Believe it or not, how your kitchen interior design is set up translates directly to your home energy usage. From appliances to lighting choices, each effect how your monthly bill will stack up. By carefully considering your options when designing a kitchen space, you can make a large impact on your budget without disrupting a carefully balanced interior design plan. Furthermore, an energy efficient kitchen can increase your property value substantially and provide a more desirable element for buyer consideration should you place your home on the market.
Lighting options
Your kitchen is primarily a work space, and secondarily a social one. Traditional designs place useable areas along the walls facing out, so ask yourself this – why is there a center light shining down to illuminate your floor? If you look, you’ll see your useable light from the sides of the room do a wonderful job all by themselves. This recessed or hanging light is an outdated concept that still finds its way in to home design today and is a simple item to fix. You can add value and reduce energy costs by replacing it with an overhead fan to cool the kitchen and take strain off your air conditioning. With a great deal of heat being generated from your stove, this can create a large reduction in your monthly energy bill.
For another touch, replace under counter bulbs with more energy efficient and pleasing to the eye LEDS. These cooler temperature bulbs use only a fraction of the energy of the old CDL bulbs, provide a getler light, and keep for a much longer time before fading out.
A little electrical work
As a do-it-yourself project, you may want to pass this one up, but an licensed electrician can complete this task in a matter of minutes. Invest a little of your design budget to install dimmer switches where traditional up and down ‘flick’ switches would go. Dimmers regulate the energy input to light fixtures, and have the added bonus of creating dramatic shifts in lighting with the slide of a finger. Dimmers can reduce your power usage comparatively by simply using less electricity with conscientious use.
While you’re at it, look to the energy vampires cluttering up your counter tops. The French press coffee maker does look attractive, but how often do you truly use it? Unplug and store away for easy access to free up valuable counter space, and to reduce your energy consumption bill. Over time, those cute power-on lights and digital clock features can increase your power usage little by little without you gaining any benefit from them.
Choose you appliances wisely
Though you’d be hard pressed to locate an energy-hog of an appliance these days, you should be aware that they still exist. High end luxury refrigerators and stoves cater to users who have special functioning needs in mind, rather than saving money. These might include below-drawer deep freezers, wine racks, warming ovens, and the like.
Choose appropriately sized appliances for your projected use rather than to simply fill a space. Counter tops can always adjust in an interior design plan, as they are measured against your appliances from the start. If you have a family of four, there’s no reason to purchase an industrialized, restaurant-modified refrigerator with quadruple doors and an icemaker in the front. The larger the unit, the more power it requires. The same can be said for dishwasher s- choose one that you would be able to fill in a day or two rather than every meal. Reducing running time will go a long way in keeping your budget happy.
