You spent weeks searching
for your home and you spend even more time every year maintaining your
home to make it clean and functional.
Cleaning the bathroom, mopping the floors, washing the windows, dusting,
and vacuuming are all activities that you perform regularly in order to
preserve the prestige of your home, but how much time do you devote to
making sure that your home is energy efficient?
Although it may not be a bad idea to install solar panels or use those
peculiarly shaped, energy saving bulbs in every room to conserve energy,
those products aren't for everyone. So here are four simple tips to
become more energy efficient.
Reduce oven use
Microwaves and toaster ovens use less energy than a conventional oven.
Unless you have a large quantity of food or the quality and taste depend
on it, put your leftovers in the microwave rather than using an oven to
reheat.
Resisting the urge to use the oven and using a microwave or toaster oven
produces the same warm meal with reduced energy usage. However, if you
are afraid that reheating your french fries in the microwave will make
them soggy and you absolutely must use the oven in order to preserve
their crunch remember to not open the oven door while food is cooking or
reheating. Opening the door to the oven while it is on can reduce the
temperature by as much as 25 degrees, thus causing it to work harder to
maintain the set heat.
Get the most out of your lamps
Lamps decorate and give light to any room they are placed in. When using
lamps determine if your primary purpose is to decorate or illuminate
the room. Achieving both objectives is what most people want but usually
one is more of a priority than the other.
Depending on your goals, there are different tips you can apply to your
lamp use in order to make your home more energy efficient. Light colored
or opaque lampshades should be used whenever possible.
There are a wide variety of lampshades and you should choose the one
that appropriately decorates and illuminates the room. In order to
produce more light lamps should be placed in corners so that light can
be reflected from two walls. Oh, and don't forget the energy efficient
light bulbs.
Keep your freezer full
Full freezers use less energy than empty freezers so go ahead and make
your ice cream stash a little larger. In order to save energy, some
people fill the empty spaces in their freezers with gallons of water,
but a gallon of ice cream can do the job just as well—we all know which
gallon container you would prefer.
Use your dryer efficiently
Your dryer is an appliance that uses an enormous amount of energy. According to energy.gov
your dryer uses just as many watts as 15 flat screen TVs. However,
there are a few things you can do to reduce the amount of energy your
dryer consumes.
- Always be sure to clean the dryer lint filter so that your dryer operates more efficiently.
- Washing and drying several loads at once also helps the dryer to perform better because it does not completely cool down before having to heat up for the next load.
- Make a few modifications to the space where you do laundry so that your dryer vents outside. By making this adjustment you reduce the amount of work that your air conditioner has to do.
- Air drying clothes is not always the most appealing option but air drying dress clothes will lessen the workload on your dryer and will also make your dress clothes look better.
