Make Your Toronto Home ‘Greener’

If you are environmentally conscious, you may be taking steps to improve the energy efficiency of your own home. When you want to go ‘greener’ when it comes to your Toronto area home, there are a number of steps you can take to do that.

Here are three tips that can help you focus on ways to reduce your carbon footprint and be more environmentally friendly while enjoying the comfort of your home.

Tip #1: Get an energy audit.

An energy audit involves a person coming into the house to evaluate the appliances you use, the windows and doors you have in place, the heating system, cooling system, and more. It will also likely include a pressure test that can detect where drafts may be most problematic.

You might discover that the windows you thought were in great condition are actually losing a significant percentage of air. That would mean a lot of hot air escaping during the winter, causing you to run the heating system more frequently, thus consuming more fuel and other natural resources.

Tip #2: Boost your insulation.

If you have an older house, you can replace the insulation with blown insulation. Blown insulation helps to trap heat during the winter and cool air during summer much more effectively. It is a significant investment, but one that will help to make your home much greener.

Tip #3: Replace your windows.

When you replace your windows with more energy efficient ones, including choosing low-e film coating that can cut down on the sun’s ultraviolet radiation that penetrates into your home, thus generating heat, you will not only stay warmer during the winter by using less energy, you also stay cooler in the summer without having to run the air conditioning as frequently.

These tips will help you stay much more energy efficient and environmentally conscious.