Keep Your Home Warm Without Breaking The Budget
If you feel like you are paying too much to heat your home, you probably are. While it is a good idea to run out and buy the most energy-efficient furnace you can find, an efficient furnace alone is not enough to keep your heating costs down. In fact, if your home loses heat as fast as your furnace can produce it, then you may not feel like the efficient furnace is making much of a difference at all. Thus, you need to find ways to improve your home's energy envelope. Windows are a good place to start.
Window Panes
If your home has older windows, then your are most likely losing heat around your windows. For example, if you have single-pane windows, your windows are doing almost nothing to stop the transfer of heat in and out of your home. If you have older double-pane windows, check to make sure that you don't have condensation between the panes of glass. If you do, then the seal in the window is broken, and you are not getting the insulation benefit from the windows. Today, you can find triple-pane windows filled with noble gases such as argon or krypton. If you can afford triple-pane, argon-filled windows, then you can put a noticeable dent in your heating costs. However, if you can't buy triple-pane windows, then simply buy the most energy-efficient windows you can afford.
Window Films
If you can't afford new windows, don't despair. You have a second option for improving the energy efficiency of your windows. A reflective film can reflect heat back into your home in much the same way that an emergency blanket would reflect your body heat back to keep you warm out in the wild. Window film is much cheaper to buy, and if you are handy, you may be able to install the film on your own to further reduce your costs. In any case, window film can help to reduce your heating costs by up to 25%.
If you know that you need new windows, but you can't afford them as long as your budget is hemorrhaging to cover your heating costs, then start by coating your existing windows with window film. Go one window at a time if you have to until you have coated all of your windows. Then put the money you save from your reduced heating costs toward new windows. Even if you have triple-pane, noble-gas filled windows, you may still want to consider applying window film. Just know that there is a lot that you can do to improve the energy efficiency of your home, so check into what you can do to improve your windows' heat retention.
For more information, you may want to consult with a company such as Pristine Air Conditioning Corp.
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