Winterizing your home can help save the environment–and save you money too.

If you think reducing your carbon footprint is important, you are going to want to reduce the energy usage of your home. Home energy usage accounts for a large portion of the overall energy consumption in the United States, that means reducing your energy consumption, by winterizing your home, can have a big impact–both on the environment and on your wallet.

And according to the U.S. Department of Energy,  heating is by far the biggest energy hog, accounting for 40 percent of home energy usage. It just takes more energy to bring your home up to a comfortable temperature in the winter than is does to cool in the summer. Also according to the U.S. Department of Energy, by regularly turning your thermostat back 10 degrees for 8 hours (like when you are asleep or at work), you can save five to 10 percent a year on your home heating bill.

There are other ways you reduce your energy consumption besides cutting back your thermostat, just read on for some easy ideas for winterizing your home you can implement this season.

Tips for Winterizing Your Home

1. Home Energy Audit – Invest in a professional home energy audit to learn how to make the most of winterizing your home. A home energy audit can help you determine how much energy your home uses, where your home is losing energy, and which problem areas and fixes you should prioritize to make your home more efficient and comfortable. A home energy audit is a great first step for making energy-saving home improvements.
2. Furnace Maintenance – Clean and replace furnace filters regularly and schedule furnace maintenance yearly to keep your furnace running efficiently.
3. Rooms/Spaces Not in Use – One easy tip for winterizing your home is to close off rooms that are not in use regularly, like guest bedrooms and storage areas. Don’t heat spaces you don’t need to heat. Also, keep closet doors closed–there’s no need to heat your clothes!
4. Water Heater – Insulate your water heater to help it run more efficiently–especially if it is in the basement or other unheated space.
5. Space Heaters – Avoid using space heaters as they can be real energy hogs. If you must use a space heater, make sure to use one that is rated as an Energy Star product.
6. Weather-stripping – Install weather-stripping around doors and windows to provide extra insulation and keep out drafts is another easy fix for winterizing your home.
7. Thermostat – Installing a programmable thermostat can help you better manage your energy usage and help you save money on your energy bills. You can program to automatically lower when you are are at work and asleep.
8. Seal Air Leaks – Sealing off air leaks in your home will help keep the warm air in and the cold air out. Apply caulk around windows, apply insulation to attic hatches, and adding foam insulation behind electrical outlets are all examples of how you can better control air leaks.
9. Ceiling Fans – If your home has ceiling fans, use them. Ceiling fans aren’t only for cooling, but when the direction is reversed, they can help push warm air trapped up at the ceiling down where it is needed.
10. Window Insulation – If you can’t afford to replace those older windows, cover them with window insulation kits to help manage drafts. If you have storm windows, use them too. Windows and doors are among the most common ways energy is wasted int the home.

Related on EcoSalon

8 Sneaky Ways to Save Energy This Summer—Without Melting

5 Cool Gadgets To Help You Save Energy & Create Your Own Electricity

4 Ways to Conserve Energy on Household Tech Devices

Image: House in Winter via Shutterstock

The post 10 Super Easy Fixes for Winterizing Your Home Right Now appeared first on EcoSalon.

Highly-insulated clothing could help you not only stay warm, but cut down on energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

As I’m writing this, I’m wearing fleece pyjamas, a sweater, a hoodie, and I’m tucked in a blanket so tight it’s like being wrapped in sausage casing. Why? Well, as you may have noticed, it’s effing cold outside – and since turning on my vintage electric rads will lead to an epic hydro bill, I’ve settled on the sausage casing approach.

But it’s looking like we’ll soon be able to stay warm and save on energy without wearing our entire wardrobe (“Hi, I’m Chandler. Could I be wearing any more clothes?”). Scientists have developed a nanowire coating for clothes that generates heat by trapping our body heat more effectively than our current outfits. Not only would this help us save some serious coin, but cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. Snoopy dance, anyone?

Most strategies to reduce indoor heating costs focus on improving how buildings are insulated, such as upgrading the quality of the insulation itself or installing low-emissivity windows. Regardless of these upgrades, many of us are still guilty of wasting energy by heating empty spaces and inanimate objects for the sake of convenience.

