Environmental concerns have engineered their way into our everyday conversations. With the rising mercury levels and electricity prices, many households are slowly turning towards living a sustainable lifestyle that is laced with keeping a tab on one’s energy consumption patterns and making changes to reduce their carbon footprint.
Our homes are the centre of our daily living, making them an excellent place to start practising sustainable living. From including more plants in your home decor to switching to a budget-friendly energy provider like AGL, you can make a wide variety of choices.
How To Increase Energy Efficiency
This article highlights seven easy yet effective ways to enhance energy efficiency and adopt sustainable living:
- Recheck your home’s insulation: Air leaks can cause massive energy losses. Adequate insulation ensures a comfortable temperature inside your home, significantly reducing the need for continuous heating or cooling. By insulating your walls, floors, and ceilings, a household can keep the home comfortably warm during winters and cool during summers. If you suspect a leak, consult an expert for a home inspection and get it repaired as soon as possible.
- Practice energy-saving habits: When occupied with a task, we often leave the room without switching off the lights and with our laptops plugged in even though we are not using them. These can add up, resulting in a higher electricity bill and subsequently increasing carbon emissions. Practice being mindful whenever you are leaving a room, and turn off appliances that are not in use.
- Integrate smart home technology: Smart technology connects devices through Bluetooth and Wi-fi to help them work together and make decisions on their own. Popular smart devices include smart thermostats, doorbells, locks, and refrigerators. These devices can be controlled remotely and used to avoid energy waste from devices left on standby. Additionally, smart meters can help save on electricity bills by alerting households of peak and off-peak periods.
- Water efficiency: A leaking tap can end up wasting litres of water. It is always best to regularly check for leaking taps and even pipelines. Consider installing water-saving systems. Rainwater harvesting is another sustainable practice a household can consider. Conserving water not only adds to savings but is also environmentally friendly.
- Upgrade your home appliances: Electrical appliances today are made keeping efficiency in mind. Energy Rating Labels indicate how energy-efficient the appliances are. These labels also indicate the amount of energy the electronic device will consume to generate output. Hence, you can get a fair idea of how much energy the appliance will consume when added to your household. The ratings range from A to G, where A is the most efficient while a G rating indicates more power consumption.
- Switch to solar energy: Australia is blessed with abundant sun exposure. This makes the continent excellent for harnessing solar energy. Consider installing solar panels on your rooftop to utilise sunrays as a usable form of electrical energy. There are plenty of rebates, schemes, and incentives available that a household can utilise when making this switch. This can also help reduce its dependency on the power grid. Additionally, households can opt for feed-in tariffs where they sell excess units of produced electricity to the grid.
- Install LED lights: Consider replacing your halogen downlights with LED downlights to save hundreds of dollars annually on electricity bills. LED lights are known to use 80% less energy and have a long lifespan. These lights can illuminate spaces of any size without straining the eyes, while their reduced heat emission helps create a comfortable living environment for all.
Make An Informed Decision To Adopt Green Sustainability
A household can be equipped with devices utilising the latest technology and still not save a penny if they do not implement holistic sustainability practices. From being mindful of switching off devices instead of keeping them on standby to adding plants to your home’s decor and more, sustainable green practices might take effort to implement and maintain, but their rewards are substantial and long-lasting.
