Landscaping is a great way to add some extra curb appeal to your home. What many Lake Forest, Illinois, homeowners don’t realize is that landscaping can affect your home’s efficiency levels as well. Good landscaping can be both beautiful and practical, boosting your home’s value and its efficiency. Here are two ways that your landscaping choices can affect your home’s efficiency.
Providing Shade and Sun
One of the most easily recognizable ways that landscaping affects your home is by providing both shade and sun seasonally. During the summers, shade can be used to help keep your home’s interior cool and reduce uneven temperatures across your home. Even if you have a great climate control unit, direct sunlight can lead to warmer areas in your house. This uneven temperature can increase your HVAC’s workload therefore reducing efficiency levels.
Sun is similarly useful during winter months. If you choose shade trees that lose their leaves during the winter, they can fulfill dual roles by giving shade in summer and sun in the winter. Sun helps keep your home warm and melt any snow that accumulates on your roof, which can also affect HVAC efficiency.
Directing Wind Flow
Plants are also useful for directing wind flow around your home. For areas where you’d like to reduce wind, a hedgerow or dense ornamental trees can help keep biting winter winds to a minimum. Conversely, you can use shrubs and other bushes to create channels that bring cooling winds during the summer.
By manipulating wind currents, you’re able to increase your efficiency by eliminating or encouraging cooling breezes directed at your home. Lightening the load on your air conditioner in this way will keep your home’s temperature more comfortable. This is especially useful if you have a lot of windows, which are susceptible to temperature exchange and, therefore, can affect your home’s efficiency.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to improve your home’s efficiency, give the experts at Ireland Heating & Air a call at 847-388-0108 today to set up a consultation!
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