You don’t have to put up with a drafty or uncomfortably cold home. Sure, there are a lot of things you can do to make your Colorado home more energy efficient, but there are plenty of low-budget ways to save and things you can change on your own.
Insulation
Many Colorado home are poorly insulated. The technicians at the Energy Resource Center almost always find that adding insulation to the homes they assess will make the biggest impact on heating and cooling bills right away.
Tips:
- Buy fiberglass insulation and lay sheets of it in your attic or crawl space. This doesn’t take long and fiber glass insulation isn’t very expensive. The added insulation can make a big difference.
- Trained technicians can drill holes into the exterior and blow insulation in between the exterior walls and drywall inside, then patch the holes and paint over them. This is a more expensive and labor-intensive process than the attic and crawl space insulation. If you are income-qualified and apply for the Energy Resource Center’s winterization program, our technicians often do this work for free.
Furnace
Clean or replace your furnace filters frequently. Furnace filters are inexpensive and can be found at any hardware store and sometimes even at the grocery store. You would be surprised by how much more efficiently your furnace runs with a clean filter.
Weather stripping
Use weather stripping to fill gaps in doors and windows and keep drafts from blowing in and heat from escaping. Weather stripping is also inexpensive and it’s usually easy to work with.
Window coverings
Get heavy curtains to stop drafts. Open them on sunny days for natural heating and close them at night to keep the heat from escaping through single-pane windows.
Get help
You can do a lot of weatherization on your own, but you might not have to. Even some of the most affordable winterization solutions can add up to more than many families can afford. The Energy Resource Center offers energy audits and free winterization services to income-qualified residents of in El Paso, Teller, Fremont, Douglas, Alamosa, Conejos, Mineral, Saguache and Rio Grande counties .