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Get Your Home Energy Efficient Before Buying A New Furnace

house with solarpanel

Before you layout cash on a new heating system it is advisable to improve the overall energy efficiency of your home, you can make your home more energy efficient by adding insulation and improving your windows. Reducing the heating load of your home may enable you to purchase a smaller furnace and reduce your overall heating costs, it is also better for the environment. In this post we will look at how you can improve your homes energy efficiency.

Wall and Roof Insulation

The first thing you can do to save energy is insulate your walls and roof space, good insulation slows the rate at which valuable heat flows out of the house in the winter months and it can keep your house cooler in the summer. Insulation means less energy is needed to heat or cool your home. Many homes are built with an outer and an inner wall with a small gap in between, on many new homes these cavity walls are already insulated but this is not the case on older properties.

How Does Cavity Wall Insulation Work?

Air is a very effective natural insulator, heat does not travel through air that easily. In the winter time we are told that the best way to keep warm is with several layers of clothing. Layers of clothing trap air and stop your body heat from escaping, fibrous materials like wool keep us warmer than less fibrous materials such as cotton.

Cavity wall insulation works like a woolly jumper, the material injected into the cavity wall of your house traps air in between its fibres creating an ‘air matrix’. Insulating your cavity walls is a good idea but insulating your loft and walls is even better, heat rises so it is a good idea to make sure your roof is insulated too. Roof insulation is also made from a woolly material that can be laid in rolls, rolls of glass wool are easy to lay but it can irritate the eyes, skin and lungs so adequate protection is required.

Install a Programmable Thermostat

Programmable Thermostats can save energy, they will reduce the amount of work your new furnace needs to do when your family is out. You can reduce your heating bill by about 2% for each degree that you turn down the thermostat during an eight-hour period,.

Replacing an existing thermostat for a programmable one is a job that most homeowners should be able to do themselves.

Get New Windows

Double and triple glazing can make your home more secure, reduce noise pollution from outside, reduce condensation and it is more energy efficient. These types of glazing units trap air and work in a very similar way to the insulation methods already mentioned above, modern double glazing units are often fitted with pyrolytic, low-emissivity coated thermal glass. The glass used in modern windows is designed to let free heat in from sun whilst stopping the heat already in the house from escaping.

If you are happy with your homes heat retention abilities a new furnace or heating system may add to your overall energy efficiency.

This post was supplied by Mark Stubbles who writes for FurnacePrices.ca, a site that supplys furnace quotes get a free one.

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How Energy Monitoring Can Reduce Your Emissions And Expenditure

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In a time of economic slowdown across the globe, business of all sizes must work hard to protect their bottom line. Even in times of austerity, climate change remains an ever-present issue; reducing your carbon footprint can also help you to control business expenditure.

Whilst being the catalyst for saving energy and reducing costs on a wider scale, businesses often overlook energy monitoring and usage management. Instead, many companies simply cut budgets or attempt to save money in other areas. However, by raising awareness of your energy consumption, your business can make tangible savings, as well as moving towards a greener future.

Strategy & Management

Energy management is all about limiting the effect that your company has on the environment. To achieve the best results, a strategic long-term plan needs to be introduced, outlining responsibilities, investment, procurement and overall communications. This will help promote understanding throughout the company, and make it easier to track each person's role in actioning specific tasks.

Monitoring & Moving Forward

However, in order to identify areas for improvement, it’s important to monitor your energy consumption. Energy usage meters can provide crucial data, to help you visualise energy spikes and establish the consumption of individual machines and appliances.

Recording this data will allow you to pinpoint the heaviest users of energy, which, in turn, will enable you to implement specific changes to energy consumption. With specialist software, you will be able to examine data collected over a period of months, analyse it and develop a robust strategy to manage and reduce your carbon footprint.

What’s more, this information will help you educate staff as to where energy consumption can be controlled, with simple but effective changes such as turning lights and appliances off when not in use. Setting realistic targets can promote implementation, without impacting the performance and operations of your business.

The Future

Energy monitoring and management should be an ongoing process for your business, as a means to promote gradual and lasting change for a greener future. In time and with the right information, energy usage will be reduced for your company, together with its associated costs.

From simple, everyday necessities such as lighting and heating, right up to identifying and sourcing raw materials, energy monitoring is the first step in managing business energy use efficiently and effectively. I hpe you find this information useful.

