Home Energy Savings For Energy Watchers

A kind but anonymous reader recently offered up a valuable tip for this week: Put A Lid On Your Shower. Humidity is the enemy of energy efficiency in the summer while you are air conditioning your home. Anything that contributes to humidity will make your home feel warmer, which can be a real bonus in the winter but can also be painfully expensive in the summer.

Our suggestion several weeks ago was to squeegee your shower walls after the shower to help keep them clean and mold-free, and to also help keep humidity out of the air. Our tipster extended this concept:

A related tip — if you put a lid on your shower, you keep the humidity from escaping into the house, and you keep the shower warm and comfortable. Keeping the humidity in the shower stall might seem a disaster for mold, etc., but in fact it's the opposite. With a lid on your shower, the overall humidity in the bathroom stays low, so once you open the shower door, the shower dries out faster.

This also makes it more comfortable to turn off the water while you are soaping up — it's a triple energy win:

• Less humidity for the A/C to take out.
• Warmer in the shower so you don't need to set the water temperature as high.
• Warmer in the shower so it's comfortable to turn the water off.

And as a bonus you have less mold/mildew, both in the shower and in the bathroom as a whole.

If a DIY retrofit to your shower is not to your taste, then just keep this in mind for the next time you remodel your bathroom — taking the shower walls all the way to the ceiling can actually save you money on your cooling bills.