Recently, Ways to Save told you how to keep more cash in your wallet while going green in your living room.
This week, let’s tackle that utility/laundry room.
Did you know there are reusable filters for your air conditioner and furnace? Rather than buying disposable, purchase reusable.
If half of all U.S. households purchased reusable, the number of air filters saved from landfills each year could blanket the entire land area of Washington, D.C.
Not only will you be saving our landfills, you will be saving money, too.
On average, a disposable filter costs about $20, and a reusable filter is $75. According to Lowes.com, if you change your filter once a quarter, that will cost you $80 every year.
Here’s a tip for your washing machine. If you do your loads with a hot wash/hot rinse, change to warm/cold or even cold/cold.
According to “The Green Book” (Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen), if all U.S. households changed from hot/hot to warm/cold, it would save the energy equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day.
It will also help reduce your gas/electric bill when only using warm and/or cold water.
When drying clothes always think of using your clothesline before using the dryer.
It doesn’t have to be sunny and warm to get your clothes dry, and if you need to stick them in the dryer for a couple minutes at the end of the day, that is better than running a full cycle.
When using your dryer, make sure to clean the lint filter after each use and don’t overload the dryer. It will just take longer and cost more to dry your clothes.
By doing both of these things, you’ll save up to 5 percent on your energy bill, and if everyone did it, we’d save the energy equivalent of 350 million gallons of gasoline per year, according to “The Green Book.”
Don’t forget, it’s free to use the clothesline.
Take your dry cleaning to an environmentally-friendly cleaner and try to lessen the frequency in which you go.
Bring your hangers back to them and ask if they recycle their plastic garment bags. If not, take them to your local grocery store or just eliminate them all together.
Make sure to recycle your phone books and magazines. Only 20 percent of magazines get recycled from homes. And remember, recycling can mean sharing too!
Bring them to your doctor’s office, to the dentist, work, or even to your salon.
You can call to have delivery of your phone book stopped, use the Internet or get just one book and save a tree or two.
When it comes to your water heater, wrap it in a insulated blanket and set the thermostat to no more than 120 degrees. You could save 25 percent of the energy used in your home by making these changes.
If everyone did this, U.S. households would save more than $32 billion per year in energy costs.
If everyone takes a moment each day to make this world a better place, then it will become just that.
As always, your thoughts and ideas are welcome.
Kristi Meyer is a real estate agent with HomeTown Realtors in Auburn. She has been serving the Placer and Sacramento counties for the past six years. For questions, comments or tips, contact Meyer at
seekristi@seehometown.com.
