For the past three weeks, I have been sharing energy efficient DIY projects that anyone can easily do to make quick but impactful changes to your home in partnership with Constellation. We have had such a great time learning about how to best take care of our home and environment while keeping our energy usage and sustainability in mind. In case you missed my posts over on Instagram, I am going to summarize the projects below. 

Adding Weather Stripping to Doors and Windows

The first small project we tackled was to add weather stripping to our doors. Our house is pretty old and while we love that about her (yes, her…) it also means that we really need to stay on top of simple maintenance items such as this one. I realized as I was peeling off the old weather stripping that it had probably been there forever! I mean we’ve lived here for a minute and have never changed it.

There were so many gaps and openings where the weather stripping should have been. I could literally see my air conditioning flying out the door. Thankfully, this change was so easy to make and it literally took less than 10 minutes. I just scraped off the old weather stripping and stuck on the new one. When I shut the door, I was amazed that I could no longer see light peeking through! Did you know that repairing the gaps in your windows and doors can make your home more energy efficient by up to 20%? For more information on weather stripping check out this post over at Constellation’s blog.

Energy Efficient Outdoor Lighting

I don’t know about you, but I never remember to turn off our outdoor lights in the morning. Sometimes, I would forget to turn them on in the evenings and I hate arriving home to a dark house. We decided to update all of our outdoor light fixtures to have dawn to dusk light bulbs or dawn to dusk fixtures that have the sensor already built in. This was also super easy to do but made such a huge impact on our quality of living and the aesthetic beauty of our home’s exterior.

I just love to see the lights automatically pop on when the sun begins to set! It makes me feel super fancy for some reason and I don’t have to worry about wasting energy by having those lights accidentally on during the day. There are so many more ideas for making your outdoor lighting more energy efficient over at Constellation’s blog!

Shade Landscaping

If you hang out with me on Instagram or even on the blog then you know that I jump at planting just about anything! When the topic of shade landscaping came up I immediately knew it was something that I wanted to do. Our property and entire neighborhood is heavily wooded, so we have tons of naturally shaded spots. However, our air conditioning unit was sitting right in the sun. This unit is definitely not new, but we also have zero desire to replace it anytime soon, so we knew that this would be a great way to hopefully extend its life.

We planted a couple of shrub type plants in the holly family, one of the main reasons is because they are evergreen and don’t shed much. We made sure to plant them a couple of feet away from the unit and each other so that they have space to grow up into a beautiful hedge. Now, our a/c unit will be protected from some of the elements and this space looks so much better! If you are looking to add more shade landscaping to your property check out this article!

These three projects were so simple and so beneficial. My only regret is that we didn’t do some of these things sooner! We found all of these ideas and so much more over at the Constellation Energy blog. They have so much information about energy efficiency including very useful and practical tips. You can also check out the various plans that Constellation has here. Use the promo code “DIY” and you can earn up to a $75 gift card by signing up for a Constellation plan.