How to Save Energy at Home?

Climate, energy, rising prices, all of this invites us to rethink our lifestyles, starting with saving energy, without giving up comfort.

Simple ways to save energy at home

Whether your home was built at a time when its energy efficiency was not a priority, or whether it is a new home already designed to use as little energy as possible, you can still optimise your energy expenditure. Here are some energy savings tips of how you can save without necessarily depriving yourself.

Tips for Reducing Your Energy Use

• Unplug or shut down your electrical appliances when you don't need them (TV, phone, oven, computer, etc.). Standby mode consumes energy.
• Prioritise energy-saving electrical appliances (from A+ to A+++) when renewing the most energy-intensive ones in your home: fridge, dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, LCD television, conventional oven, microwave oven. Think about refurbished products. 
• Favour your dishwasher and washing machine "eco" programmes, which are longer but much more energy and water efficient.
• Replace your old halogen lamps with LED lamps and energy-saving bulbs.
• Avoid using air conditioners in summer. It is better to optimise your building (sunshades, external venetian blinds, vegetation, better insulating roller shutters, etc.), lower your shutters during the day and ventilate your home at night to keep it cool.
• Activate the peak/off-peak option in your electricity contract to benefit from a reduced price per kilowatt-hour at night (ideal for electric heating and hot water tanks).
• Dry clothes naturally instead of using a tumble dryer.

Optimising Your Heating: Some Tips for Winter

Heating accounts for around 40% of a home's energy consumption. It is therefore one of the first items of expenditure to be optimised with the onset of winter.

Heat your home to the right temperature: 19-20°C in the living room and 17° in the bedrooms. For the bathroom, you can go up to 22°C – only when you use it.
Turn your heating down when you are away, without turning it off. Turning it off completely requires a considerable amount of energy to bring it back up to the desired temperature.
Avoid heating unused rooms or high-traffic areas, such as toilets and corridors.
For gas heating, bleed your radiators at least once a year to optimise their heating power, and insulate their pipes. Your boiler should also receive maintenance once a year. If it’s over 15 years old, you can look into changing it.
Close the shutters and curtains at night to avoid heat loss through the windows. If your windows are old, give priority to more insulating models (double glazing).
Invest in connected radiators (or connected solutions for your existing radiators: thermostat, thermostatic valves) to heat more intelligently.

Improving the energy performance of your home is not only good for your wallet but also for the environment! By reducing your energy consumption, you also reduce your carbon footprint. A virtuous circle develops that benefits you – and the planet!

TaHoma can help you Manage Your Home’s Energy Efficiency

All these tips and energy saving ideas, although simple enough to adopt, can quickly become a burden in an already busy daily life. Can you see yourself turning off your electrical appliances every night? Turning down your heating before you leave home? Checking the weather forecast before going to the office to see about lowering your shutters?

Centralise and Connect Your Home Equipment with TaHoma switch

Somfy can help. Somfy’s TaHoma switch is the first smart control that centralises and connects your home equipment. With one touch on the smart control itself, tap on the TaHoma app or voice command to a Google, Apple or Amazon smart speaker, you manage your home just the way you decide. Connecting your lights, shutters, blinds, windows, thermostat, radiators – TaHoma is compatible with nearly 300 types of products from Somfy and major home equipment brands  – you can manage your home’s energy use from wherever you are, at any moment.

Create Customised Scenes

It's even possible to create your own customised scenes. For example, your “leaving home” scene turns off all the lights and lowers the heating by a few degrees. When you return in the evening, you can launch the “coming home” scene, which turns on your lights and music, and gets the heating to kick in again. Scenes can even be programmed to launch automatically, so that you don’t have to think about it. You manage your home to suit your needs and tastes, in a few simple taps on the app.

TaHoma’s Pre-Set Thermal Comfort Scene for Energy  savings

 
TaHoma has recently added a pre-set Thermal Comfort scene that can help your home save energy throughout the year. Activating it allows TaHoma to manage your motorised shutters and blinds according to sun exposure, to optimise your home’s energy use throughout each full day.

The TaHoma app provides guidance in setting up your requirements for managing thermal comfort – and any other scenes you may want to program. You can also always consult our FAQ page for running the pre-set Thermal Comfort scene, with or without sensors.

Let’s see how Thermal Comfort works.

Keeping Warm in the Winter

The reflex in winter is to keep the heat on so that the house stays warm. The sun, however, provides a healthy amount of energy. TaHoma will open your shutters during the hours that the sun is out to heat your house naturally – reducing the energy required by your heating system. At night, closing shutters creates a barrier that keeps both the heat in and the cold out.

Beating the Summer Heat

During the summer, TaHoma will close your connected shutters and blinds (indoor and outdoor) during the hottest hours of the day to keep the house cool. Based on what time it is, or using outdoor light sensors, your Somfy shutters or blinds lower automatically. You protect your furniture, your pets, and your plants from the sun, and your home stays cool. At night, your shutters open again. You can limit your use of air conditioning to the strict minimum – if you end up needing to use it at all.

Maximise Your Energy Savings with Connected Heating, Lighting and Plugs
 
Connected Heating Maximises Your Energy Savings

In addition to activating the “Thermal Comfort” scene, you can save further on your home energy with a connected thermostat, and connected thermostatic valves on each radiator. TaHoma can regulate your heating, throughout the house or in each individual room, according to the indoor temperature and humidity level detected. Even when you ventilate, heating is automatically reduced if an open window is detected. Your home uses energy responsibly at all times, while still ensuring your comfort.

Switch Lights and Appliances on and off

Connected light bulbs and plugs give you instant control over all your lamps and electrical appliances. One tap or voice command turns your lights on or off, one by one, room by room or all together – when you go to work, for example. Other equipment in your home can also be connected, such as your TV set or your internet box. Forget the energy-consuming standby mode. Your electricity consumption is under control.

The whole connected TaHoma ecosystem really helps to save you money and reduce your energy consumption. And your home always shuts itself up securely, and welcomes you home perfectly.