Daily Home Renovation Tips

I keep reading more and more how energy efficiency is coming to play more often by home buyers. Some jurisdictions even require energy audits, different from home inspections, to be performed on homes before a real estate transaction is completed.

So, how is real estate and selling your home and energy conservation related? Reduce your utility bills.

Home buyers will want to look at how much you are paying over a year or two for electricity, natural gas, heating oil, etc. and water.

If you also start to, or pay more attention to, taking the simple and easy to do steps to reduce the electricity, home heating, water heating, home cooling and clean water usage in your home, your utility bills will start to come down saving you money and making your home look more energy efficient.

After our home energy audit (which you should get done) we started to collect suggestions from now hundreds of people across the U.S. on ways they use in their own home to reduce their utility bills and achieve energy savings.

So far in our freely available Energy Savings Guide we have gathered more than 500 of their energy and water savings ideas, of which:

400+ are simple and easy to do
275+ cost absolutely nothing to do
115+ cost just a little to do
120+ are water conservation ideas inside and around the home
115+ are electricity savings suggestions
… and so on.

Whether you decide to sell your home or not, using any of the above collection, especially the many simple and no cost suggestions will save you money right away. And, if you do decide to sell your home in a few months your utility bills will start to reflect your energy savings efforts and make your home more attractive to potential purchasers. If you don’t sell your home for a while (and eventually all homes are sold in the long term) you reap the benefits of saving money through your lower utility bills. So, energy savings tips are also money savings tips, right?

Should you invest in new ENERGY STAR windows, an energy efficient central air conditioner or furnace, and any other major investments? In my opinion, no as I really don’t think you will get your money back.

However, this is where you should talk to several real estate professionals, even though they only make money when a house is sold so they are biased to have the seller do what ever it takes to make the house more sellable. Depending on your neighbourhood it just might be easier to sell your house if you do replace your windows, furnace, central air conditioner, etc.

I’m not a real estate agent, or a professional contractor or in the business. It’s just my opinion as an average homeowner focusing on reducing my utility bills.

At least that’s my take.