An inspector with Cleveland Utilities looks for ways to improve a home’s energy efficiency.We’ve experienced a relatively mild fall, so the cold temperatures of last week (and forecast again for this week) may have surprised some area homeowners, but it’s not too late to prep the home for winter.
There are some fairly simple things that you can do yourself to make sure your home is not only warm, but they can be done without breaking the bank.
“This a great time to winterize your house and seal up cracks or crevices,” says Kevin Rogers, Tennessee American Water operations manager. “Winterizing is not a very expensive thing to do, and it is far cheaper to take the preventive action than to restore a damaged area.”
Maxwell Ryan, founder of the home decor website ApartmentTherapy.com, suggests in an Associated Press story that homeowners might consider switching to LED light bulbs to save energy. They last 10 years and use 84 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs.
He also suggests swapping out your old thermostat for a new programmable “learning” model that not only tracks your habits and adjusts the settings accordingly, it uses a Wi-Fi connection to check weather reports and is controllable via an iPad.