Our homes are the biggest contributor to global warming, and over half of the energy supplied to our homes goes to waste. Your attic is a seldom thought of area of your home, but truth be told it can make a major difference in your energy bills. Proper Insulation and Attic Fans are great ways to reduce the amount of energy you use heating and cooling your home, as well as save you a lot of money in energy costs. Here are two great ideas:

PROPER INSULATION

The attic can be one of the most likely places in your house for valuable heat or cool air to be lost. In the summer, if your attic isn’t properly insulated, heat from outside will seep inside and make the cost of running your air conditioner and cooling your house increase. Likewise, in the winter, heat can be sucked out of the house through a poorly insulated attic. With the high price of energy, you can get the most out of the money you spend on heating and cooling your house by making sure that your attic is properly insulated. Insulating your attic can help reduce energy bills by as much as 20 percent. Not only is insulating your attic good for your budget and your wallet, it also is good for the environment. Saving energy and using your heating and air conditioning systems less reduces your carbon footprint.

In these sluggish economic times, few can afford a complete green makeover -- energy-efficient appliances, solar panels, energy-saving windows and so on. But that doesn't get you off the hook.For the price of a gallon of gasoline, you can buy a can of spray sealant. Shot into holes and cracks, the expanding foam quickly stops unwanted airflow and pays for itself many times over.

Insulation, however, offers the best return on your investment. It keeps warm air from following its instinctive path toward cooler areas, notably, outdoors. Some homes need it more than others. A recent survey indicates only 20 percent of homes built before 1980 were well insulated, while homes built prior to 1956 are most likely to benefit from added insulation.

More than 45 million U.S. homes are not insulated to the current minimum standards of the International Energy Conservation Code, a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health estimates.

WHOLE HOUSE ATTIC FAN

One of the best ways to control your home's energy costs sits quietly in the attic, improves air quality throughout the house, and pays for itself in two years or less. It's called a whole house cooling fan, and until recently it has flown under the radar. Attic fans are inexpensive, easy to install, yet can save an average home more than $10,000 over a ten-year period.

How do they work? Installed securely in a home's attic, whole house fans draw cooler air in from the outside and push accumulated heat out through the attic's soffit vents and eaves. They then exhaust stale air out of the house, minimizing or even eliminating polluted indoor air. The Environmental Protection Agency considers polluted air one of the top five health hazards we face today. They range in price from $479 to $1,500, but with the savings on energy bills they'll pay for themselves in around two years.

THE FACTS

A whole house cooling fan can save the average home $10,000 in energy costs over a ten year period, and actually improves the quality of you indoor air. They change all the air in a 4,500- square-foot house in approximately 20 minutes.