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BANG FOR THE BITE
If 10,000 Biters turned down their heat 1 degree, collective savings this year would be 400,000 gallons of oil - enough for a Prius to circle the globe 700 times.
COCKTAIL FACT
The electricity generated by fossil fuels for a single home puts more carbon dioxide into the air than 2 cars driven for a full year.
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home › tip library › Energy Saving Tips
Have rising energy costs made you want to drown your sorrows in comfort food?
The Bite
As energy prices soar this winter, take a bite out of your next heating bill by following some simple energy conservation tips.The Benefits
- Next time you finish baking, turn off the oven, open the door, and let the warm air help heat your home. If you’re just baking a small meal, consider a toaster oven or frying pan, which use half as much energy as a conventional oven.
- Close doors and heating vents in rooms rarely used. Lower the thermostat and use a space heater when you are in only one part of your home. For every one degree lowered, you’ll save up to 5% on your heating bill this winter.
- Conduct an energy audit to locate potential problem areas in your home, such as ventilation fans in bathrooms and kitchens.
- Go digital. Replacing a mechanical thermostat with a digital model allows you to save energy by programming your heat to turn on and off at preset times.
Personally Speaking
So, we’re not baking a lot of cookies these days, to be honest. (Although Heather does make a mean cake every now and then). But we are both using space heaters in our cold home offices instead of cranking up the heat throughout the whole house.Wanna Try?
- Earth 911 – energy conservation tips for the whole house.
- AM Conservation Group and Energy Federation – purchase weatherization, water and energy saving products, and kits.
- Residential Energy Services Network – locate energy auditors in your area.
- Home Energy Saver – web-based survey that generates suggestions for improving efficiency.
- Refinance – refinance with a green mortgage and use the additional money to make your home more energy efficient.
Feb 23,2006
Sponsor
OK, so today's entire tip on home heating resulted from a tip submission from one of our Biters, Maria Ruth. In case you weren't aware - about half of the tips that we publish are the result of ideas from readers like you.
Now, clearly, we embellished upon Maria's initial tip idea - when you finish baking cookies, open the oven as it is cooling down, and let that heat warm the house so you don't need to keep the thermostat cranked. Our researchers got to work and unearthed other little "bites" you can take out of your heating bill, and a handful of resources to help you learn more.
But that central nugget - that came from Maria. We don't know everything (and god knows, we ain't baking cookies much these days), no matter how much we like to pretend we do. But we have resources and researchers, and if your idea is a good one, we can get the word out.
So whatever your favorite green idea - be it silly, sassy or even so simple that you imagine it just couldn't make it into a tip... send it our way (submitatip@idealbite.com). You never know - like Maria - your name could make it into the Biter lights, and your maybe-too-simple idea might influence tens of thousands of readers to make a shift that will help change the world.
-Heather... off to pack for a trip to LA... (more on said trip in a later blog)...
As an aside - if you read our blog, but don't get our daily tip, what we write here isn't going to make a lot of sense, generally. Visit www.idealbite.com to sign up to receive our daily email tip.
Biter Comments...
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: Kathy | March 04, 2006 at 07:13 AM