Landscape Savings Energize Your CT Home
On Earth Day, many folks take a moment to reflect on how they use energy. Some homeowners will try to recycle more, some will switch over to LED light bulbs, and some may even begin composting their kitchen scraps. While these are all great things to do, one of the best ways to improve your home’s energy efficiency and curb appeal is to add landscaping your yard.
You can get a lot more energy efficiency with better-planned landscaping instead of a few shrubs and a big, grassy lawn. In winter, wind breaks can reduce heating bills providing annual energy savings of up to 25%. In the summer, landscaping in Connecticut can actually decrease the ambient outside temperature around your home by 9 degrees. If you compare these rates in Connecticut to your monthly energy bill, you’ll find that combining landscaping with shade trees can help energize your CT home’s cooling energy efficiency by 15% to 50%.
Connecticut Electric Bills And Microclimates
Your yard is actually a “microclimate”. Its temperature and air current patterns depend on the kinds and locations of various plantings around your home. Just consider the typical new suburban subdivision home: a house, a black driveway, three low height ornamental conifer bushes, and a vast, flat stretch of grassy lawn. While this might sound perfect for easy lawn moving, the lack of landscaping increases the home’s energy usage:
- In the winter, this type of yard is an open field that offers no shelter against harsh northern winds. No barrier to the wind makes the building harder to keep warm. As wind blows around a house, it creates a low pressure zone on the down-wind or leeward side of the building. The lower pressure creates a vacuum that pulls warm air out of the home through drafts around windows, doors, and countless other small openings. As a result, your furnace must run longer to keep your home warm. Running your heating system longer means using more energy and increasing the monthly bill.
- In summer, the lack of shade turns the yard, driveway, walkways, and the house itself into a giant heat sink. It soaks up heat during the day and radiates it all night long. This forces your home’s air conditioning to run longer to cool your home. And once again, running appliances longer means using more energy. These high electricity usage rates means increasing your monthly electric bill.
Connecticut Energy Efficient Landscape Architecture
In winter and summer, landscaping in Connecticut with trees and shrubs increases heating and cooling efficiency by altering the microclimate around your home.
- In winter— adding evergreen trees and shrubs as a wind break along the north and northwestern edge of your yard can reduce wind speed by as much as 30 times the height of the wind break. It will also deflect the oncoming wind upwards and reduce the effects of low pressure on the leeward or down-wind side of the building. Landscaping in Connecticut with evergreens can help reduce spring time drainage problems (like wet basements) caused by drifting snow. This way, you can expect cheap electric company bills in Connecticut.
- In summer— planting shade trees near your home to shade your roof can reduce roof surface temperatures by 20–45°F. That means just planting two 25 foot tall shade trees on the west side of your home and one on the east can help you reduce your electric usage rate by 23%. By some estimates, you canreduce air conditioning costs by up to 35%.
Plan Saving Electricity With Landscaping
If your home already has trees shading it, then it’s a good idea to keep them healthy. Shade from a mature tree canopy can reduce peak summer temperatures around your home by 1°F to 3°F and reduce your Connecticut electric cooling costs by 5% to 10%.
Landscaping in Connecticut to save electricity isn’t hard but it is important to develop a plan. Start off by identifying your plant hardiness zone and then what types of plants are best suited for it. Figure out what areas need shade, drainage, and erosion control. Don’t forget those great views you want to preserve.
Adding small plots of groundcover plantings, like Hostas, creepers, and thyme, help shade driveways and sidewalks. These create cooler spaces that reduces ground heating which radiates into the home. A trellis for vines or tall bushes that shade a patio can also reduce more ambient heat. Planting trees or shrubs in areas prone to ponding rainwater is also a great way of taking care of humidity and mosquito problems. In some cases, planting a raspberry bush not only solves the problem but also provides a healthy treat.
By reducing the heating effects of the sun, your entire yard will absorb less heat during the day and help your home to cool faster at night.
And when it’s time to sell your home, landscaping in Connecticut can add between 5%-12% to the home’s value.
Shading the Air Conditioner
The rule of thumb used to be that homeowners could save 10% of their energy usage by shading their outside AC unit. However, that recommendation was based on old data because it mainly applied to window-mounted units which once outnumbered central air systems. Single room, window-mounted units should be shaded.
For central air systems, more recent research shows that the effect of shading outside condenser units is negligible. Air conditioner outside condensing units get rid of coolant heat through the cooling coils and fins. While it seems to make sense that the unit’s metal case should make the whole unit hot, research shows this isn’t how it works. In fact, the large metal case doesn’t conduct heat to the cooling coils and fins very effectively. Plus, the case also shades the cooling coils and fins from the sun.
Because the fan circulates air through those coils, it’s the temperature of the air that has a direct impact on the rate of coolant-cooling rather than the surface temperature of the unit’s metal case. All told, shading the outside condenser unit only increases the efficiency by less than 1%.
But, if you do landscape near your outside condenser unit, be very careful not to restrict air flow around it because that will wind up costing you more.
The Long Summer is Coming
Though not exactly the Stark family motto, it’s true that high temperatures and high electric bills are on the way! Is your family ready? Keep your cool this summer with these energy efficiency tips and by shopping for a great Connecticut electricity rate from CT Energy Ratings. Compare plans, read provider reviews, and choose the right Connecticut energy supplier that fits your family’s needs all year round!