Energy Efficient Home: How to Build One
When you plan on building a new home, you should try to communicate with your architect about the design of the home. In today's day and age, you may want a home that can be as energy efficient as possible. Besides, with the constant increase of the cost of energy, you would really want to have your home save as much energy as possible.
The first thing you have to remember about building an energy efficient house is the insulation. Heat and cooling inside a home should be retained effectively in order for a home to be energy efficient. This is why it is important to have your home properly insulated in the walls, the windows and the doors.
The orientation of the house should also be considered. It is recommended that you build your home with an orientation of the north and south. Larger windows should be placed on the south side of the home and smaller or no windows at all should be placed on the north. You have to remember that heat and cooling easily escapes through windows and with larger windows on the north side, you will lose a lot of heat during the winter months.
By doing this first phase of building a house right, you will be able to minimize energy loss and avoid other problems such as mildew.
If you already live in a poorly insulated house, you don’t have to tear it down and build one that is energy efficient. All you need to do is start replacing your windows with a new kind of window that will minimize energy loss. This kind of window is called low emission window or more commonly known as low-e windows. Made on a special metallic coating that is transparent, it lowers the amount of energy loss.
Your walls should also be properly insulated. Basically, there are three types of insulation that you can do to your walls in order to minimize energy loss. You can either insulate the cavity, the internal or the external of the wall. By doing this, you will be able to minimize energy loss and therefore, save money on energy bills.
Solar technology systems can also provide you with an energy efficient home. Although this technology is still on the expensive side, investing on one is a must. With solar systems, you will be able to provide your home with 50 percent of your annual hot water needs. This means that you can cut your water heating in half with solar hot water panels. You can also use solar power panels that will be able to provide you with part of your electrical needs. This will mean that if you combine this system with your conventional power source, you will be able to cut the cost of your electric bills by virtually "selling back" the electricity.
Heating systems is also one thing you have to consider when you are building or renovating a home. If you have a conventional gas furnace, you should consider replacing it with high efficiency gas furnace. You will see that it will save you about a third of your heating bills as it can convert more of the fuel in to heat.
These are some of the things you have to remember in order to build an energy efficient home. By following these things, you will be able to lower your monthly energy bills and also qualify for the benefits that the government gives to homeowners who have an energy efficient home.
