Create an Energy-Saving Landscape

A Carefully Developed Landscape Can Reduce Your Annual Heating and Cooling Bills

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Cover image of Home Series 2: Home Heating and Cooling

AMES, IA (02/19/2009)(readMedia)-- Spring is just around the corner and with it comes landscaping projects. Besides making your homestead a greener and more beautiful place to live, trees and landscaping are the most effective long-term measures for reducing your home's energy consumption for heating and cooling.

For example, deciduous trees—which are bare in the winter and leafy during the summer—allow winter sunshine to come through their branches when it's cold and warm your home, and screen out the summer sun when the branches are filled with leaves. Choose deciduous trees that don't have a heavy branch structure (which could block the sun), and plant them on the east, south and west sides of your home for the maximum shading effect. On the north and west sides of your home, use evergreens as a windbreak to reduce the chilling effect of winter winds. And add low bushes or hedges to direct summer breezes toward your home.

Mature trees and shrubs "protecting" your home can have a dramatic effect on utility bills, according to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. An energy-saving landscaping design can cut heating bills by about one-third during cold-weather months. The potential savings during warm-weather months are equally dramatic: A well-planned landscape can reduce an unshaded home's summer air-conditioning costs by 15 to 50 percent, depending on how tight the structure is and how well it's insulated.

Learn more at home energy saving ideas by ordering free, easy to follow guides–the Home Series. Call or email the Iowa Energy Center today to order your books, (515) 294-8819 or iec@energy.iastate.edu.