Hey, friends, Shanan here! It’s cold outside which means the furnace is working overtime and everyone wants to take a steamy, 30 minute shower. We knew we had a problem when one kid didn’t have any hot water after the other kid took a shower….we have an 80 gallon water heater…. good lord! Low flow shower heads are on the list ASAP! Here are some other energy saving tips to help your monthly bill and carbon footprint. Stay warm out there!

Water: Showers account for 32% of home water use, so consider installing a high-efficiency or low-flow shower heads. Also, get those leaky fixtures repaired and save up to 20 gallons of water per day (or 200 gallons per day, if it’s a defective toilet).

Thermostats: Installing a programmable thermostat to keep air conditioning at 78F when it’s hot outside and, and your heating system at 68F when it’s cold can help save ups o 20% in heating and cooling costs. If every family in the US did this, we would reduce carbon dioxide by more than 90 billion pounds.

Water Heaters: Water heating accounts for about 13% of home energy costs, so turn your water heater down to 120F or the “Normal” setting when home and to the lowest setting when on vacation.

Light Bulbs: According to climatecrisis.org, energy-saving compact florescent light bulbs (CFL) last 10 times longer than regular incandescent bulbs, use 60% less energy and can save 75% of lighting costs. If every home replaced five incandescent bulbs with five CFL bulbs, we would save a s much as $6.5 billion a year in electricity costs and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that from more than 8 million cars.

Utilize non peak hours for electricity: Here are the links to our local companies and there rates for peak and non peak hours. You’d be surprised the drastic difference in how much they differ! PGE Pacific Power