If your home isn’t energy efficient, you’ll pour hundreds of unnecessary dollars into heating, cooling, and electric bills every month, not to mention the negative impact you’ll have on our environment. Fortunately, American households are moving towards energy efficiency, and now is a great time to do a bit of research and make some much needed changes on your home. Here’s a look at a few tips that you should keep in mind as you begin to plan out your home energy efficiency projects.

Tackle One Form of Energy Efficiency At A Time -Home energy efficiency takes a lot of forms, and rather than going room to room to try to develop your energy efficiency plan, it may be best to tackle one form at a time. For instance, start on making sure your air sealing is good, then move on to your home’s insulation, then consider lighting, alternative power sources, etc. This approach will allow home owners to standardize their entire home’s energy consumption.

Research each area carefully to ensure that your home is as energy efficient as possible while still maintaining financial responsibility. Make sure that any possible changes to your home are justifiable to your pocketbook; there’s no sense in spending more on energy efficiency for a certain project than you’ll ever make back.

Make Comparisons – A big part of tackling your home’s energy efficiency is to look for the best possible deals on insulation and other materials. Prices can vary wildly from hardware store to hardware store. Before you make any purchases at all, use Internet price comparison websites and consider visiting several stores for larger purchases, especially if you’re buying any tools for your home energy efficiency projects. There’s no reason to avoid comparison shopping, as even if you’re only into energy efficiency for the environment’s sake, you shouldn’t have to spend unnecessary amounts of money anywhere.

Be sure to buy everything you need for a certain energy efficiency project before you begin. In your planning, note every possible material and tool that you will need.

Monitor and Reduce Personal Consumption – Finally, personal consumption needs to be monitored in order to ensure a home’s energy efficiency. Maximize your home’s use of daylight to reduce the need for lights. In colder weather, wear warmer clothes rather than running your home’s heating system, and wear looser clothes in the summer. Try to keep your home off the grid for as long as possible; your personal consumption of energy is the greatest barrier to making a truly energy efficient house, and it pays to put time towards planning out your use of energy as much as you’d plan out your energy efficiency home projects.

Remember, when you make your home more energy efficient, you’re helping the environment as well as your wallet. It’s great to take on home projects that are geared towards your ecological future that can save you money, too. A little bit of research and planning is imperative to ensure that your home really becomes energy efficient – otherwise, you may be throwing money away.

If you have tips for energy efficiency projects, feel free to post them in our comments section.