How Much Does Vacuuming Floors Cost

Well most vacuums on the market today consume 12 – 14 amps, the average home will have a 12 amp vacuum. So 12 amps x 120 volt = 1,440 watts. Average person will vacuum their home around 2 times a week. The average person will probably run their vacuum cleaner for about an hour each time they vacuum their floors. So that’s 2 hours a week spent vacuuming. So there are 52 weeks in a year, so 52 weeks x 2 hours = 104 hours per year vacuuming. So 104 hours x 1,440 watts = 149,760 watt hours. Most electric companies will charge you per kWh so to convert 149,760 watt hours to kWh we need to divide by 1,000. 149,760 watt hours / 1,000 watts = 149.76 kWh per year. What does that convert to in money? Average cost per kWh is $0.10, so 149.76 kWh x $0.10 per kWh = $14.98/year.

NOTE: The more often you vacuum, the longer you take to vacuum, the more money it will cost to run your vacuum cleaner.

How Can I Save Money Vacuuming

You can buy an environmental friendly vacuum cleaner like the Eureka Envirovac! This vacuum is awesome! The Eureka Envirovac is easy to tear apart for repairs, easy to clean, easy to empty, does a great job vacuuming hard floors, carpets, and cars! I personally own a Eureka Envirovac and love it. It is a very powerful vacuum but only consumes 8 amps! This vacuum has just as much or more suction than a lot of the 12 and 14 amp vacuums on the market! I highly recommend buying a Eureka Envirovac to save money, save the environment, and keep your home and car cleaner!

How Much Money Will I Save

You will not save a great amount of money, but you will save a little money each year, as well as keep your house cleaner! This vacuum will cost you $7.49/year in electricity! Which saves you $7.49/year! Again, if you vacuum more often than 2 times a week you will save more money. If you vacuum for more than an hour each time, you will save even more money!

If your current vacuum cleaner is working fine I wouldn’t recommend purchasing a Eureka Envirovac as the savings are not that great, but if your vacuum cleaner is not working great or broken, I would highly recommend purchasing a Eureka Envirovac today!

Remember to read more ways to save electricity in your home and other ways to go green in your home on gogreeninyourhome.com!

Why Not Wash in Hot Water

Washing your clothes in hot water is really a waste of electric or gas depending on what your water heater uses. The reason washing your laundry in hot water is a waste because most people have their water heater set at 120°F – 140°F. When your washer is set to hot water it only allows hot water to enter the washer, no cold water is added. Therefore your clothes are being washed in 120°F – 140°F hot water when dirt, grime, body odors, sweat, etc. are all best dislodged at 100°F! So that extra gas or electric used to make the water 20°F – 40°F hotter is wasted for no reason at all!

How Can I Make My Washer Use 100°F Water For Warm Water

You rarely need to use warm water to wash your clothes in, but for those loads of laundry that do require warm water you will want to make sure your clothes washer is only using 100°F warm water. Most clothes washers will open both cold water and hot water valves 100% to get it’s warm water. So it will mix 50% cold and 50% hot water to make it’s warm water. Most of you will have around 50°F cold water and 140°F hot water mixing. Your cold water will also depend on the temperature outside and inside your home. The best way to adjust the temperature of your warm water is by adjusting the valves manually yourself. While doing a load of laundry use a thermometer after the water is completely filled and starts swishing around so you know it is mixed well. Take your water temperature during that load and see what it is. If your water temperature is above 100°F, reach behind your washer and turn down the hot water valve. If the water is below 100°F turn down the cold water valve. After you have done this, check the temperature again during your next load of laundry. Keep repeating this process until your washer’s warm water achieves 100°F. Also note, you may have to make this adjustment in the summer and in the winter as your cold water’s temperature will change slightly.

How Much Money Will I Save Washing Clothes in 100°F Water

It cost’s about $0.30/load of laundry washed in 140°F hot water. Which the average family will do 312 loads of laundry a year, so $93.60/year is spent to do laundry using hot water. NOTE: $93.60/year is just spent on heating the water, not including the cost of electricity to power the washer itself. If you use 100°F warm water to wash your clothes it cost about $0.16/load of laundry. So 312 loads a year in warm water will cost $49.92/year to heat your water. So if you wash your clothes in warm water instead of hot water you will save $43.68/year!

