Tips From The Top

We’re all staying home a lot more these days. For many of us, work, school, entertainment, and exercise are all happening in our residences. It should come as no surprise, then, that our home energy use is up – way up.

A report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that residential electricity sales in April of 2020 were 8% higher than April 2019, and 6% higher than the previous five Aprils.

We are moving our way into the most expensive environmental months of the year, when home heating, lighting, and water usage typically go up. And as the pandemic doesn’t appear to be slowing anytime soon, we can anticipate that staying home this winter is going to be more expensive than ever.

That’s where automated smart home technology can play an important role in reducing our home energy use and costs. Where smart home tech has been seen as a luxury in the past, it’s now a necessity for increasing home energy efficiency and reducing costs. 

According to a recent IoT for All article, sensors are essential to saving home energy costs; the article identifies several key areas that homeowners can use smart sensors to gather information and reduce their home energy usage.

For home water management, sensors can provide information about humidity and temperature to alert the homeowner about water leaks (also crucial if you’re away from home for an extended period of time). The sensors can gather and regularly report data about water usage patterns, helping the homeowner identify times when water heater temperatures could be reduced (which can be set to an automated schedule).

Wireless sensors can even make recommendations for when and how to reduce heating and cooling costs. Data and insights about temperature and energy use gathered by sensors can be organized so that the user can assess patterns of usage and ways to better optimize their home energy use.

In an automated Savant smart home, for example, the homeowner can immediately see the energy use in their home and set the thermostat to change throughout the day as needed by their family. A smart thermostat will automatically lower the temperature at night, and raise it in the morning, then decrease it during the afternoon, when the sun is at its highest. In a fully-automated smart home, various rooms can be set to different temperatures, accounting for the use of natural light to help heat the home. An integrated shading system can work to raise and lower shades automatically, taking more advantage of the sun’s natural heating and lighting capabilities in the winter months.

And as lighting can be one of the biggest costs in a home, an automated home lighting system like the ones we install from Lutron, can help homeowners reduce their energy costs in a very real way. Besides setting lights to change throughout the day, sensors can also automatically turn on and off lights throughout the home, as people move among rooms. Sensors can also provide insights about a smart light’s energy efficiency – data that can be used to better assess the home’s optimal lightning needs and usage.

To learn more about how you can reduce your home energy costs with smart home technology, call us at Jackson Hole AV. We’d love to discuss the possibilities.