8 Upgrades That Make a Family Home More Comfortable Year-Round
Does your house feel like two completely different homes depending on the season?
Icebox in the back bedroom. Swamp cooler in the living room. Shower that toggles between hot and cold for no apparent reason. Most people accept this and deal.
They shouldn’t have to.
Year-round comfort isn’t usually achieved with one giant overhaul. It’s typically just a few simple upgrades that consistently take care of what’s bothering everyone at your house daily. And guess what?
Most of them lower the running cost of the home at the same time.
Here’s where to start…
What’s coming up:
- Why Comfort Problems Hide Behind The Walls
- The 8 Upgrades Worth Paying For
- How To Spend A Realistic Budget
Why Comfort Problems Hide Behind The Walls
The vast majority of discomfort in the family home cannot be seen. No one can see grease constricting a drain line, or the crack allowing cold air into a bedroom. Not even the sediment accumulating at the bottom of the water heater is visible.
You only notice the symptoms.
Fix the hidden stuff first and the visible stuff gets a whole lot easier.
1. Clear The Drain Lines With Hydro Jetting
Slow drains are the most ignored comfort problem in any home.
A gurgling kitchen sink. A bathtub that drains slowly. That mystery smell by the washing machine no one can identify. They all point to one culprit: decades of grease, soap buildup, hair and mineral deposits reducing pipe diameter.
Hydro jetting cleans it out correctly. When you drain snake, you punch a hole through a clog and call it good. Hydro jetting forces high pressure water around the entire circumference of the pipe wall, scouring the walls clean and cutting the buildup loose, back to bare pipe. Now that line will drain like new.
A professional plumbing team such as Nichols Plumbing, Electrical, & HVAC will first snake a camera down the sewer line to see what they are dealing with and then decide if hydro jetting or a plain clean-out is necessary. Snaking the camera is important as older, broken sewer lines should be inspected before putting that amount of water pressure on them.
Schedule hydro jetting every few years if you have a busy family kitchen. It’s the difference between having backups every holiday and not having any.
2. Seal The Home Before Touching The HVAC
Here’s something most homeowners get backwards…
They purchase a larger air conditioner to battle a house that leaks air like a tent.
Heating and cooling account for about 52% of residential energy consumption already. So every draft you have is costing you money, both in comfort and on the utility bill.
Before upgrading any equipment, seal the envelope:
- Attic insulation topped up to the recommended depth
- Weatherstripping on exterior doors
- Caulk around window frames and trim
- Foam gaskets behind outlet covers on exterior walls
- Sealed and insulated ducts in the attic or crawlspace
Part of the problem is that rates are calculated simply based on land size. It’s easy money. Which is also how two identical homes right next door to each other can have completely different bills.
3. Put A Smart Thermostat In Charge
A programmable thermostat stops the house heating and cooling an empty room all afternoon.
Smart models take it one step further. They learn your family’s schedule, make adjustments while you’re at work and school and allow you to adjust the temperature from your phone on the way home. Hook one up to a zoning system and each floor of your home can run its own temperature rather than battling over who controls the dial in the hallway.
Win of comfort: no more bedrooms that are 5 degrees warmer than the rest of the house.
4. Chase Down The Leaks Nobody Notices
A dripping tap is annoying. A silent leak is expensive.
The average home wastes 9,400 gallons of water annually due to household leaks. About nine percent of homes have leaks that drip 50 gallons or more per day. Usually its just an old toilet flapper or washer under a sink.
Worse still, slow leaks feed the exact conditions that make a home uncomfortable:
- Damp patches and musty smells
- Higher humidity indoors
- Mould in cupboards and behind vanities
- Warped flooring and swollen skirting
A simple meter check can reveal volumes. Turn off all fixtures for two hours and observe the meter. If it has advanced, you have a phantom draw.
5. Upgrade The Water Heater
Nothing wrecks a morning routine faster than running out of hot water.
As tank heaters age, they have reduced capacity due to sediment forming on the bottom of the tank. Sediment also makes it harder for them to heat an equal amount of water. Flushing your tank once a year helps alleviate the problem. Replacing an aging unit alleviates it even more.
Tankless models heat water only as it is needed. They work well for larger families who take showers at different times. Heat pump water heaters are expensive to purchase but operate at a fraction of the cost. In either case though, the end result is what matters — the fifth shower of the morning should feel like the first.
6. Improve The Air The Family Breathes
Comfort isn’t only about temperature.
Remember dust, pollen and pet dander flow through your ducts year round. Allergy sufferers in your family will notice the difference in days. The upgrades that make a difference:
- Better filters, changed on a real schedule
- A whole-home humidifier for dry winters
- A dehumidifier for humid summers
- Duct cleaning if the system has never been done
Dry air feels chilly in a warm room. Moist air feels sticky in a cool room. Often changing humidity to the proper range does more for comfort than adjusting the thermostat.
7. Fix Weak Water Pressure Properly
Weak pressure is usually treated as a plumbing quirk. It’s actually a warning sign.
Scale builds up inside older supply lines like grease builds up inside drain lines. If hydro jetting is the answer to cleaning out drain lines, then descaling and fixture replacement are the answer to clearing supply lines. First try the inexpensive solutions — clean the aerators, replace old showerheads, inspect the pressure regulator — before deciding that you need to repipe.
8. Control The Light And The Heat With It
Windows are the weak point in most homes.
Insulated drapes, honeycomb shades and awnings block much of the summer sun that bakes rooms with western exposure. Replacing incandescent bulbs with warm LEDs reduces their heat output while creating a more relaxing ambiance. Ceiling fans further circulate the air so you can set your thermostat a few degrees higher.
Small changes. Big difference in how a room actually feels.
Bringing It All Together
A comfortable family home is the result of layers, not one purchase.
Weatherstrip first. Everything else is gravy after your house stops leaking air. Tackle the pipes second — hydro clean the slow drains, repair leaks causing unseen mold, upgrade to a water heater that can send ample hot water throughout your whole house before school. Allow the thermostat, air filters and blinds curtains to make micro-adjustments thereafter.
If you work down this list in order, your house will stop feeling like two different houses.
It just feels like home.
