Modern Energy Efficiency Tips That Won’t Affect Your Home’s Unique Character
Your home probably wasn’t built during a time when people used the phrase “energy savings.” But that doesn’t mean that the builders didn’t try.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, builders certainly understood the concept of heating and cooling efficiency in their own way. Your historic home may already feature any of these old methods of regulating temperatures indoors:
- Brick masonry for insulation
- Fewer windows to protect against drafts
- Exterior shutters to block heat or cold
- Solariums, porches, balconies, porches, and overhangs for keeping cool
These solutions worked fine back when your home was built. But in today’s world, keeping out the heat in summer or keeping warmth inside during the winter take on a new meaning. No builder could have accounted for the fact that today’s homeowner would use more energy than ever before and also have a desire to save money on energy use or reduce their carbon footprint.
However, even in a historic home, you can still benefit from the latest technologies for comfort and saving energy. A historic home renovation expert can help you accentuate your home’s character, while also making three critical changes that will save energy in the modern household.
Update Your Windows
Our first energy-saving tip during a historic home renovation is to consider your windows, which are notorious for sucking heat and air conditioning out of your home or bringing undesirable temperatures in.
However, the windows in your home should be handled with care. You should only trust an architectural design team to make choices that preserve your home’s unique detailing. The right historic home renovation team may recommend custom windows that match your home’s period architecture, while also meeting today’s energy-efficiencyies standards.
Consider the Latest Heating and Cooling Solutions
Historic homes often need furnace updates. For example, your house may have relied on an outdated heating method, such as a boiler with radiant heat. Today’s energy-efficient heating and cooling systems can be seamlessly integrated into a historic home without disruption, provided you’ve chosen a team for historical home renovation that has ideas and knowledge about how to incorporate modern technology into your home.
In homes with multiple stories, which can put a strain on undersized furnaces or central air conditioners, solutions are available to cool and heat those hard to reach spaces. Consider a ductless mini-split, a second smaller system, or a heat pump that will heat and cool the upper floors more efficiently than trying to overwork a single system.
Consider investing in a smart thermostat and room sensors, which can monitor your heating and cooling system’s output at certain times of day, determine when rooms are and aren’t occupied, and automatically adjust your thermostat to help you save on your energy bill.
In homes that don’t have ducted heating and cooling systems here’s a tip from our historic home renovation team: consider repurposing and refinishing the radiator cabinets as shelving, desks, or side tables. This strategy is a small, unique way to preserve the original features of the home. Explore this Roanoke home in Kansas City to see how this concept emerged from a need to update the furnace.
Look to Insulation As Part Of Your Historic Home Renovation
Although historic homes had methods for controlling air temperature, modern insulation was not commonly installed until the 1950s. Therefore, most historic home framing isn’t necessarily insulation friendly when compared with today’s building techniques.
The EPA estimates that you can reduce your energy expenditures by 15% when you seal and insulate your home. An effective historic home renovation team will understand how to add insulation that works with the home’s existing framing. The ideas that your historic home renovation designers provide for insulating your home will be much more ideal than relying on a general contractor with limited understanding of architectural periods.
How to Find a Team With True Expertise In Historic Home Renovation
Including energy-saving features in your historic home is a different process than simply adding upgrades to a home built more recently. You want to ensure that the historic architecture that gives your home its distinct look isn’t disrupted by a desire to add modern efficiencies, such as new windows, heating and cooling solutions, and more.
Hiring an experienced historic home renovation team positions you for the best of both worlds: care, focus, and expertise for the historic aspects of your home and contemporary customizations and upgrades you need for modern living.
As you do your research to find a team for historic home remodeling, look for companies with:
- Articles and resources focus on the delicate balance of delivering exceptional design concepts for historic homes, while also honoring homeowners’ modern needs.
- A lengthy list of awards and recognition for their work.
- A design portfolio that includes a range of projects that spark ideas for your historic home renovation.
