Landscaping

Well spring is in the air or I should say in the area of central Oklahoma where I build new homes. Some of you may have snow on the ground but you know spring is not to far away.With this time of year it makes ones thoughts turn to the outdoors and specifically a landscaping project that you have had in mind all winter. Landscaping can have a large impact on the appearance of your house.  Sometimes the only difference in having it done professionally and doing it yourself can be performance and speed of which the job might get done.  Thinking from the point of saving money may or may not be the right way to look at it after all if the job does not look right and enhance your home what good is it any way right?  Sodding a yard, planting trees, and building flower beds is no doubt back breaking and tiring work but certainly doable.  Sodding a new yard it is very important to get the ground level and the drainage correct and then lay your new sod in.  In my experience of building new homes, especially if a client puts in a sprinkler system, you will always have some ditch settling so make sure your ditched are compacted as well as you can. This will minimize the amount of leveling you do after your sod is installed.  If you are going to plant trees make sure you know what kind of trees are best suited for your climate and what time of year is best to plant them and how much water is needed to get them started.  Building a flower bed area can be as simple as using a steel edging to separate your bed from your sod area to as elaborate as brick or stone walls.  Many clients that we have like to have these bed area incorporated into the building process so that the materials can match their house, but you can also use decorative concrete blocks for a very nice look.  Talk to the people at your local nursery as they will be able to give you some pointers on what type of plants will work well in your bed areas, depending on soil type and sun light exposure among the things to take into consideration.  So if you are going to take on a landscaping project make sure you do your homework, because after all a shoddy landscape job in my opinion is worse than no landscaping at all.

Energy saving tips

With rising energy costs we are all on the look out to help lower our energy bills.   When building a new house for our clients reducing energy is always a topic of discussion.   The following are among some of the things a person can do in their own household on a daily basis.  Service your central air conditioning unit yearly.  Check your furnace filter monthly and clean or replace it as suggested by the manufacture.  Dirty and clogged filters block the air flow through your equipment increasing the amount of time they have to operate which consequentially increases your bill and also shortening the life of the equipment.  When you leave a room or not going to be in there turn off all the lights, TVs and any electronic device not in use.  Use the sleep features on computers and office equipment to power them down when not in use.  On average about 15 percent of an average home energy bill will go to heating water.  When washing clothes make sure to do full loads so as to maximize use.  Lower the temperature on your water heater so that it is not over heating your water above what it needs to be.  If your heat/air equipment is older and not as efficient as today’s models consider changing out your equipment.  Savings on your bills could be as much as 40 percent.  Don’t forget about lighting.  Incandescent bulbs are very outdated and as much as 95 percent of the energy of a light bulb goes to just heating the bulb.  This adds extra heat into your home which in the summer is not what you want.  Consider changing out your light bulbs to more efficient bulbs as they will also last longer.  If your appliances are older models consider replacing them with energy star appliances.  Obviously you will never do away with your heating/cooling bills but following the above tips will certainly help put a little money in your pocket to use elsewhere maybe a dinner out or a movie.