Basically, this is the start of what I hope will be a rather lengthy list of energy-efficient and eco-friendly products for the home.
Toilet Tank Bank
Basically a microbial resistant pouch that you fill with water and hang in your toilet water reservoir to displace water. The claim is that by doing this you save 0.8 gallons of water per flush, which can really add up! For less than $2, I’ll bite.
I’m going to try both of these all natural laundry cleaners to see which one I like best but they both look very interesting and again, are all natural which is a big plus to me.
Nellie’s All Natural Laundry Soda ($9.95 for 50 loads)
Maggie’s Soap Nuts ($9.99 for 36 loads or $35 for 200) - An ancient 100% all natural laundry agent, these dried fruits of the Chinese Soapberry Tree. When these "nuts" get wet, the produce saponin - a natural cleaner. You just toss a few of these in a little cotton pouch (included) and that's all it takes. The nuts can last you up to 5 regular loads (more if you use cold water) and are completely biodegradable.
Dr. Bronners castile soaps are also purported to be effective and nice smelling at both laundry cleaning and general-purpose cleaning (even bathing and shaving). In fact, Dr. Bronner claims his soap has 18 uses (although a search on the internet churns up many more). It comes in several different scents and sizes – also in bar form (which I’ve read is an ingredient for “homemade” laundry detergent along with washing soda and borax (which I’ll probably start using as a laundry booster and all around general purpose cleaning aide))
Howard Naturals Granite Cleaner (and they make stainless steel cleaner as well) made of vegetable-derived cleaning agents – 6.95 and 7.95. This will come in handy for keeping my new glistening kitchen glistening.
Having previously touched on the subject of rain barrels, this is another water saving way to hydrate your lawn with Rain (read: FREE) water. Just a simple device you fix to the bottom of your gutter drain and then connect a garden hose to. Would be interested to know if the water would flow straight into a barrel for storage, since when it’s already raining it would be useless. (To add: I asked a coworker who has a really green thumb and she says she uses a gutter diverter to connect to her rain barrel and it works fine, just has really low pressure)
I’ve been looking for something much like this to (possibly) help with reducing wrinkles in the dryer. This claims to do both that and reduce drying time (not to mention ironing).
Conserve Cleaners
This from the Conserve company, basically they took household cleaners and downsized them from big bottles of chemicals to a simple tablet that you add to 32 oz of water in a spray bottle. This cuts packaging down by 85% and it is also an EPA approved product. When you need a new bottle all you do is pop in another tablet to the bottle you already have and add more water.
Installing Dimmer switches is a small way to reduce energy consumption in the home – not to mention being a nice way to add a warm atmosphere giving you the option to control the amount of lighting in a room.
Ceiling, pedestal and tabletop fans are also a good way to cool a room by a few degrees. These save energy mostly from being used only when people are in the room, vs all day long. I like the compact look of this oscillating pedestal fan and it’s well rated
Using power strips is an energy efficient move in that many electronic devices continue to leech power simply by being plugged in, even when switched off. A power strip offers one switch to flip off that prevents things plugged into it from drawing power from the outlet.
Installing a programmable thermostat – this will turn the a/c down and up according to a schedule (like reducing the temp 15% during hours that everyone is normally out of the house). These can (or should be able to) be manually over-ridden (?sp lol) but generally you can set a daily schedule up.
This one by Lux Products has a good rating on amazon (4.5 stars 199 reviews)
I would make the argument for CFL’s but personally I won’t be making a 100% switch over to them. I have small children and CFL’s are made with mercury and require special disposal so.. I’ll be replacing incandescent lightbulbs with CFLs in areas the kids don’t frequent much (and others with halogen incandescents) in the hopes that LED lightbulbs become cheaper as time and technology goes on.
A good way to conserve water is to replace your older showerheads with low-flow fixtures (new showerheads are mandated to operate at or below 2.5 gallons per minute). I’m moving into a new home so I’m not sure I’ll have this problem with my showerheads being wasteful but I will check the manufacturer and get a low flow head if it will get me a better flow rate.
If you keep an extra fridge around (which, I do - it's kind of a must for anyone who likes to entertain or has a big family) the best place to put it is somewhere indoors vs. outside in the garage. In our new house, there will be space for a fridge in the laundry room but in other homes the basement could work. Being in a temperature controlled environment is better to your fridge and helps it not work so hard to keep its contents cooled.
