Anyone with a sense of history is grateful for the modern washing machine.
It is easy to forget was a back-breakingly difficult, energy-wasting job laundry used to be. Some people, unfortunately — not
you, of course, but
some people — seem to have forgotten the energy-saving aspect of the modern washing machine.
With very few exceptions, you can always get your clothes clean in cold water. About 90% of the energy cost in washing clothes is in heating the water for hot-water loads. Here's a
real tip, though: always use
laundry detergent formulated for cold water to get your clothes really clean.
Don't use the extra rinse cycle many newer washing machines offer to get extra soap out of the clothes. If you have this problem, don't rinse the clothes again — use less soap!
And if the weather and your homeowner's association cooperate, serious consider hanging your clothes up to dry outside. The best way to save energy on your laundry is not to use any at all!
Automatic dishwashers may be the most beloved time-saving device in the kitchen — and the device with the greatest opportunity for energy savings:
- Teach your kids how to "stack" the dishwasher. As with the clothes washer, washing two half loads uses twice as much water, electricity, and soap as washing one full load. An improperly loaded dishwasher may well look full — but often isn't.
- Consider air-drying your dishes instead of using your dishwasher's heated drying cycle. Most modern dishwashers have a setting for this, and if you don't have a setting for this, all you have to do is open the door and let the dishes sit for a couple of hours. Modern sheeting-action dishwasher detergents are formulated to prevent spots on your glasses, so there is no downside to air-drying your dishes, unless of course you bang your shin into the open dishwasher door.
- Don't bother to wash your dishes before you wash your dishes. Some people are a little bit paranoid about dirty dishes. I have seen people literally wash a dish in the sink and then put it in the dishwasher to be washed again. This is wasteful of both time and hot water. According to scientists who are paid to study such things, washing a load of dishes in the dishwasher uses 30% less hot water than washing those same dishes by hand, so let your dishwasher do the cleanup work.
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.
You may spend more money on the steaks, of course, but if all other things are equal, it is probably cheaper for you this summer to grill those steaks on the BBQ rather than cooking them in the kitchen. Cooking inside during the summer costs you twice, once to heat up the stove or oven and again to remove that heat using your air conditioner.
And does a steak cooked on the stove ever cost quite as good as a steak on the BBQ grill?
July was a bit cooler than normal — where's the global warming we saw back in 2007? — which led directly to a $100 savings on our electricity bill. (Keeping the thermostats at 75° helped a lot, too.)
Of course, I wasted a good bit of that on our water bill by setting the sprinklers to come on too often. (I dropped the frequency by one-third; we'll see how that works.) To add insult to injury, the cost of water has gone up to $4 per 750 gallons, a 33% increase over last month!
July 2009 Data
| Electricity, in kWh | Cost / Unit | Gas, in Therms | Cost / Unit | Water, in CCF | Cost / Unit | BTUs / Ft2 |
| 2,278 | $.11 | 20 | $1.43 | 19 | $2.69 | 2,793 |
Why are you still using incandescent lightbulbs?
(Yeah, we're still using them, too. For some applications, incandescents are simply the best out of a list of bad choices.)
Here's the thing, though — all lightbulbs convert some percentage of their energy into heat. Incandescent and halogen lightbulbs convert 80% of their energy into heat, and this can have a serious effect on your cooling bills each summer. Your air conditioner has to work overtime to remove that extra heat from your house, so, if possible ,consider using compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. If CFLs are not appropriate to your lifestyle, then turn off the lights to keep your cooling costs low this summer.
