The right home improvements can save you money beginning almost immediately and increase the resale value of your home, while also making your home a more comfortable place to live.

Last time we looked at starting with the low cost and simpler things you can do. This time I want to look at a few of the bigger ticket items that can really make a difference. So if you are looking at doing some renovations to your home and want to save some money on your energy bills here are some Ideas.

Upgrade Your Insulation
This is one of the easiest and least expensive of the ones I will mention here but it is not only the right place to start but will give you the greatest return on your investment. You should have between R30 and R40 attic insulation. This means you should have at least 12” of insulation in your attic. Some older homes still have no insulation in their attic and insulating it properly will make a huge difference in your heating bill. How much you save will depend on a lot of factors including how much you are adding. It is easy to add bats of insulation over the existing insulation. Yes I know it means crawling around in a tight space and can be itchy work but you can do it.

Have new vinyl replacement windows installed
The window are a major place of heat loss even when you have decent windows but if you have old wood single pane window or even worse sash less windows the heat loss is huge. Depending on the number of windows in your house and the size of those windows replacing them all is going to cost you thousands of dollars. But you will gain back comfort, a great new look, easy function and save a lot on your energy bills.

Upgrade to an on demand water heater
Replacing your standard water heater with a high efficiency on demand water heater could save you as much as 40% on your water heating bill. The reason for this is that an on demand heater saves energy because it doesn’t keep a big tank full of hot water 24 hours a day whether you need it or not. On the other hand, if you do have constant demand for lots of hot water, an on demand heater has the advantage that it never runs out of hot water. The word on the street seems to be that most households will experience sizable long term savings by using an on demand water heater.

Add a solar system to your home
If you are thinking of adding solar panels to make power for your home, that’s great, you can save on your electricity. But you need to take care of the little things first, like reducing your home’s electrical needs. Otherwise you will spend an excessive amount of money on a much larger solar power system to compensate for your needs.

The average solar panel costs about $450 per solar panel and has an output level of 170 watts. That’s less than three 60 watt bulbs of energy. But by reducing your power needs just by updating your lights from incandescent bulbs to CFL’s (compact fluorescent lights), you will reduce your power by one-third. By reducing your power needs, a solar system becomes much more affordable. So let’s take a bold and fresh look at why we should be motivated and thankful to experience the benefits of saving energy by not wasting energy.

One of these energy efficient home improvements could be one of the best do-it-yourself projects you could do for you home right now.

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