An energy-efficient home is designed to conserve and reduce energy usage without sacrificing the comforts of homeliness or modern living amenities. Energy Efficiency is a factor of type of construction, appliances being used, direction of the home to sun, geographical area in which the house is being built etc, so there’s plenty to consider when renovating your existing home or building a new home to make it energy efficient.
More families are considering sustainable options for cost-efficiency and health, in addition to wanting to protect the environment. The growing eco industry means more contractors are conscious of how they build homes, too.
When looking for a house, sustainability is definitely something to consider. You’ll want to work with a home inspector to assess major sustainability concerns, like insulation, but there are plenty of features you can identify on your own.
Some Key things to consider :
- The actual size or living area that suits your life style. – A house bigger than your life style needs tends to consume
more energy to condition that unutilized space. - The shape of the house and the direction of the windows – Having a lot of windows in house or the direction in which they are (east vs south as an example) can determine how much of energy is being lost to keep the space conditioned.
- Insulation of the house overall particularly the windows
- Type of construction material used (Ex a house built using ICF is more energy efficient than a traditional stick frame).
- Type of appliances used for heating/cooling and lighting make a big difference in how energy is consumed.