Owning a home is very rewarding, but it also comes with a lot of expenses. Once you own a home, you are responsible for its upkeep and maintenance. You are also responsible for certain recurring expenses like homeowner’s insurance and property taxes. All told, the costs of owning a home are quite high. With that in mind, let’s look at some inexpensive home improvement projects that can save you money on maintenance, utilities, and/or repair.
1.Get A Swamp Cooler
A swamp cooler, also known as an evaporative cooler, is a different method of cooling that uses far less energy than a standard air conditioner. In most households, the single biggest consumers of energy are the heater and the air conditioner. Air conditioners can be swapped for a swamp cooler, saving you all kinds of money. These things don’t get as cold as the standard model, but they will lower the temperature of a room by 20-30 degrees.
2. Look For Cracks And Gaps
Since heating and cooling are probably your biggest issues, let’s look at something that will help to make both of them more efficient and save you some money. When your home is full of leaks, hot or cold air is allowed to escape, forcing the heater, air conditioner, or swamp cooler to work harder.
That translates to a higher electric bill for you, so you need to seal up all those troublesome gaps. You can use a lot of different things for insulation, but spray foam is probably the most popular. You might also use small pieces of standard fiberglass wall insulation.
3. Install Low-Flow Plumbing Fixtures
The water bill may not be one of your biggest expenses, but there is still room to trim some fat from the budget here. Unless you feel like being in a rush every time you turn the water on, the best solution is to install some low-flow plumbing fixtures. As you might guess, these limit the flow of water so that you use only what you need.
4. Do An Energy Audit
An energy audit is simply an evaluation of your home’s total energy usage. This will give you an idea of where your utility bill dollars are going. It will also tell you where energy usage needs to be trimmed. You could hire a professional to do this, but we’re trying to save you money. Besides, it isn’t that hard to do this one yourself.
5. Seal Your Windows And Doors
After you have sealed up any cracks and gaps in the walls and flooring, you have to address the biggest openings of all, which are (of course) your windows and doors. You can’t prevent a certain amount of energy loss here, but you can definitely minimize it by sealing your windows and doors.
Use some spray foam with a thin applicator to seal the “shim space” between the window frame and the wall. Do the same thing around your door frame. You can also use some strips of adhesive foam to make sure that all your windows and doors have a tight fit on their inside surfaces.
6. Insulate Your Hot Water Pipes
After heating and cooling, your water heater is one of the biggest energy consumers in the home. You might be surprised to know that you can make it work a lot more efficiently with a simple trick. You can take strips of fiberglass insulation and wrap the pipes coming from your hot water heater. The fiberglass is chosen because it is more or less fireproof. Secure each strip in place with plastic ties or duct tape, overlapping them slightly so as not to leave any gaps.
7. Give Up Your Clothes Dryer
Your laundry dryer, together with central heat and the hot water heater, make up the top three energy consumers in the average home. You might have noticed a theme here, as all of these involve the use of a heating element. In the case of a dryer, we are talking about a very large heating element, and that takes a lot of electricity to make it work.
In the end, a clothes dryer is a luxury that you don’t need. A clothesline is far cheaper. Although it takes longer for the clothes to dry, it’s actually less work in the long run.
Consider The Use Of A Power Conditioner
We are going to tell you about a little-known trick that can save you quite a bit of money on your electric bill. You can use a device called a power conditioner to “filter” the power coming from the wall. It is usually a large black box with a number of electrical outlets. It plugs into the wall, and regulates the flow of electricity from one end to the other.
Why does this help? Because all your devices will pull power from the wall when they are plugged up, even if they are not in use. This effect can make a significant difference in your total energy use. By employing a filter in the middle, you make sure that your devices do not use any more power than they need.
Conclusion
This is just a short sample of the many ways in which a little work can save you a lot of money. A little bit of research will undoubtedly yield even more possibilities. We hope that this article has given you some money-saving good ideas and that you have enjoyed our work. If so, please fill out the contact form below.
