Keeping your home cool in the summer and warm in the winter is one of the big goals of most homeowners. There are a number of ways to do this, including upgrading the windows to more energy-efficient models and performing seasonal maintenance on heating and cooling systems to keep them operating at peak condition. One thing that’s often overlooked however is the influence that attic temperatures can have on the temperature of your whole house.
You may have seen suggestions about installing automatic attic vents to help regulate the temperature in your attic. Is there something behind this, or is it just another upgrade to your home that provides very little benefit? You might be surprised at how effective automatic attic vents can be. Hot Attic, Cold Attic It’s pretty common knowledge that hot air rises. The question is, where does all that hot air go? If your attic isn’t well vented, it can build up within the attic itself and increase the temperature of your attic space significantly. The problem with this is that future hot air won’t really have anywhere to go, causing it to linger in the house itself for longer. This is great if it’s the middle of winter and you’re trying to keep your house warm, but you can see how it might be a problem during the heat of summer. You can run into the opposite situation as well if you have open vents in the attic. Heat can escape more easily, but if it’s cold outside you’ll find all that heat escaping much faster than you would like. This in turn causes heat within your house to escape faster, making it harder to stay warm in the depth of winter’s chill. Regardless of the situation you find yourself in, the end result will be the same: higher energy costs to keep your house cool in the summer or warm in the winter. Proper Attic Venting Attic ventilation is part of the key to solving this issue, but there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. During the summer, you want open attic vents to expel heat and keep your attic as cool as possible. In winter, you want attic vents to be closed to hold heat in for as long as possible. You can open and close these vents manually as part of your seasonal preparations, of course, though this won’t be a perfect solution. The truth is, unless you open or close the vents to account for all the temperature fluctuations during the year, you’ll still be losing money to unnecessary heating and cooling. Automatic Attic Vents This is where automatic attic vents come into play. These vents are connected to thermostats (and sometimes even humidistats) to monitor the condition of your attic and open or close the vents as needed based on what things are actually like in the attic. If the temperature goes too high during the summer or if it becomes too humid, the vent opens and lets that unwanted heat and humidity escape. If temperatures drop, the vents close to prevent outside heat from coming in. The opposite happens during the winter, keeping the vents shut to keep warm air in your attic. Some automatic vents function as simple ventilation units, possessing little function beyond opening and closing. Others include connected fans to force air in or out of the attic to even greater effect. Regardless of the vent type you choose, however, adding one to your attic can make a notable difference in how warm or cool the attic air gets during the year. Installing New Vents If you want automatic attic vents but aren’t sure where to start, I have your back and can connect you with pros who can install the automatic vent unit that will be the best fit for your current attic setup. All you have to lose is all of that unwanted energy waste.
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If you’re planning to sell your house, proper staging can make a huge difference. It’s important to keep in mind that tastes change over time, though, and the staging techniques that were popular when you bought the home might not impress buyers today. If you really want to get the most value out of your home when you sell, it helps to employ staging that will appeal to buyers in the current housing market. Fortunately, there are many ways you can stage your home so that it draws in modern buyers. The goal is to help them see your home as a place they could inhabit and fill with their own style, and these suggestions will help you to achieve this even if tastes have changed since you last decorated your home.
Maximize Your Lighting A lot of modern buyers are looking for function as well as form when they’re looking at houses. One example of this comes in the form of good lighting. Make sure that the windows are clean and that your window dressings allow natural light to come through. Check that you have sufficiently bright bulbs in your fixtures, and double check that none are burned out. You might also consider adding spotlights or other accent lights in places like the kitchen and bathroom where the potential buyers might want additional light. If you really want to wow people, you could even install smart bulbs that can be controlled from a smartphone or smart speaker. Keep It Earthy Color trends change over time. At the moment, warm colors are hot. When staging your home, work with accent colors such as chocolate, olive green, beige and wine to tie your various decorations together. This will add splashes of warm, earthy color that’s neither too bright nor too dark. As an added benefit, these shades go well with a wide range of wall and floor options, so you can add some nice earthy accents without having to completely redesign your home beforehand. Touch Up the Walls If your walls are too mild or too wild, consider adding a fresh coat of paint before you get ready to sell your home. There are several colors that are popular right now, including a number of shades of blue, gray and green. You can usually get away with some light pink and gold shades too, as well as the occasional off-white. You don’t want anything too bold in most rooms, just something that will give a bit of color to the room. But feel free to skew a little darker if you’re painting a bathroom or bedroom. De-Personalize the Place You may have heard that it’s a good idea to make your home look lived in, since that can help potential buyers see it as an actual living space instead of just a showcase. This isn’t bad advice; having some unique decorative items and other accents can really help buyers to picture their own stuff in the house. Just make sure that you take out anything that’s overly personal, like family photos, items with your family name and other keepsakes. Leave your decorations a little sparse, too. The goal is to inspire potential buyers and help them picture where they would put their belongings and their own pictures, and it’s hard to do that if there are pictures of your family everywhere or decorations filling every available space. Finding the Right Look If you’re not exactly sure how to stage your home, don’t be afraid to call me. I stage homes every time I list them. I can be a great resource for any questions you may have. Home remodels offer an opportunity to change the look and feel of your home. This can be great if you live in an older home with outdated fixtures and other hardware. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t take the time to match their remodel to their house and end up with a look that’s a bit less than optimal. The remodel won’t necessarily look bad, but it may be unsatisfactory because it doesn’t quite match the architecture and style of the house itself.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you have to redo everything in its original style when remodeling your home. That would all be rather boring, wouldn’t it? You simply need to make sure that you fully take your home into account when designing your remodel. This is easier than you might think, once you know what to plan for. What Style Is Your Home? Before you can plan out a remodel based on the style of your home, you need to figure out exactly what that style is. There are a lot of possibilities out there, ranging from Victorian and Colonial designs to Craftsman homes, Ranch homes and other more modern styles. You may already know which architecture style your house was built in, either from existing architecture knowledge or discussions with your Realtor before buying the property. If you aren’t sure, though, there are a number of resources that can help you find out. You can research home styles online, talk to fans of different architectural styles or even look at the original listing for your home if you have a copy. Regardless of how you find out, learning about your home’s architectural style is the first step to accenting it with your remodel. Learning Your Style Once you know your home’s style, take the time to learn a bit about it. Learn the key points of the architecture, distinguishing features and everything else that makes it stand out from similar home designs. If there are fixtures, doors, windows or other home features that are commonly associated with your home style, you should learn what those are as well. This may seem like a lot of work, but the details about your home style that you learn now will go a long way toward helping you design a remodel plan that really accentuates the best things about your home. Adapting Your Style Once you have a good idea of what works with your home’s architectural style, it’s time to start planning your remodel to work with that idea. You can look for fixtures that are similar to more traditional offerings but that better match your personal taste, or for example select a traditional door but opt to paint it in a color that will go better with your new siding choices. Your goal should be to find a balance between more traditional offerings for your home style and your personal decorating preferences. That way, the choices you make will fit in beautifully with the overall design of your home and its existing accents. Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean everything has to match perfectly, either. There is a lot of room for you to express yourself through choices that might otherwise clash with your home style, using that disparity to draw attention either to your choice or to the design of the home itself. There are many options available to you, and because you know what’s expected for homes like yours you are free to go with the traditional or to shake things up as you see fit. Perfecting Your Style If you want to find a style that’s a perfect match for your home but aren’t quite sure what works best, it may be time to call in a pro. |
Brooke Harrisis a full time Realtor/Dog Mom that loves the outdoors and helping people find their dream homes! Archives
March 2020
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