This article has been written by Kelly G Grassam with useful information from GMI Energy. Kelly can be found on Twitter at @KellyGGrassam if you fancy a follow :D

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Tips For Reducing The Price Of Hiring An Electrician

Electrician

Over the past couple of years the demand for electricians has increased steadily. However, finding a good electrician is till like finding a needle in a haystack and this is despite the fact that these services are popping up almost everywhere. In most cases the electricians you encounter are either not qualified enough or they are not certified or don’t have enough experience so either way hiring them is not a good idea. That said more qualified and experienced electricians tend to be expensive. Sometimes as much as 50% more expensive but you don’t have to pay that much for their services if you know how to negotiate and understand the quote they give you. Expect to save around 30% off what is quoted if you are prepared to do some work on your own.

Get multiple quotes

To start off with you should first get an idea of what the cost will be for that given job. Visit a few nearby electricians and don’t worry about their qualifications. Just ask them to take a look and give you a quote. Even though you may not have any intention of hiring them the quote should tell you a little of what you can expect in the way of work and costs. Also ask them to break up the quote to clearly outline things like labor charges, installation costs and replacement costs. If they are going to for instance replace switches or fuses then ask them to detail what types of fuses they will use and what switches they are going to use. These are very important factors to consider because the quality of these items vary and installing low quality may in fact end up being cheaper but they will not last you as long as properly manufactured and warranty backed replacements. The more you know about what they will install the better position you will be to judge if the electricians you’ve consulted are any good.

Compare quotes

Compare the quotes that you’ve received from the electricians you’ve consulted. Compare labor costs and replacement costs. Ideally, you will want a good electrician to use high quality parts and charge you little in the way of labor. However, as mentioned earlier you’ve gotten these quotes simply to get an idea of what you’ll end up paying. This will also help you negotiate with an expert electrician.

Negotiate with comparisons

An expert electrician is obviously going to be more expensive to hire than the ones you’ve consulted. It is assumed that you’ve verified that they are experts and experienced because everyone will say that they are. The best way to negotiate is to ask the electrician to lower their labor costs by around 10% and not charge you for replacement parts. Rather offer to buy the parts yourself. He should provide you with a list and you can search for these parts online which are often available at way lower prices than what the electrician may offer them to you for. However, keep in mind the fact that you should always buy replacement parts backed up by a warranty. If it does not have a warranty then there is a good chance it will fail and ruin the job the electrician did.

A complete quote

Many expert electricians may charge you by the hour. The quote will reflect their hourly labor charges. You can reduce the cost to some extent by asking them for a complete quote. Ask them to charge you based on the work done and not the hours it takes. The upside to this is that the electrician will work faster and take fewer breaks which results in an overall saving for you. Hiring an electrician can often be a rather stressful decision. The best way to do it is to hire a known and established expert electrician service like the one offered by Electrician to the Rescue. The service backs all their jobs with a solid warranty and they have been around for ages. If you are in a hurry you can simply visit their website and fill out the online request for an electrician and get a response almost immediately this helps you save time.

Citations:The Best Way To Choose the Best Electrician

Mark is a certified and experienced electrical engineer. He has been working as an electrician in Sydney for well over a decade. A keen eye for detail and an interest in all things electrical is what has made him one of the leading electricians in the country. He is also the author of various how-to publications

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How To Save Money On Your Energy Bills

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There is no surprise that many of us are searching for ways to reduce our household energy bills in order to free up extra cash that we can use for enjoyment in our everyday lives. Most of us would much rather be spending our hard earned cash on days out the family and spending time with friends. To try and keep a little more cash in your wallet or purse take a look at the tips below and see just how much money you could be saving in no time with a few simple changes.

If you tend to leave your TV or any other home gadgets on standby start to turn them off. You could save between £50 - £90 a year if you do!

Switching to energy saving light bulbs is one of the easiest ways to help reduce your electricity bill. You could end up saving up to £35 a year. It may not sound like a lot but it’s more than enough to treat yourself to a nice lunch or dinner out with a friends. Which would you prefer?

Try using your computer less often by switching to a smaller device such as a laptop or a tablet. You could save around £26 a year. Try taking a shower instead of a bath for just one day in the week and you could save around £15 a year on your gas bill.

Sticking to all of the above tips could save you up to £166 a year. Just imagine what you could do with that! For more great ways to help lower your energy bills and keep your money in your pocket take a look at the infographic below created by the expert team at Juice Electrical Supplies UK.

Created by Juice Electrical Supplies UK.

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