windows in your doors as well.
LOW FLOW PLUMBING FIXTURES
You may think that low flow plumbing fixtures will be annoying because of how little water comes out, but I have found that is not the case. We purchased low flow shower heads and I can hardly tell the difference. Yes, if I were to see them side by side I would certainly be able to tell which one is low flow and which one is high flow, but after a few uses it’s normal and certainly a sufficient amount of water.
The crazy thing to me is the difference in gallons per minute. Some high flow fixtures put out 5 or more gallons of water per minute, while low flow fixtures put out 1-2 gallons. Thats a crazy huge difference in the amount of water you are going through! If you take a 10 minute shower, the difference is 50 gallons or 20 gallons. Wow!
The cool thing is that low flow fixtures often times don’t cost anymore than high flow fixtures. This energy efficient point may not cost you any extra money, it will just start saving you money from day 1.
EXTRA INSULATION
I have two suggestions for this one: spray foam insulation and higher R value insulation in your ceiling. Both of these are super easy and make a huge difference.
It took Farmer and I half a day to spray foam the exterior walls of our entire 4,000 square foot house. That’s not too bad for something that gave us 30% of our energy requirements for our home. Spray foam insulation seals out moisture and air, and provides a higher R value in less space.
It was more expensive than regular batting insulation, but the benefits were obvious from day 1 and has saved us a lot of money on our heating bills.
Also, using a higher R value of insulation in your attic is a simple way to be more energy efficient. The only reason I am not including your walls and under your floor, is that using a higher R value in those places can sometimes require a difference size of lumber in order to fit it. As long as you plan ahead, it’s no big deal, but you need to know ahead of time if you are trying to fit more insulation into a wall cavity or under your floor.
Inside an attic, you usually have plenty of space to work with and can stack that insulation as high as you want. If it’s blow in, just blow more in. If it’s batting, just purchase a higher R value. No big deal, but lots more energy efficient.
These 5 simple ways to make your home more energy efficient are pretty much just a matter of knowing what you are purchasing. Most of them cost a little more money, but will pay themselves off in a matter of months or a few short years. Then you will have many more years of reaping the benefits of building a more energy efficient house. Things will last longer, and cost you less money to use.
What things are you putting in your house that will make it more energy efficient?
~Farmer’s Wife
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Sonya says
We are installing in floor heat throughout run by a hi efficiency boiler. Because we are building on an acreage and have our own well our water is free. Boiler cost is higher that a traditional furnace but way cheaper to run in the long term. Bonus is less duct work and virtually no dust. also are having several ceiling fans in our vaulted ceilings to keep the warm air low where we need it in winter. Additionally, we faced our house so that most windows, especially large picture windows are to the south-east( most cold weather and winds usually come from the north and north-west).
For those hot summer days, we have a covered deck that runs the entire length of our house on the south east side, and along with the ceiling fans this virtually eliminated the need for air conditioning. We are at drywall stage and hope to be in before Christmas!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Excellent!
Roy Green says
When I did some revamping of my current home I replaced light bulbs and some fixtures with LED units. The next month my electric bill dropped $30. And, as you stated, that savings goes on for many, many more years to come. So, open your wallet, let some of the moths out and spend the few extra dollars on LEDs. You won’t be disappointed!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Agreed! Thanks Roy
Sabrina Luboch says
Everything I read about spray foam insulation says you have to have a professional install it. How did you do this yourself?
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Everything you read anywhere will you tell you have to have a professional do every job on your house haha. Nobody wants you to know that you can do things yourself and save 50% on labor costs. Spray foam insulation is another one of those examples. People are concerned with the mixing of the chemicals in spray foam insulation, which is why they all freak out and say you have to have a professional do it. However, they sell kits for DIY home builders which mix the chemicals themselves so you don’t even have to deal with that. Spray foam is the thing I tell everyone was the easiest job we have done so far on our house and I recommend EVERYONE do it themselves. Just look up spray foam insulation kits online. They send you two canisters, which are connected with tubes and they have spray nozzles on the end. All you have to do is snap on the spray nozzle, put on a face mask and glasses, and spray it on. After it dried you can cut off any extra that foamed out if you need to. It literally only took us four hours to do all of the exterior walls of our house. We were quoted $2,000-$4,000 for this job …. wha??? No professionals needed Sabrina! You can totally do it yourself!