Green Living - Sustainable Buildings and Homes.
It seems there is a new movement among americans. We (me being one of them) have been hit by the housing bubble and have had to learn new ways to conserve energy, money and time. We simply cannot continue to throw out our table scraps into the garbage because as most of us know, that is wasting quite a bit of energy that could be given to the pets, or to a garden. These articles should show how much energy is being used by our buildings, whether they be houses, or office buildings or warehouses. Retrofitting existing buildings can be very cost effective and offer a number of solutions when it comes to conserving energy, (and in your case, gas and electricity).
Here are a few tips on how to conserve water in your home.
Protect and conserve water. You may not know it but there are hundreds of breaks in your home's plumbing. There are so many joints that it would be impossible to check them all to see if any of them are leaking. But that might be right place to start. Start from your vanity and toilet to the wall. IF you can, crawl underneath your house and look for any leaks. Even the detection of the smallest leak would prove beneficial to a large degree. If you think about a leak that has 1 drop a minute, and 60 minutes an hour and 24 hours a day, and 365 days a years, we are talking buckets! Now ofcorse the type of plumbing that might require attention is the factor (metal piping is hard to correct) so please be a good judge on what you can tackle on your own. You can also check your water meter to see if there is any leakage. This is what must be done when you believe that all of your water appliances are turned off. If there is movement in your meter "walaa!" you have found the start of a hopefully not so big problem.
Install water-saving shower heads and low-flow faucet aerators. THis is where you can save the big money. If you take a bucket and fill it with a low cost efficient shower head, you can fill a bucket very quickly. IF you take a very conservative shower head and fill a bucket, it takes a long time to fill it. There is another answer. Bed Bath and Beyond has all the shower heads you could want, (and not want). I suggest starting there. Hot showers can use five to ten gallons ever minute that goes unneeded. Low-flow means is uses less that 2.5 gallons per minute. I suggest rinsing and then turning off your shower, lathering up with your favorite dove soap, and then rinsing off. You can greatly improve your water consumption just by this one little hint. I saved $1.25 a day by doing this. Am i happy saving an extra 30 bucks a month? You bet ya.
Next time we will be looking at the electricity side of things. Where we can most save and where we are using the most. Same bat time, same bat channel.
