subject: Go Green in Your Home and Save a Bunch of Money, Too [print this page] Go Green in Your Home and Save a Bunch of Money, Too
As our planet faces ever increasing global warming, we each have an obligation to do all that we can to reduce our carbon footprint and stop, or even reverse, the greenhouse effect. Read below for some easy tips to help you immediately green in your home. Not only will you help save the plane, you'll also likely save lots of money.
You probably spend much of your income on your house, so it makes sense to spend it as wisely as possible. You can begin to go green in your home by insulating (or re-insulating) your entire house. Loft insulation, wall cavity insulation, double or even triple glazing on all windows will all make a enormous difference. Yes, it can be a large investment, but you will save a lot of money on heating and cooling costs over the long term, and also increase the value of your house. Large scale green home improvements like these often have tax credits or other incentives attached to them, so be sure to browse the irs.gov website before starting any green projects.
Most of us use way too much water in our daily lives. Go green in your home by reducing your family's water consumption as much as possible. If every person replaced his or her old flush toilet tanks with new high-efficiency models, we'd collectively save 1 billion gallons of water per year. Older models use 3.5 gallons per flush while the newer high-efficiency toilets use just over 1.25 gallons. That's a huge difference! You'd personally save 20,000 gallons of water every year if you used this method to go green in your home, and you'll also pay a good deal less in water charges.
Home appliances can be a huge drain on energy. Did you know that modern washing powders are so good that they don't typically need hot water to be effective? A washing machine consumes the bulk of its energy heating the water, so washing your clothes in cold water will help you go green in the home while saving you lots of money on your electric bill. Once the clothes are washed, line-dry them outdoors or inside on a dryer rack to save even more energy.
Standard incandescent light bulbs found in most homes are extremely inefficient when compared to compact fluorescent light bulbs. Compact fluorescent light bulbs use about 5-10% of the energy required by incandescent bulbs, and they survive up to 10 times longer. They typically cost slightly more to purchase initially, but this is an easy way to go green in the home and save a bundle over time. The good news is that efficient lighting is becoming cheaper to buy as more consumers adopt the technology, so keep your eye on the prices to get the best deal. If you save even more energy on home lighting, go out and buy some of the newer LED bulbs. They can be twice as efficient the compact fluorescent light bulbs, and they last even longer.
Once you know these little tips and tricks, it's easy to go green in the home.
Chris H. Thomas is the author and webmaster of "Green-Yourself!", a blog dedicated to helping people learn how to Go Green and save money on home energy bills. Please visit http://green-yourself.com for DIY Green Energy Tips and Resources, and learn how to Go Green today.