A team of researchers led by Professor Yi Cui and PhD student Po-Chun Hsu at Stanford University decided to do things a little differently: Instead of focusing on heating our surroundings, they focused on a new strategy called “personal thermal management,” where we heat ourselves instead. The study, which was published in a recent issue of the journal Nano Letters, reveals that clothing dipped in a solution of metallic nanowires (AgNWs), can help a person stay warm to the point of eliminating the need to heat their home at all. (Sign. Me. Up.)

The best part about the AgNW-coated clothing is that it reflects over 90 percent of a person’s body heat back to the individual, as opposed to our clothing now, which only reflects back about 20 percent of our body heat. The clothing can also provide Joule heating if connected to an electricity source, such as a battery. Researchers found that as little as 0.9 V can raise the clothing temp to 38 °C, which is 1 °C higher than the human body temp of 37 °C.

Since such a small amount of the solution is needed to achieve the highest level of warmth, the nanowire clothing would feel practically identical to normal clothing, making it a convenient and cost-effective way to stay warm. You also wouldn’t have to treat it any differently than you do your regular clothing: The researchers found the clothing maintained its electrical properties after multiple wash cycles.

How much you’d save on energy varies depending on how cold it is outside, how long the winter season is, and how big your home is, but the researchers calculated an estimated savings of about 1,000 kilowatt hours per person per year – which is about how much electricity an average U.S. home consumes in one month.

Do tell: Will you be shopping for nanowire clothing to stay warm?

Related on EcoSalon

4 Ways to Conserve Energy on Household Tech Devices

5 Cool Gadgets to Help You Save Energy and Create Your Own Electricity

5 Energy Conservation Gadgets That Work (Even When You’re Not Home!)

Image: Woman in winter photo via Shutterstock

The post Nanowire Clothing Could Help You Stay Warm and Save on Energy appeared first on EcoSalon.

Need some easy ways to conserve energy? Trim your energy costs on your new holiday technology gifts.

Are you one of those people that got a ton of new devices over the holidays? From televisions to laptops to game devices, the season of giving is often filled with new technology. But according to NRDC, those devices may come with hidden costs because they drain energy in ways that we’re not prepared for upon receiving them.

Energy costs don’t just empty your wallet, they also lead to the generation of more energy which often comes from coal-fired power plants. Coal-fired power plants pollute the atmosphere and emit greenhouse gases, which warm the planet. But you can take steps to trim your technology footprint in the New Year. Here are some easy ways to conserve energy by making some simple changes to your consumption.

1. Adjust your television settings.

The good news about your new flatscreen is that it drains less energy than your old flatscreen because they are getting more efficient. But the bad news is your new television still uses a lot of energy. But NRDC says that by changing a few simple settings you can vastly improve your status. First off, choose home or standard screen settings rather than vivid or retail settings which are unnecessarily bright. These settings burn 15-20 percent more energy. Next up, disable the quick start function which turns your television on slightly faster but drains energy even when it’s off.

2. Get an ENERGY STAR cable box.

Ask your cable provider for an ENERGY STAR version 4.1 cable box. It’s the latest most efficient model. Also, make sure to unplug cable boxes in rooms where they’re not often used like in vacation homes or guest bedrooms.

3. Stream movies more efficiently.

If you’re streaming movies online, make sure you’re doing it in the most efficient manner using Roku, Apple TV, or Chromecast. Playstation and Xbox can use 10-20 percent more energy to stream the very same movies. Crazy stuff.

4. Get an ENERGY STAR router or modem.

Make sure that along with that sleek new laptop, you’ve also got the most efficient router or modem. It makes a big difference. In fact, according to an NRDC study, these devices use 30 percent less energy than the older, less efficient models.

If you love your devices make sure you’re using them in the most efficient manner possible. Keep your devices attached to a power strip so you can turn them all off easily when you’re done, make sure you properly dispose of your old devices (either recycling them, trading them in, or clearing them out and handing them off to a friend), and think long and hard about what you actually need and how it impacts consumption in the world we live in. Little steps can make a huge difference especially when everyone begins to take them.

