Tips and tricks for making your life a little greener right now

Spend $15 for a water heater blanket to get 10-40% more efficiency out of your hot water heater!

Clothes dryers use at least six percent of all household electricity consumption and 10-15 percent of domestic energy in the U.S. Use a clothesline on the south or west side of your home to minimize the use of these expensive appliances!

You can improve your homes energy performance by up to 30% by just plugging holes. If you have broken windows, fix them or install an interior storm window. If they are leaking air (if the drapes swing even when the window is closed) caulk the gaps or install weatherstripping if the window is operable. Make sure the window is locked! The lock not only gives you security but also seals the window shut. Go through your attic and fill any holes in your insulation left by drilling for holes, electrical cords, or mechanical and plumbing systems. If your attic is insulated but your attic access door isn’t make insulation cover for the door. Take a piece of scrap plywood that will cover the entire opening. Cover that with 8” batt or 3” rigid insulation, and slide it down on top of your attic door opening as you are leaving the attic. If you have vents on the eaves of your house, make sure that the air from the eaves is not being blocked by the insulation. Air movement is actually critical to the insulation working correctly. Make sure that the frame around your basement door is sealed tight. A leaky basement can affect your home’s energy needs by as much as 11%.

If your electrical devices have an indicator light, a clock, a power adapter, or a standby function, it’s using energy even when it’s off. Put these, and especially your cable box – which uses half the power of a refrigerator – on a power strip. Find a central place in your home to set up a power strip and have the entire family commit to using this location to charge household items like batteries, phones, ipods, etc. Turn off the power strip when it’s not in use. A timer-regulated power strip is now available from Belkin, and will turn itself off after an amount of time that you determine.

If you have a lawn, be sure it’s seeded with native grasses. If you don’t currently, seed your lawn over with natives and allow the old grass to die. The cost savings in water use will be amazing!

If you have an existing standard fireplace, purchase a fireplace insert which will help you retain up to 60% more heat using less fuel. You can also purchase a wood stove insert for your existing fire box for even more heat capture.

Be careful when using bamboo if you are renovating. Make sure it’s been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), as non certified bamboo is often harvested earlier than it should be, rendering it not strong enough to last. Bamboo that is not certified is also harvested in ways that are harmful for the environment.

Install a toilet dam if you have old toilets and want to use them til they die before replacing them, and thus keeping them out of a landfill. These hold back about 1.3 gallons per flush. Rondell makes a $100 dual-flush retrofit device so you can have light and heavy flush options. For a free alternative, take a water bottle, fill it, and put it in your toilet tank. This will displace some of the water and let your toilet think it’s fuller than it is. Thereby, turning it “off” earlier.

Add foam insulating underneath the wall plate on your electrical outlets and light switches.

Used coffee grounds and tea leaves are perfect amendments to compost heaps and especially for acid loving plants like blueberries!

Hang broken and no-longer wanted CDs in your veggie garden and especially near berries to keep birds away.

Use the water from cooking veggies, once it’s cooled, to water your garden and indoor plants. The nutrients from the veggies will feed the plants. Don’t use potato water.

Use your plastic grocery bags on your car mirrors before snow or sleet to save yourself the hassle of having to de-ice them.

If you’d like to grow wine grapes and are in a hot-arid or temperate climate zone (refer to map below) then you can add a pergola to the southwest side of your house, and grow your grapes up the sides and over the top. This will give them plenty of heat and you a cooler space for dinners and sunsets beneath!

Add an evergreen screen of arborvitae on the north side of your home to block winter winds which make your heating system work harder. These plants can grow up to 3’ per year. Plant them at least 10 feet from your home.

To make a bathroom sing, add an antique stained glass window to your window. No window? Hang LED Christmas lights behind it! This is also a cool trick to use behind a mirror. It’ll make your bathroom feel super modern. If you use colored lights, make sure to pick a color that will accentuate your existing color scheme.

Use 12 plants per 1000 SF to recycle your entire home’s air in 24 hours. Plants can remove toxic chemicals from the air, including formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide. The best plants include Bamboo Palm, Chinese Evergreen, English Ivy,
Gerbera Daisy, Janet Craig Dracaena, Dracaena Marginata, Dracaena Massangeana/Corn plant, Mother-in-Law’s Tongue, Chrysantheiums, Peace Lily, and Dracaena “Warneckii”

Plant walking thymes between pavers so you don’t have to deal with weeds, and get a bonus of great herbs!

Til recently, your baseboard radiators were just going to run when they ran. No mas! Programmable thermostats are now available for baseboard heat!

If you’d like to make your landscaping work for your energy savings, place at least 2 @ 10’ tall deciduous trees 6-10’ from the building on the southwest side or corner of the house. An evergreen or deciduous tree on the southeast corner will also help if you have hot mornings. Fill the space below with smaller deciduous and evergreen shrubs, plants, and small trees. This will prevent the ground from reflecting heat back up under your eaves, will provide shade, and will help cool the space around your house through evaporation. Many flowering plants that need heat to flower will love these places. (Northern hemisphere only, if in the Southern hemisphere, reverse this and locate the trees on the Northwest corner.) Just remember not to plant a tree within 5’ of the edge of the building, nor plants within 2’.

Install a rainbarrel! Rainbarrels are a popular way to start harvesting your rainwater now, especially in urban areas! They are relatively inexpensive and can be installed along the side of your home, under a deck, or in other unused spaces.

Do you have an extra $5 per month and really want to change the way utility companies do business? Go to the DOE Can I Buy Green Power in My State? Website at http://apps3.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/buying/buying_power.shtml and then call your utility company and switch to green power. It will take you less than 10 minutes, and for an extra few bucks a month, you’ll be putting your utility company on notice that you want better practices out of them.
Run your appliances – especially dishwashers and laundry – in the late evening when peak load is minimized and the electric company is producing more power than it needs.

Rachel Preston

You can visit the Skill and Hobby forum to talk to Rachel and ask her questions.