You would not believe the amount of energy that is used in our daily lives for cooling, heating, lighting, transportation, and appliances. We spend so much time in our home and don’t even realize what it’s doing to the environment, especially when we have non earth-friendly appliances turned on constantly. Fortunately for you and the environment, there are many ways to save the energy while also saving money by making just a few changes throughout your home.
Invest In Power Strips
Power strips are those strips of outlets that can hold more than one plug at once. Any piece of technology that has a digital readout or a transformer box on the power cord should be plugged into a power strip. The reason for this is because even when these devices are off, they are still drawing power. These include:
- Coffee makers
- Microwaves
- Phone chargers
- iPods
- DVD players
- Televisions
- Computers
- Printers
If you plug all of these devices into a power strip and shut off the whole strip off when these are not in use, you can save up to 10% on your energy bill. Think about it, if your bill is roughly $300 per month, you can save $30. Over the course of a year, you can save yourself $360! It may not seem like a lot, but all of that money saved can go into buying a new appliance that’s more eco-friendly, such as one that has an Energy Star rating, rather than keeping an old one that’s sucking up energy like it’s water.
Automatic Shut-off Products
Products that have an automatic shutoff are a huge help to the environment because they’ll shut themselves off when they don’t need to be used. A lot of people are used to leaving their appliances running all day long, especially when they are at work and can’t go home to manually shut it off. When these appliances are plugged in and constantly running, it’s drawing energy, costing money, and creating carbon dioxide through the use of such levels of energy.
One appliance that a lot of people tend to forget about is the dehumidifier. People will leave their homes with the dehumidifier running to ensure that their air conditioner is working to its full potential. When they get home, their house is cool and non-humid, but they don’t realize the amount of energy wasted when the dehumidifier didn’t need to be running. Luckily, you can grab a 70 pint dehumidifier that has auto-shutoff and is Energy Star Certified. This appliance will not only shut off automatically when it doesn’t need to be used, but it will also save money with the Energy Star properties.
Change Those Bulbs!
Yup, making your home more eco-friendly is as simple as changing a few lightbulbs! Non-dimmable light bulbs, such as incandescent bulbs, should be changed to compact fluorescent bulbs. These come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and you may even be able to get them in different colors. Think about this for a second-an incandescent bulb costs about $10.95 per year with a 1,000 hour lifespan as opposed to a CFL that costs $2.56 per year and lasts 9,000 hours. Which one would you rather have?
Conclusion
There are so many little things you can do to change the way energy is used around your home. The less energy you are using, the less the environment has to work for you. The environment is being abused by those who don’t give a hoot about their energy use or how much waste they are dumping into rivers and landfills. It’s important that we unite and start creating energy efficient homes, offices, and anything else we can to save our wallets and the earth.
