How to Improve Your Home in Tucson, Arizona
- 1). Replace the doors. According to the Hanley-Woods annual study of remodeling projects, the payoff for upgrading to a steel entry door in the mountain region from 2010 to 2011 hit 102 percent in mid-range-priced homes. A garage door replacement yielded an 84 percent payoff, by contrast.
- 2). Upgrade the windows. Choosing energy efficient windows helps keep the heat from entering the home in the summer or leaving it in the winter. Replacing the windows returned 72.4 percent of the investment made in homes in the mountain region, according to the Hanley-Woods study.
- 3). Install a new heating and cooling system. The minimum energy efficiency rating of new heat pumps and air conditioners start at SEER 13. SEER is the acronym for seasonal energy efficiency ratio and you could save substantially on your summer electric bill by installing a more efficient unit.
- 4). Paint the inside or outside of your home. Painting is one of the easiest ways to refresh the look of your home. If keeping your home cooler is important, you can add invisible ceramic paint additives to the paint for interior or exterior use that help keep the structure cooler. NASA developed the additives to increase the heat tolerance of metal for spacecraft reentering earth's atmosphere.
