When you do use equipment that uses energy, choose to use efficient models. Shop for your equipment with energy use in mind. Energy Star is a rating system to help you select efficient appliances and equipment. There is even an Energy Star rating for homes! How many watts is that LED light-bulb? Many fewer than the old incandescent. How efficient is your water use at home? Efficient aerators will save lots of water, and lots of energy used for purification and pumping of that water, before it even gets to your house. Make energy use an important factor in your shopping decisions. Choose Efficient!
- Change all your lightbulbs to LED lightbulbs. There should not be a single incandescent bulb in your house any more. You will get better light from a well selected LED. Some LED’s even change color. Fun!
- Save on water. New aerators save water, save energy, and deliver the water through a nicely modulated stream.
- Get an efficient front loading washing machine. Saves water, saves electricity. The clothes come out nearly dry, from the super spinning. Put them on the line for a few minutes, and soon they are all dry.
- Efficient water heaters matter. I recently replaced two water heaters with electric super insulated Marathon tanks. Another domestic hot water heater uses a heat pump, so it is also cooling and dehumidifying the cellar as it heats water for the house.
- My geothermal heat pump can also heat the domestic hot water with a boost, the desuperheater. Amazing. When the heat pump is working to heat or cool the house, it is also heating the domestic hot water.
- The dehumidification, pulls water from the air and dumps it in the cellar sink. I put the output tubes into old gallon jugs to save the water. I am using that water to water street trees in the drought we are having.
- Waste not, Want not. Still true.
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