7 Ways to Go Green in Your Home

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Living an eco-friendly lifestyle is more important than you think. Our precious Earth is full of natural beauty and vital natural resources, and if we each do our part, we can make sure that the next generations will be able to enjoy all of this as much as we do.

Right now, we have a serious pollution problem. We’re consuming a vast quantity of fossil fuels, which produce noxious gasses when burned. We’re filling our lands with trash and industrial waste, putting wildlife at great risk. We’re cutting down forests faster than they can spring up.

And that’s just naming a few of the ways our world is currently in danger.

Fortunately, going green is easy, and can often save you money as you embrace a more efficient, waste-free way of life. Environmentalism doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive, and you don’t have to go without your normal comforts. To do your part, all you have to do is make a few simple changes.

The best part? You can make these changes from the comfort of your own house, and become an eco-hero without ever changing out of your pajamas.

To help you do this, let’s check out 7 easy ways you can go green at home.

Tend to the Thermostat

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When looking to go green, the thermostat should be the first place you go.

We all like to be comfy, but sometimes, we forget how adaptable our bodies really are. Turning your thermostat down in the winter can result in both big savings and a big positive impact on the environment.

Believe it or not, you can remain comfortable at as low as 62 degrees. If you’ve grown accustomed to 70 or so, try lowering the temperature in your home two degrees each day. For every degree you go down, you’ll save 3 percent on your heating bill. It adds up! And you can do the same thing in the summer with your air conditioning.

Most importantly, the fact that you’re using less energy to heat your home means fewer resources will be consumed to provide that energy.

If you’ve changed your temperature, but still haven’t seen much of a change on your electric bill, you may want to consider updating your thermostat. Newer, programmable models can be set to activate and deactivate at certain times, and some can even be controlled from your phone for maximum convenience and savings.

Tend to your thermostat first, and you’ll eliminate the biggest energy-waster in your home. This is one easy way to go green.

Switch Out Old Bulbs

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Can you name one energy-sucking device that’s used in every single room of your home?

That’s right—light bulbs. And older, incandescent models are responsible for a large amount of power usage and waste creation in the average home.

Based on 2 hours of daily usage, one 60-watt incandescent light bulb will last for around 1000 hours, and has an energy cost of around 4 dollars and 80 cents per year. The LED version of that same light will last for 25,000 hours, and cost 1 dollar a year to run.

That’s a huge savings for you, and an even bigger savings for the environment. Not only do LED bulbs use less electricity, but because of their extended lifespan, they’re sent to landfills far less often.

If you’re reluctant to make the switch because of the unpleasant quality of LED lighting, take heart—these bulbs have improved a lot over the past few years, and their quality of light is nearly indistinguishable from that of traditional bulbs.

If you want to go green in your home, there are few better ways than replacing your old incandescent bulbs with updated LED varieties.

Insulate the Water Heater

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Somewhere in your basement, there is a monster. This monster constantly sucks up electricity at a higher rate than anything in your home, besides, perhaps, your central air conditioner.

This monster is your water heater. Fortunately, its hunger for power can be limited with a little insulation work.

Insulation keeps things from losing heat, and if your water heater lacks such a covering, you could be wasting a large amount of energy as it constantly works to re-heat the 20 to 60 gallons of water it contains.

Before you do this, however, check your water heater’s paperwork—some heaters can’t be insulated.

Once you verify that it’s safe to insulate your water heater, your first step is to head over to a hardware store like Home Depot or Lowes, and get them to help you locate a water heater insulation kit and some heat-resistant tape.

The process of actually installing your insulation isn’t difficult, but it’s always wise to get the help of someone a little more experienced, so invite your handy-around-the-house friend over, get a little professional help.

A properly insulated water heater can save you money and prevent a needless waste of energy—it’s a great way to go green.

Manage Your Fridge

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When it comes to another energy-hungry appliance—your refrigerator—a little maintenance goes a long way toward going green in your home.

There are a few things you can do in order to keep your fridge in good, energy-saving shape. Most importantly, you can start by inspecting the seal around the doors—if this is damaged, dirty, or oily in any way, your fridge is probably leaking cool air, causing it to work much harder to keep your food cool.

Second, take a look at your refrigerator’s coils, which will be either behind or beneath the unit. If these are caked with dust, blow them off with an air compressor—these coils help transport heat from the inside of your fridge, to the outside, and if they’re “insulated” by dust, they won’t work nearly as well.

Finally, don’t keep your fridge on too cold a setting—for both food safety and energy efficiency, 40 degrees Fahrenheit is perfect for the fridge, and 0 degrees is great for your freezer.

Keep these tips in mind, and your fridge will use as little energy as possible.

Go All Electronic

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Did you know that turning to the convenience of electronic billing can save up to 23 pounds of wood each year, and avoid the production of up to 29 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions each year? Just think of how much solid waste could be eliminated if everyone used online bill pay services, and how many trees might be saved—the numbers are huge.

Most banks, as well as credit card, cell phone, and utility companies, have options to go entirely electronic rather than sending and receiving bills through physical mail. For those who didn’t grow up with the internet, this can sound insecure, but paying bills online is now every bit as safe—if not safer—than paying bills through the postal system.

Making this switch can also save you countless hours each month—eBills can be automated, saving you the time you’d normally take to fill out forms and travel to the post office.

You’ve got nothing to lose when it comes to e-Billing, so why not go green by going all-electronic?

Slay Your Energy Vampires

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The homes of most Americans are filled with energy vampires. These are those electronic items that we plug in, use once or twice a day, and forget about, but that also continue to use electricity when not in use.

Things like computers, chargers, coffee makers, game consoles, audio systems, and even vacuum cleaners constantly consume small amounts of energy, even when not in use. Individually, this power drain is small, but together, these energy vampires can cost you around 100 dollars a year in wasted energy.

And as we know, wasted energy leads to unnecessary greenhouse gasses being pumped into the air.

An easy way to fix this problem is through the use of power strips. Just connect appliances to strips with an easy-to-reach power switch, and you can easily disconnect power.

Don’t let your electronics drain your bank account and damage the environment. Go green by slaying these energy vampires.

Recycle

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Above all else, the best way to go green in your own home is to recycle.

This is something you’ve probably heard time and again, but it is vitally important to actively recycle. There is a certain resistance toward anything that requires us to add additional work and complication to our already-busy lives—that’s understandable. But the rewards we stand to reap when more people begin recycling are incalculable.

Recycling conserves natural resources. One ton of recycled office paper saves 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, and 3 cubic yards of space in a landfill. That same amount of recycled plastic saves up to 16 barrels of oil. Recycled steel saves close to 2 barrels of oil and 4 cubic yards in a landfill.

You can begin to see how effective recycling truly is.

Don’t take on the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. Instead, take an active role in keeping your planet green and healthy by recycling.