Not ready to BUILD Green just yet? Being conscious of various places in your home that can help or harm the environment is still an important step to living green. Here are some ideas for keeping your home in good repair in order to reduce water and energy usage:
1) Make sure all faucets and toilets are in good repair and don’t leak. A leaky faucet or toilet can waste massive amounts of water every day. Also, TURN OFF THE WATER as you brush your teeth! That was a bad habit I had to break, myself..
2) Replace your hot water heater with a tankless water heater or water pump if you can afford it. If not, wrap the heater with an insulating blanket to conserve energy.
3) A programmable thermostat can help regulate the temperature of your home and use less energy, automatically turning up the AC temperature in the morning and dropping it back down at night. We’ve been so blessed with the weather, lately, that I just opened all of our windows and have not even touched the thermostat in our home for about three weeks! Some nights it gets a bit warm, floating up to about 86º, but we got used to it pretty quickly. I can’t wait to see our next electric bill!
4) Install plastic window energy conservation kits to reduce the warmer air coming in from the outside if a typical St. Louis August does creep up on us. You’ll be able to set your thermostat to a higher temperature and save money and energy while still cooling your house.
5) Make sure you turn off lights, appliances, fans, radios, etc. when you leave a room and definitely when you leave the house entirely.
Hopefully August is as mild and wonderful as July has been! If so, these small steps will continue to be a delight to take and will help us start building habits that continue into the fall and winter!
Take care! Talk with you all again, soon!
-Jenn
