Curbing the Energy Appetite of Older Homes

It can be hard to live in a green house, especially when they’re what are often categorized as “older homes.” Not your new-fangled office building with geothermal heating, or house made of shipping containers. Older Victorian style homes, popular in New England and subject to reprisals until as late as the 1950s, are commonplace in my small-time town. My current job is even housed in one, a 1960s recreation with wrap-around porch. While the style is endearing, the fact is that house is a glutton for unnecessary electrical waste.

There is no central AC or heating, making the summers stifling and prompting someone at some point the house’s spotted history to install individual units in the most popular rooms. In addition to this many of the windows are also stuck, or more often painted, shut. Elbow grease will get them open sometimes, but the lack of air movement often causes overuse of the AC units.

In the winter the building is poorly insulated compared to most modern designs. There is no attic, but rather the third floor hosts yet another set of rooms for public use, allowing heat to escape easily and the use of space heaters, while hazardous, necessary. There is also a lack of overhead lighting, making various floor and desk lamps a necessity, but also prone to being unnecessarily left on.

But the house is wealth of history and old-style beauty. In order to keep it running major renovations are currently in place, and to combat these eco-conundrums our decorator brought up some great ideas for greening up the older building.

Ceiling Fans: Seems a little old-school, doesn’t it? But in fact there are a variety of ceiling fans with Energy Star rating which help lower your thermostat up to 4 degrees Fahrenheit without feeling a noticeable difference. Even in the winter these fans can help pull hotter air down and keep you warmer without resorting to space heaters.

Hybrid Lights: Installing overhead lighting can be a costly problem, both money-wise and energy-wise. For our one-story kitchen, hybrid lights have the potential to be well worth the cost. These lights use not just solar energy, but the very light of the sun to brighten your indoors too.

Insulation: Insulating a home is the best way to conserve energy, but many times insulation contains chemicals and substances such as fiberglass, which can be highly detrimental to your health. But companies such as GreenFiber are providing alternatives for loose-fill insulation which is over 85% recycled paper fiber, making is easier to breath easy in your own home.

There are still more ways to make older homes energy efficient, and not only preserve their history, but keep them modern, at least as far as energy consumption goes.