Related on EcoSalon:

5 Cool Gadgets That Help Save and Create Energy

San Francisco To Mitigate Growth and Conserve Energy Resources With Eco-Districts

10 Fun Facts About Renewable Energy

Image: Orin Zebest

The post 4 Ways to Conserve Energy on Household Tech Devices appeared first on EcoSalon.

New research about effective hand washing proves that most of us have been doing it wrong–and it’s costing us millions.

What’s your hand washing technique? Here’s what I do:

1. Crank on the hot water tap
2. Wait a few seconds while it warms up
3. Stick a finger in and realize it’s now too hot
4. Open the cold water tap until it’s warm but not too warm
5. Pump soap into my palms
6. Lather, then rinse, then dry

You were probably doing something similar, and thus taught your kids to do the same. The idea is that the combination of hot water and soap during hand washing kills germs so that we don’t get sick or spread disease to others.

According to Amanda R. Carrico, a research assistant professor at the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment in Tennessee, however, it’s just an old wives tale. There’s no scientific proof that hands washed in hot water get any cleaner than those washed in cold water. Meanwhile, our obsession with warm tap water is wasting a ton of energy.

Carrico told National Geographic’s Brian Clark Howard that “after a review of the scientific literature, her team found ‘no evidence that using hot water that a person could stand would have any benefit in killing bacteria.'” What they did find was that the billions of hot water hand washing episodes performed each year are taking a significant toll on the environment (and we’re not just talking about wasted water).

Heating water for hand washing results in 6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually, which, according to Nat Geo, is “roughly equal to the emissions of two coal-fired power plants, or 1,250,000 passenger vehicles, over the course of a year.”

Yikes.

According to the CDC and other health authorities, effective hand washing depends less on the temperature of the water and more on your soaping technique, as well as how long you lather. So in the New Year, I’ll only be reaching for the cold water tap, and training myself to sing through “Happy Birthday” twice before I rinse. Quietly, of course.

Related on Ecosalon

Ditch The Washing Machine: How To Hand Wash Clothes

8 Ecosalon-Approved Personal Care & Hygiene Products

5 Natural Ways To Fight The Flu

Image: arlingtonva

The post Hand Washing 101: Forget Everything Your Mama Taught You appeared first on EcoSalon.

Tired of buying your energy from the man? Here are some cool gadgets that make it possible to generate your own electricity and shrink your utility bills.

When someone says “power plant” what do you envision? Most of us might think of the traditional coal fired power plant, with its smoke stacks and transmission wires. Others might see a massive array of solar panels or a vast wind farm full of slowly rotating turbines. One think you probably don’t think of is your own body–but you should!

Our bodies are their own energy-generating factories. We turn food (calories) into energy that powers every system in our body. What many people don’t realize is that the by-products of that energy (heat and movement) can be captured and recycled into energy for the cool gadgets we just can’t seem to live without.

Electricity is a relatively new innovation, and before it was readily available, humans used their natural energy to power many low-tech technologies, like the bicycle or the hand-crank drill. It’s only been recently that we’ve come up with cool gadgets that allow us to turn our store up calories into electricity for more sophisticated stuff, like the human-powered gym or pedal-powered HVAC systems.

I know what you’re thinking. Those human powered solutions are big, pretty expensive, and probably not going to land in your living room any time soon. Well, if you’re looking for more manageable ideas for saving energy and creating your own electricity, just scroll through the infographic below. It lists five cool gadgets that are just waiting to help you become a super efficient power plant, even when on the go!

Related on Ecosalon:

Review: Waka Waka Solar Charger & LED Lamp

Wind ‘Em Up: 10 Coolest Hand-Crank Gadgets

Image: Imanasteroid

Infographic: Save On Energy

The post 5 Cool Gadgets To Help You Save Energy & Create Your Own Electricity appeared first on EcoSalon.