How Much Money Will I Save Washing Clothes in Cold Water

Being that cold water is not heated at all you will save $93.60/year by washing your clothes in cold water instead of hot water!

How Can I Save Even More Money Washing Clothes

If you want to save more money you could even use a Wonderwash hand crank clothes washer, which uses no electricity or gas at all! You can’t do a whole lot of laundry per load, but if you wash a portion of your clothes in it you will save even more money! If you are a single person or even just you and 1 other person, you could use the Wonderwash to wash all of your laundry. If you have children you can give them some small chores like doing the laundry using the Wonderwash! The clothes will come out of the Wonderwash very wet, so you will want to use a clothes spinner or clothes wringer to get the extra water out before hanging on a clothesline or clothes drying rack to dry or put in your electric clothes dryer or gas clothes dryer.

You can also read my go green tip: Save Money Doing Laundry Drying Clothes to learn how to save even more money while drying your clothes!

How Much Does it Cost to Dry a Load of Clothes

Drying clothes cost around $0.50/load of laundry done in an electric dryer or around $0.45/load of laundry to dry in a gas clothes dryer. The gas dryer costs around $0.04/load for electricity and $0.41/load for the gas. The average family will do around 6 loads of laundry a week, which is 312 loads of laundry a year! So if you are using an electric clothes dryer you will spend around $156/year just by drying your clothes. If you are using a gas clothes dryer, you will spend around $140.40/year to dry your clothes!

How Can I Dry Clothes Without Using a Clothes Dryer

Yes, you can dry your laundry without having a clothes dryer, or even if you have a clothes dryer you can use these methods to save money. Simple, you can hang your clothes on a clothesline to dry. You can hang your clothes on a clothes drying rack, indoor clothesline, outdoor clothesline, etc. Just hang your clothes somewhere dry, and your clothes will dry. Hanging clothes to dry will save you around $156/year. Plus, if you don’t already have a clothes dryer, you will save more money by not buying a clothes dryer!

If you want to hang your clothes indoors, you can simply get a clothesline and run it across your basement. I’d recommend using a clothes drying rack and a clothesline. I like clothes drying racks slightly more because they are not in the way. You can place clothes drying racks off to the side somewhere and you don’t have to duck every time you walk around in your basement! You will still want to use a clothes line for some of your larger loads or even larger laundry, like sheets, blankets, etc.

Hanging your clothes on an outdoors clothes line will usually dry your clothes faster as the heat from the sun will dry them. Some people worry about clothes fading as they are in the sun. I really haven’t had a problem with that, but I don’t leave my clothes out all day. I usually only set them out to get them partially dry, then bring them indoors to finish drying.

Another way to dry your clothes even faster is to use a clothes spinner or a clothes wringer first before hanging them to dry or if you are still wanting to use an electric clothes dryer, spinning or wringing your clothes out first will save you money, but not as mush as just hang drying your clothes.

A clothes spin dryer is kind of like the last cycle on your washer, it spins clothes really fast using centrifugal force to force the water out of the clothes. A clothes spinner will get clothes dryer than the spin cycle on your washer. The clothes wringer squeezes the water out of the clothes.

I think the clothes wringer is more efficient than the clothes spinner. The clothes spinner is a little faster, and also uses less effort from you. A clothes wringer still requires you to feed each article of clothing into the wringer, even if you get an electric clothes wringer, you will still have to feed the clothes into the clothes wringer, but you won’t have to hand crank the clothes through the wringer. I recommend thinking of it like this, if you get a hand crank clothes wringer, you get to do laundry, save money, and get a slight exercise all at the same time!

You may also wat to read my go green tip: Save Money Doing Laundry Washing Clothes

What Electrical Appliances Still Use Electricity When Turned Off

Any electrical device that has an external power supply connected to it will still use electricity while powered off. Such as cellphone chargers, computer speakers, any of those electrical devices with a cubed power supply on it. Also any electrical appliances that have a clock, LED, light, or LCD panel on it will also still use electricity while turned off. Such as microwaves, coffee makers, TVs, VCR’s, DVD players, etc. Also any devices that have a standby or sleep power modes will still consume electricity. Most TV’s and set top cable boxes never actually turn off, they just go into a standby mode. Computer monitors and computers are the same. