After a bitterly cold Twin Cities area winter, it’s tempting to focus your spring plans on your garden, but don’t overlook the inside of your home. Investing in a few home energy upgrades now will help you save over the coming summer and next winter, too.
Air Seal and Insulate
Air leaks in your home let in hot outdoor air and humidity, while poorly insulated areas let the sun’s heat radiate right through. In winter, these inefficiencies waste your furnace’s heat. A few relatively simple home energy upgrades will solve t
hese problems.
Apply caulk to leaks around window and door frames, the fireplace, exhaust vents, utility line penetrations and other non-moving surfaces. Install weatherstripping around areas with moving parts, such as the window stops of casement windows and the inside tracks of sliding windows.
Boosting your attic and wall insulation is another way to reduce your cooling and heating bills. In fact, you should see a return on this investment in between 3 1/2 to 12 years. In the Twin Cities area, an attic should have an R-49 to R-60 layer of insulation. That’s a minimum of 16 inches of fiberglass batts.
To assess your wall insulation, contact a heating and cooling technician for a home energy audit. A technician can take infrared images of your home to find poorly insulated areas without tearing anything open.
Upgrade Your Appliances
Any appliance more than 10 years old is less efficient than today’s models and is most likely near the end of its life expectancy. Upgrading to a newer model now can reduce your energy bills and save you from a sudden, inconvenient breakdown. Replacing a 10-year-old air conditioner could save you 20 to 40 percent on cooling this summer.
Your A/C and furnace aren’t the only things to consider, though. If the seal on your refrigerator door no longer closes tightly, you’re probably due for a new refrigerator. At the very least, replace the seal.
For more guidance on choosing your home energy upgrades for this spring, contact us at Marsh Heating & Air Conditioning anywhere in the Twin Cities metro area.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about home energy upgrades and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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