In an age of skyrocketing energy costs, greening up your home not only helps the environment, but it also helps you save money. There are very basic things that homeowners can easily and affordably do to green up the home and cut costs.
Article by - Justin Samuels
In an age of skyrocketing energy costs, greening up your home not only helps the environment, but it also helps you save money. There are very basic things that homeowners can easily and affordably do to green up the home and cut costs.
Replace your light bulbs with fluorescent tube bults. They use much less electricity. Not only will you save directly on your electric bill, but since fluorescent bulbs last longer, you'll be reducing the amount of glass bulbs that have to be manufactured, and that in itself saves energy.
Watch with cleansing materials you use. Basically, most cleaning can be done with simple soap and water. By avoiding the use of strong chemicals, you reduce their manufacture and you make your home less toxic. Indoor pollution causes all sorts of health problems.
Replace ancient appliances with modern, energy efficient appliances. The cost of energy appliances is easily affordable, and any increase is money you probably would have spent on something else.
Plant a tree near your house. The shade from neighboring trees will have a cooling effect.
Properly insulate your home. Insulation keeps the heat in the winter and the cool in the summer. Overall, it lowers the utility usage.
Switch from heating oil to natural gas. Natural gas is more plentiful, its burning gives of less pollution, and natural gas can even be harvested as a byproduct of other processes, including waste. And with oil prices so high, it is cheaper.
For applicances that use batteries, get rechargeable batteries. After all, the cellphones and laptops we have today use rechargeable batteries. Upgrade everything else to this.
Use air conditioning only when it's truly hot. If it's just 80 degrees outside, open the windows or at the most turn on the fan. Don't try to cool your home to antarctic temperatures. Keep the room temperature in the 70s in the summer, and either in the 70s or upper 60s in the winter. A lot of energy is wasted by overheating or over cooling.
When possible, recycle materials. For plastics, you can also buy plastics that are made of corn or from other plant materials. These plastics are biodegradable.
And last, but not least, when not using appliances, including lights, turn them off.
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