Here are some great ways to protect your house from the summer sun and heat and save money on your utility bills at the same time.
Protecting Wood
Find out how to get your house ready for summer heat and sun by protecting outdoor wood surfaces, like fences and decks, with CWF-UV® penetrating wood finish from Flood.
Flood CWF-UV is an oil-based finish that penetrates deep to protect wood from rain, snow, and damage from the sun. It comes in four shades and can be applied using either a brush, roller, or sprayer.
Window Replacement
Replacing single pane glass windows with insulated glass vinyl windows from Window World not only improves the look of your home, but it can lower power bills by 20% to 30% and reduce noise from outside.
Window World has over 200 locations across the country. Their windows are Energy Star certified and come with a limited lifetime warranty, professional insulation, and a guaranteed low price.
Adding Attic Insulation
Another way to reduce your utility bills and save energy is by installing Rockwool stone wool insulation in your attic. Stone wool insulation doesn’t irritate you skin and is easy to cut with a serrated bread knife.
Rockwool insulation is made from natural stone and recycled materials and is both fire resistant and water repellent. It has a high density, making it a good barrier to noise both inside and outside your home.
Don’t Forget to Protect Yourself!
Sun worshipers spend hours baking in the sun to get the perfect tan. A little sun is good for you, especially soaking in that natural vitamin D. But years of sunburns have taught us that those beautiful tans lead to early aging and serious skin problems.
Wear a hat, long sleeves, and use a sunscreen with a sun protection factor of at least 15 or higher. One that’s waterproof will protect you even longer while you’re working up a sweat.
Read our article on how to Get Your Home Ready for Summer to find out more.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Danny Lipford: Hi, I’m Danny Lipford, and if you’re thinking of doing any projects on the outside of your house, do them now before it really gets hot. This is a house that we just recently did a couple of projects on that made it a lot better as well as made it a lot more energy efficient.
And this house really needed it, because it was a very old fifties style contemporary house. And it didn’t have a real distinctive, welcoming front door entry way—now it does.
We used some treated wood, built a nice little wood arbor, and then stained it with a very good quality exterior wood stain from Flood. They call it CWF-UV, and what that means is it is very moisture resistant, which means it’s mildew resistant.
And just as important, it also will protect the wood from UV damage from the sun. That can really break down wood and finish. And this really made a big, big difference in the front of this house.
Now, you know some things are very do-it-yourself friendly, some you need to leave to the professionals. This is an example that something you need to leave to the professionals—replacement of existing windows. Now, these homeowners decided to replace all of the windows on their house, and they went straight to the top company in the country—Window World.
Window World came out and measured the openings. They created the exact windows for those openings, came back out only took them two days to replace all of the windows. And the homeowners are so much more comfortable in the temperature in the house, and comfortable knowing that they’re saving 20 to 30 percent on their power bill.
And another thing, airport close by—loud neighborhood—it also screens out a lot of that sound that can happen when you’re near an airport or a busy freeway or just a bunch of noisy neighborhood kids. Great benefit in replacing the windows.
But if you want a good project for the do-it-yourselfer, this is a great one—adding insulation to your attic. Now, you might cringe me touching this particular insulation. Well, it’s not fiberglass, that would be a problem. This is stone wool, it doesn’t irritate your skin.
It is so easy to cut with just a bread knife—a serrated knife like this—which is important when you’re in the attic and you have pipes and opening you’re cutting around.
And I’ll tell you, most houses in the United States don’t have enough insulation. And so adding this insulation, which is from Rockwool and called the ComfortBatt, right over the top of the insulation you have now will benefit you so much summer or winter. And like I say, one of the best money that you can spend on your home is on this insulation.
