|
Chicago
Tribune
April 4,
2007
by Karen
Klags
TOILET
A leaky toilet can waste 200 gallons of water a day.
Do:
Check for leaks by adding food coloring to the tank. If you
have a leak, color will appear in the bowl within 15 minutes.
Flush as soon as you're done with this test to avoid staining
the tank.
Bigger
picture: Two out of every 10 toilets leak on average in the
United States Those two leakers can waste as much as 146,000
gallons of water a year. That's enough water for a family
of four to wash clothes in their washing ma-chine for eight
years. Consider axing your ol' big-gun toilet, those pre-1994
models that use 3.5 to 7 gallons of water with every flush.
Save:
If all those pre-1994 guzzlers were replaced with high-efficiency
toilets (federal law now requires toilets use no more than
1.6 gallons a flush), the United States could save as much
as 800 billion gallons of water a year. That's the equivalent
of 12 days of flow over Niagara Falls.
WINDOW
SHADES
Do: Use drapes of blinds to reduce heat gain (in warm climates)
and/or loss (in cold climates).
Save:
In warm climates, closing light-colored shades or blinds during
the day can reduce your home's solar gain by up to 50 percent,
thus relieving some of the load on your air conditioning system.
In cold climates, closing drapes or blinds at night reduces
your home's heat loss by about 5 percent.
DISH
WASHING
Do: Generally, it's best to wash dishes in the dishwasher
(preferably with full loads) than to do them by hand _ and
scrape rather than rinse plates before loading.
Save:
The average American dishwasher in use today consumes 8.7
gallons a load (the most current models use 4 to 8 gallons).
Washing by hand for 10 minutes with the faucet running can
use as much as 20 gallons of water. Filling the sink uses
about 5 gallons or less _ but that's 5 gallons for washing,
five for rinsing.
Bigger
picture: Some 42 million U.S. homes do not have a dishwasher.
If all of those households used the fill-the-sink method instead
of letting the tap run, Americans could save as much as 100
billion gallons of water annually.
AIR
CONDITIONING
Do: Turn up your (A/C) thermostat by a mere 2 degrees in warm
weather and turn on a ceiling fan.
Save:
A/C costs will be lowered by as much as 14 percent over the
cooling season, with no sacrifice in your per-sonal comfort.
Turn off the fan when you leave the room, though. Ceiling
fans cool people, not rooms.
HOME
COMPUTER
Do: Enable the power management feature in your desktop computer.
(For Windows users, click on your Start but-ton, click "Control
panel," then "Power options." For Mac users, click the "System
Preferences" icon in the dock, then "Energy Saver") For an
initial level of power savings, turn off the monitor after
a designated time. For even more power savings, designate
a time period for activating "System Standby" (Windows users)
or "Sleep" (Mac users). With standby/sleep, your monitor,
hard-drive and other internal parts will go into a low-power
mode when you are away from your desk.
Do:
Get rid of your screen saver. It requires more energy to run
those static images of your kids (on a constant ba-sis) than
it does to have your computer and monitor go into a low-power
mode. Unlike 10 years ago, the screen saver does not extend
the life of your monitor. Killing it could save you $50 to
$100 on your electric bill over a year, depend-ing on your
equipment. And speaking of equipment, an LCD monitor not only
saves space, it uses one-third the power of a CRT monitor.
REFRIGERATOR
Do: Replace an older refrigerator with a new, efficient one.
Refrigerators made pre-1993 use twice as much energy as the
new ENERGY STAR-qualified models.
Save:
$45 to $65 a year in energy costs.
SODA
CANS
Do:
Recycle.
Save:
Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a television
or operate a computer for three hours.
LIGHTBULBS
Do: Replace five of your most used incandescent light bulbs
with compact fluorescent bulbs (which use two-thirds less
energy, generate 70 percent less heat and last up to10 times
longer).
Save:
$25 to $65 a year in energy costs, depending on the wattage
and how long you leave bulbs on.
Bigger
picture: If every American home did that, U.S. consumers would
save as much as $6.5 billion a year in elec-tricity costs
and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that from
more than 8 million cars.
Note:
A small amount of mercury is sealed within the glass tubing
of compact fluorescent light bulbs. Don't throw them out with
regular household trash if better options exist. For disposal
guidelines: visit www.earth911.org and plug in your zip code;
call 877-EARTH911 (877-327-84911); call your local waste management
company; or visit www.lamprecycle. org. Some stores take back
used CFLs.)
AIR
FILTERS
Do: Change the air filters in your furnace regularly.
Save: Up to 5 percent of heating costs.
WASHER
AND DRYER
Do: Wash only full loads. Save: As much as 3,400 gallons of
water a year.
Do: Use the "cold" setting (with a cold-water laundry detergent)
or "warm" setting whenever possible. Heating wa-ter to "hot"
accounts for 90 percent of the machine's washing energy; only
10 percent goes to power the motor.
Save:
Switching to "cold" can save the average household more than
$400 annually with an electric water heater, $300 annually
with a gas heater.
Do:
If your dryer has a moisture sensor that turns the machine
off automatically when clothes are dry, use it.
Don't:
Do not over-dry laundry.
Save:
An electric dryer operating an extra 15 minutes a load can
cost you up to $34 a year in wasted energy; a gas dryer, $21
a year.
Do:
Clean the lint trap before every load.
Save:
As much as $35 a year.
|
