Multifamily buildings are becoming increasingly common throughout the US, with 16% households in the country residing in condos or apartments. With energy being supplied to multiple families, each of which chooses its own light levels and air-conditioning points, it is no wonder that the energy costs are soaring.
Ways to Save Energy Costs in Multi-Family Buildings
1. Upgrading the lighting:
There are plenty of benefits of turning to more energy-efficient lighting options. LED, in particular, offers a quick payback and allows you to save energy without increasing your costs.
Even if you cannot upgrade your lighting for the time being, there are a couple of other ways to save money through lighting:
a. Focus On The Common Areas:
Since the common areas require lights to remain on almost all the time, these are the areas associated with the longest burn time. In addition, common areas are often top safety priorities. Think of hallways, stairwells, parking lots, and parking garages where residents need to feel secure. Besides this, if you use décor or specialty lighting in the lobby, there is a fair chance that you use halogen or incandescent bulbs, which use up high amounts of energy.
b. Use Occupancy Sensors:
Installing occupancy sensors can reduce your lighting costs by 15 to 35 percent. In multi-family arrangements, lighting controls work best when installed in low-traffic sections, such as meeting rooms or office spaces.
2. Regulating the Use of Water
It might be surprising to you, but the electricity used in heating water might be one of the most significant chunks of your overall operating cost.
Implementing controls with regards to hot water can optimize usage, as can providing hot water to tenants as and when needed. Systems can be programmed to deliver more hot water during the peak times, such as evenings and mornings.
Maintaining your water system also plays a key role in regulating water usage – water leaks are expensive yet avoidable.
3. Educating the Residents
If you think that an energy-saving meeting will not attract much response, you might be pleasantly mistaken. This is especially true if the residents pay for the energy and water usage out of their own pockets. Besides, plenty of residents are now looking to implement more environmentally-friendly practices.
The more you can get the residents involved, the more effort they will be willing to put into optimizing their energy use.
Multi-Family Energy Programs In NYC
To sum up, the above practices represent easy ways to introduce considerable improvements to your energy usage and costs. If you are looking for a New York City energy consultant to improve your energy costs, please feel free to visit Slattery Energy.