Home renovations are incredibly common among home owners here in the United States. In fact, home renovations are so common that more than half of all home owners (two thirds of them, to be more exact) are currently in the process of a home renovation – or are planning one for the very near future. And all home renovations are not alike. Some involve massive amounts of money and time invested and are more full scale construction projects. Others, like protecting your windows, are much more scaled back and accessible to all different types of home owners, even those who might not have all that extra money to spend so freely.
The windows in your home are important, after all. Windows provide light and view of the outside world. Without windows, we’d likely feel trapped and caged in a small box. In fact, when many people first go through the process of buying a home, the windows and the quality of light that they let in are important considerations to be made. Without windows, the vast majority of homes (if not even all of them) would be far less appealing.
But windows can come with their downsides too, and many windows become drafty over a period of time and as they begin to age. If you have single pane windows, it is likely that a good deal of heat is escaping through your windows, not only making your home harder to keep warm, but increasing your energy bills by a considerable amount. Of course, you could simply replace any window that is causing a problem entirely. While this is likely to be the long term solution in any case, it is not always ideal for those who are trying to save money – or who are currently in tight place financially.
So what can you do if you can’t afford a brand new window? You can get window treatments. Window treatments have come quite a long way in recent years and now include a wide variety of options, from motorized blinds to automated window blinds. These types of blinds can be ideal for many people. An elderly person who is starting to lose some of their mobility, for instance, is likely to benefit greatly from the installation of motorized window shades, as would a person who lives with a disability that hampers their ability to move freely. Those with chronic pain conditions are also likely to find themselves very thankful for such window treatments, as they can certainly add at least some ease to the daily tasks of everyday life. In fact, the convenience of such motorized treatments for your windows is the very top reason that people make the switch from normal window treatments to motorized window treatments.
But window treatments do more than add ease – they can actually save you quite a bit of money in the long run and even postpone the need for a full blown window replacement. This is because it has been found that the inclusion of heavy draperies over your windows during the often brutally cold winter months can actually reduce the heat that is lost by as much as ten percent. This ten percent might seem like a small number, but in reality it can end up saving you quite a bit of money. On top of this, just adding roller shades to your windows year round can have significant energy savings, saving you as much as one hundred and eighty dollars per year, not in total but instead for each and every window. For most people, this is a considerable amount of money. And if you are looking to take it a step further, you can add cellular shades to your windows. Cellular shades, even when used on single pane windows, the ones that are most likely to allow for the escape of heat during the winter months, can save you more than two hundred and fifty dollars per each and every window that they are applied to.
Window treatments matter. They can improve the convenience of your home as well as the amount of money that you save.