Lighting

Let’s look at how you light your house. You’ve probably heard a lot in recent years about the benefits of switching to low-energy light bulbs. They are more expensive, sure, but they also last longer. You might have thought of switching, but are unsure if the savings is worth it.

Ready? A regular light bulb uses 100 watts per hour, while a low-energy light bulb requires only 11. That’s a huge benefit to the environment and – yes, let’s go there – to your wallet as well. There’s no shame in enjoying the monetary savings of being Green. You can benefit the environment with altruistic intentions, but also enjoy the personal side benefit of saving money.

Of course, the superior option is to light your home with natural light as much as possible. Whenever you can (i.e., when it’s not a hot summer day when you want to block the light and therefore the heat) keep your blinds and curtains open to let the light in so you don’t have to use your lamps and overhead lighting at all.

Did you know? About 10% of our electricity bill can be attributed to the energy we use to light our homes.

The Kitchen

Have you ever thought about the energy you use in the kitchen? Most of us think about the refrigerator (and maybe the stand-alone freezer if we have one) but what about other components in your kitchen?

There are many small, but significant changes you can make to how you use energy in your kitchen.

For example, if you need boiled water for something, boil it in a kettle rather than a pot, for which more energy will be expended. Pay attention as well to the size pot you do choose for cooking. You waste a good deal of energy (or gas, if a gas stove) heating a pan much larger than you need for a particular cooking job.

Do you have a convection oven? If so, use it. They use about 20% less energy than a conventional oven because they use the heat more efficiently and heat up faster as well.

Make cooking easier as well as more energy efficient by using pressure cookers and slow cookers, which use very little energy. Pressure cookers utilize very high heat to cook food very quickly, while slow cookers use a very small amount of energy to cook food slowly and tenderly throughout the course of the day.

Now, let’s look at that big appliance in the kitchen – the refrigerator. You might think that your fridge uses very little energy, but often the refrigerators (and freezers) in your home can account for as much as 30% of your energy bill.

There are, of course, small measures you can take to reduce this cost. If you have an old fridge, maybe now is the time to replace it. If you purchased your current refrigerator in 1997, for example, buying a new one now will reduce your annual energy cost from an estimated $29 a year to as little as $9. And you’ll be pleasing the environment at the same time as well.

Then there are the obvious tips – don’t leave your refrigerator door open, don’t forget to keep the condenser coils clean, and don’t forget to keep your freezer full. If it’s not full, add plastic bottles filled with water; your freezer runs more efficiently if it’s kept full.

Laundry

In the laundry room, one of the best changes you can make is to switch to high-efficiency washers and dryers. Of course, we already know how much less water these washers use, but they also use a lot less energy, as much as 30-50% less energy depending on the brand.

Now, dryers are particularly bad for the environment. If you stand outside while your dryer is on, and watch the amount of gas that is emitted into the air, you should understand why dryers are bad. They emit a great deal of gasses into the air and therefore contribute to global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer.

If your dryer is electric, then you have that conundrum of creating more electricity which creates more environmental problems.

The easy solution to the dryer issue is to hang your clothes to dry. Many people believe that it is not only better for the environment but that the natural sunlight drying can help to kill certain viruses and germs.

If you are unable or unwilling to give up the dryer, you have a few options – you can only dry full loads (even if it takes two loads of wash to fill your dryer so you can run it), and you can invest in a high efficiency dryer. They consume less energy by drying your clothes faster.

If you only have a small amount of laundry to do, don’t use your washer. Do it by hand, which saves water and energy.

Other Energy Draws

There are other items in your house you might not think much about, thinking they don’t take too much energy, but since we’ve already established that the old adage rings true – “every little bit helps” – it pays to give some attention to these items.

What kind of items? How about:

• Your television

• Your computer

• Your telephone

• Your small appliances, like the toaster and coffee maker

When you think about how our hunger for electricity has grown, you have to consider the fact that so has our reliance on all things electric – iPods, cell phones, computers. You name it, we plug it in.

These smaller devices might not take as much energy as a large refrigerator, but they do take energy, even when we’re not suing them.

Items like televisions are left on stand-by even when not in use. That means that even when you’re at work, your television is draining energy. There is a worldwide movement afoot to encourage people to unplug these items when not in use.

Did you know? In an average home in the United States, the television is left on stand-by for 17 hours a day. Cable boxes are also on stand-by even when the television is not in use. Even when not being used, a cable box uses 80% of the energy it uses when in use. Even when you’re miles away, your home is negatively impacting the environment.

Though you will find more tips in the many checklists we offer in this course, here are some ideas for reducing the amount of energy you consume with your small electrical items.

First, find out if your city, county or municipality offers “Smart Meters” a new technology that gives you current information about your energy usage. At any given time you can check the meter to see exactly how much energy you are using, which allows you to make immediate adjustments to your usage.

If you’ve been looking for an excuse to upgrade your aging desktop computer to a laptop, use this one – the laptop uses exactly half the energy that the desktop does (about 75 watts per hour for the laptop versus 150 watts per hour for the desktop).

When not in use, turn off televisions, radios and the computer. Plus them all into power strips and simply turn the strip off when you are away from the house and won’t be using anything for awhile.

Transportation

This is a biggie, and there are not many “simple” changes you can consider that will make a big difference, but there are a few.

If you drive a car, there are a few small changes you can make (we’ll talk about the more obvious, bigger changes in our “do more” chapter).

If you are heading to a location where you will be looking for parking, don’t. Park in the first available space you see. The extra walk is good for you and for the environment, as driving around in circles looking for a space is bad environmental business.

You can walk more, whenever possible. If you live in the suburbs, it’s hard to walk to the store for milk, but you can limit your trips and, if you work in the city, walk instead of drive for your lunch errands, for example.

If you live in the suburbs and drive to the city, take advantage of the carpools available to you to save your own money and help the environment all at once.

Should you switch to taking the train or subway? Is that better than carpooling? While we have been told for years that taking mass transportation is better than driving, some experts say that the resulting fossil fuel emissions from trains and subways is such that it might be better for people to drive fuel-efficient cars than to take the pollution-heavy trains and subways.

But as cities and counties make improvements to their trains and subways, they become more efficient and less damaging to the environment. If even thousands more people rode public transit each year, the benefits to fewer cars on the road will likely ultimately make a difference in fossil fuel emissions.

Did you know? About 855 million gallons of gas is saved each year from the people who do take public transportation in the United States. The resulting savings could power one-fourth of all homes in America each year.

But that’s not the final word and our advice is this – do what seems right for you. This is a simple change, remember. In the chapter on “do more”, we’ll talk about buying a hybrid car, but if your bent right now is to make small, but significant changes, consider how often you drive, what you drive (large or small vehicle) and what would work best for you (in many areas, there is no mass transportation available, or it takes more time than people have to get from point A to point B).

Once you have a good idea what would be best for you and the environment, make that change.

And remember that because this section is about making small but significant changes, any change you make for the better is good and worthwhile. If you and many others make these changes, the environment will ultimately benefit.