For millions of homeowners around the world, the last few years may have been quite challenging from a financial perspective. At present, interest rates are at some of their highest levels in recent years. This creates a significant financial burden if you have a variable-rate mortgage, as your monthly repayments are likely to have increased. Inflation rates are also high, which means that many households will be in a situation where their weekly shopping bills have also gone up.
Combined with a cost of living crisis that is affecting many countries, it is noticeable that most home budgets will be more stretched than a few years ago. This situation is not improved by the rising cost of energy, which has been driven in part by the ongoing war in Ukraine and some countries’ reliance on Russian gas supplies. Many homeowners will have found that their monthly energy bills have risen considerably in the last two years. However, there are some intelligent ways that every homeowner can investigate that will help to lower home energy bills. In this article, two key home upgrades which help you to reduce your energy bills will be discussed.
Solar Panels
Installing solar panels can be an excellent way to gain greater control over your home’s energy bills. As they work by taking the energy from sunlight and converting this into electricity, you can reduce your reliance on other forms of energy to heat and light your home. In addition, any excess energy that your solar panels generate can be fed back into the national grid, thus allowing you to generate an additional stream of income. Search online for reputable solar panel companies such as customsolarandleisure.com and make a shortlist of providers who offer high-quality installations and monitoring of your panels to ensure that they are functioning efficiently.
Look on customer review sites to ensure that previous customers are satisfied with the service they received and that they would recommend the company to others. After the installation is completed, you will be able to enjoy lower energy bills. In addition, generating energy by using solar panels is an ideal way to make your home more environmentally friendly. The energy created is completely renewable and results in no pollution or emissions (which are produced by fossil fuel power stations that supply electricity), so you will also be helping to reduce your carbon footprint in the home.
Upgrade Your Boiler
Many older homes will have been built with less efficient boilers installed to heat water supplies and keep the house warm. This can play a key role in higher monthly energy bills as older boilers can be far less efficient than their modern counterparts. It is estimated that the best modern boilers have an energy efficiency of 90% or above.
When you consider that extremely old boilers may have efficiency levels below 70%, it becomes clear that this upgrade can reduce heating bills considerably. Over the course of its usable lifespan, a modern boiler will effectively pay for itself by lowering your heating costs and will result in far more manageable monthly energy bills from the outset.
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