When it comes to the home, more and more people are thinking of ways that they can become energy efficient. Whether you want to save the planet or save your money, becoming more energy efficient is easier than you think, and a great place to start is with a residential skylight.
How Can Residential Skylights Reduce Energy Consumption?
Lowering your home’s energy consumption can be done in many ways, and just a skylight alone has several ways in which it can help to reduce your overall consumption. A reduction in consumption can be achieved through:
- A Skylight’s Use of Natural Light
The clue is pretty much in the name – sky light. The fact that a skylight permits the entry of natural light into your home is arguably its best feature, and is a key feature when it comes to reducing energy consumption. By relying on bright, natural light coming in to your home, you’re negating the need for electrical lights to be running through the day, lowering your carbon footprint quite considerably. Not only will this reduce energy consumption, it will provide numerous health benefits and see your energy bills cut, too.
- Greenhouse-Like Solar Heating
A further feature that you might not know about skylights is the effect they can have on the heat of your home. Much like a greenhouse utilizes glass to trap and contain heat, your skylight can have the same effect. By positioning it facing eastwards, you’ll get the sun as it’s rising, warming the room in the morning. If it’s facing the west, you’ll have the same effect but later on in the day. This results in lesser energy consumption as you may not need to rely on the heating system in your home as much – you’ll be harnessing the power of the sun itself.
- Effective Heat Retention
Having a greenhouse effect isn’t the only one that a residential skylight will keep your house warmer. Given the high quality glass panes in skylights, they’re extremely effective when it comes to retaining heat inside your home, meaning you won’t have to run the furnace for quite so long or quite so high, lowering your energy consumption.
- Added Ventilation
A further benefit that a residential skylight will provide for your home is the added ventilation it can offer. Rather than having to use fans in order to provide air circulation and keep your home cool, you can open the skylight to take advantage of the breeze. Fan usage results in a serious number of electrical units consumed and you can run up quite a high bill, so this feature of a skylight is definitely welcome and a great way to reduce consumption.
Skylights – More than Simply an Attractive Feature
Skylights are popular because they look great, but they offer so much more than that. Whether it’s helping to heat your home or offer extra ventilation, they come with a range of benefits that people don’t know about and are pleasantly surprised by. One thing’s for sure – if you choose skylights, both the planet and your wallet will thank you.
