Home Clean Home
Keep your living space clean and green
Home is where the heart is, unless the saying is overshadowed because your home is also where the dangerous chemicals, energy-sucking appliances or unused junk is. Your home is as good a place as any for an environmental overhaul.
You can start “eco-renovating” your home today. It’s as easy as taking simple energy conservation measures such as changing light bulbs and reducing the amount of power that’s silently being stolen from you in the night (also known as phantom or leaking power). When your fridge or washing machine goes kaput, upgrading to energy-efficient appliances may initially cost more, but it’ll save you plenty in the long run.
Insulation does exactly what the name claims; it stops heat from transferring through it. A few basic ways to increase insulation and reduce heat leaking out of your home are closing off drafts with caulking and weather stripping and covering electric water heaters and the pipes leading away from them. You can also improve home insulation by replacing windows and redoing or adding to existing exterior wall insulation.
Cleaning up after yourself, and possibly a family, can be a daunting task without concerns about chemicals in the home and whether you’re doing environmental harm. Choosing nontoxic cleaning products, or even better, paying to have an eco-friendly cleaning service come and do it for you, can give you a little peace of mind.
You may have already reduced your energy waste because you know how much money it saves, but what about the other waste, that junk you throw in the trash can. Not only do you often have to pay for the “privilege” to offload your trash on others, the knowledge that landfills are rapidly filling to capacity just plain stinks. Reducing waste covers almost every aspect of your home life, but one of the easiest ways to reduce the amount you throw out is by recycling what you can and giving the rest to someone who has a use for it.
Before long you and your house will be sitting pretty. Your financial savings and a feeling of pride about living sustainably may even have convinced you to invest in alternative energy. Either way, you can rest easy knowing you’ve succeeded in erasing a few of your footprints on the Earth.
