Efficiency Upgrades to Help You Save This Summer

By: Abby Berry
Spring and sum­mer are oppor­tune times for home upgrades and DIY projects. If you’re plan­ning to make improve­ments to your home, con­sid­er upgrades that pro­mote bet­ter effi­cien­cy.

Here are a few projects that can help you save ener­gy and money––and increase the com­fort of your home.

Installing a smart ther­mo­stat is one of the sim­plest ways to man­age home ener­gy use and keep sum­mer bills in check. Smart ther­mostats are easy to install and allow you to con­trol your heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tem from your phone. You can pur­chase an ENERGY STAR®-certified smart ther­mo­stat for as low as $100, which can save you 8% on annu­al heat­ing and cool­ing costs, about $50 per year. This upgrade will quick­ly pay for itself, and you’ll gain insight into bet­ter ways to heat and cool your home.

Speak­ing of smart, addi­tion­al devices like smart LED bulbs also offer con­ve­nient con­trol and help boost ener­gy sav­ings at home. With smart light­ing, you can set a sched­ule for when and how your lights should be turned on or off. And the next time you head out to run errands and real­ize you left the lights on, all you have to do is turn them off through your phone. Smart lights come in a vari­ety of shapes, col­ors and bright­ness levels––and you can pur­chase bulbs for indoor or out­door use. Sched­ule out­door smart lights to illu­mi­nate your home at night and when you’re out of town for bet­ter secu­ri­ty.

While it’s not as trendy as incor­po­rat­ing smart tech­nolo­gies, seal­ing air leaks around your home is a sim­ple, effec­tive way to save ener­gy and low­er your bills. Apply­ing new (or replac­ing old) weath­er strip­ping around doors and win­dows can instant­ly make your home more com­fort­able and reduce ener­gy waste. Apply­ing caulk to fill gaps can also improve the seal of your home. Caulk can be applied to a vari­ety of areas, includ­ing win­dows, doors, bath­tubs and sinks.

If your home feels too warm dur­ing sum­mer (and too chilly dur­ing win­ter) even after you’ve sealed with weath­er strip­ping and caulk, your home may need addi­tion­al insu­la­tion. Insu­la­tion is con­sid­ered a more expen­sive effi­cien­cy upgrade; how­ev­er, if your home is under-insu­lat­ed, addi­tion­al insu­la­tion can make a big impact on reduc­ing ener­gy use and costs. The cost of new insu­la­tion depends on a vari­ety of fac­tors like mate­ri­als, size of the home and whether you use a con­trac­tor. Typ­i­cal­ly, the project costs can be recouped in a few years and your home will imme­di­ate­ly feel more com­fort­able.

Of course, there are addi­tion­al effi­cien­cy upgrades that can make a big impact on ener­gy use, like replac­ing old appli­ances with ENERGY-STAR® mod­els or replac­ing old, leaky win­dows with new, ener­gy effi­cient win­dows. But these upgrades can be a bit pricey.

If you’re want­i­ng to make your home more ener­gy effi­cient but you’re not sure where to start, your best bet is to enlist the help of an expert to con­duct an ener­gy audit of your home. Call Coastal Elec­tric at 843–538-5700 to make an appoint­ment or sub­mit a request on our Ener­gy Advance Page. One of our trained Mem­ber Ser­vices Advi­sors will come to your home on the sched­uled date and time and eval­u­ate the ener­gy effi­cien­cy of your entire home.  An ener­gy audit can eas­i­ly iden­ti­fy areas to boost effi­cien­cy, and then you can deter­mine the projects you want to tack­le first based on your bud­get and needs.