Last Updated on March 30, 2023
During the Summer and Winter months, do your eyes tend to pop out of your head when you look at your power bill?
Extreme hot and cold months usually increase power consumption, since your air conditioning or heating is turned on more frequently.
The average monthly power bill in the U.S. is around $117. That average monthly bill increases to $412 during the Summer months – about $300 higher! (2018 Info).
$300 per month? That’s a car payment for most people.
And if it was just $300 more for one month, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But we’re talking about $300 per month – during the hot AND cold months.
So what are our options?
Turning off the A/C or the heater is one option. But it’s not realistic unless you plan on sweating out the Summer and freezing during the Winter.
A better option would be to insulate your home from the extreme climate fluctuations during the hot and cold months by using blackout curtains.
Your walls already have insulation, so that’s covered, but how about the windows?
The only thing that separates you from the sweltering heat of the Summer and the frigid cold of the Winter is a thin pane of glass. Adding insulation to your windows is an easy and affordable method of saving on power consumption throughout the house.
If you’ve been considering updating old curtains, now might be a good time!
Blackout Curtains And How They Benefit You
Blackout curtains are designed to block out sunlight during the day. But they also help your house stay cool in the summer or warm during the winter.
If you add up the surface area of the walls in your home, a good chunk of that surface area is claimed by the windows.
And glass – while technically an insulator – does have its deficiencies.
It certainly lets sunlight through. It insulates, but only to a certain degree. Once it has taken on a certain amount of heat or cold, it starts to transfer it to the inside of your home.
In other words, the heat or cold outside makes its way inside through your windows. And it’s only a matter of time before you crank up the A/C or the heater.
So insulating your windows has significant financial benefits!
How Do Blackout Curtains Work?
Take a look at the backside of these energy-saving curtains. You’ll notice that they feature a tightly woven fabric with multiple layers.
These layers are what block most of the light from coming into your home.
A variety of different brands claim that their curtains eliminate up to 99.9% of sunlight from entering your home.
Do you live in a warmer climate?
Do you want to decrease the amount of sunlight coming in through the windows? If so, these curtains can surely do the trick and keep you cool throughout the long hot summer months.
How Can They Benefit Your Home
Do you live in a warmer area? Then you’ll appreciate that these curtains block out up to 99.9% of sunlight. This in turn keeps your home cool when it is needed the most.
Do you want to lower your power bill during the colder months? If so, these curtains will help reduce the amount of thermal loss in your home by up to 25%.
You may not think it will help much, but energy costs add up quickly. And this is an easy step in the right direction.
Blackout curtains also help in noise reduction. The multiple layers of tightly-woven fabric act as baffles, similar to what you’ll find in a car’s muffler.
If you live in a noisy neighborhood, blackout curtains will reduce the amount of audible street noise inside of your home.
Tips For Installing Energy-Saving Curtains In Your Home
When you are installing your new curtains, it is important to remember that the gather – the top portion of the curtain where the clips or grommets are located – needs to be placed higher than the curtain rod.
This way, no sunlight is escaping from the gap between the gather and the rod.
These curtains are designed to block out cold air and sunlight. So if there is even the slightest gap, it will defeat the purpose of using these for saving money on heating.
So, what you want looks like this:
And not like this:
If you are using these curtains for heating purposes during the winter, you are going to want to make sure that the curtains are only open when the sun is shining in through your windows.
Or if the temperature outside is higher than the inside of your home.
As the sun starts to go down and the temperature starts to drop, this is when you are going to want to close your curtains up tightly to keep the cold air from making an entrance inside your home.
What Type Of Energy Saving Curtains Should You Buy?
When you are shopping for this particular style of curtain, there will multiple options available to you.
One option, in particular, is the thermal insulated curtain.
This is an excellent choice if you are looking into ways for saving money on heating during the winter, as it helps keep the cold air from going any further than the curtain itself.
This type of curtain usually has 3 or more layers, to offer maximum insulation. These layers include fabric layers as well as non-fabric layers like foam.
This type of curtain is particularly useful if you want to eliminate street noise. If you live in a highly-populated area, you will truly appreciate this feature.
Another type of curtain that is popular for energy saving is the room-darkening curtain. These are very beneficial if you’re trying to save on A/C expenses!
Have you been Googling for ways to help save money on cooling costs? Room-darkening curtains are definitely the best solution!
Blackout curtains won’t help with colder climates as much as the thermal-insulated type will.
So we recommend this as more of a “Summer curtain”. Particularly if your Winter climate doesn’t get too cold – places like Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, etc.
Additional tips
Always remember, when installing your curtains, that you will need to check for gaps at the top and bottom of your curtains. By purchasing curtains that are longer than your window by at least 8-10 inches, you can avoid any sunlight or cold air seeping through.
Replace your thermally insulated curtains every few years – the foam layers do break down over time.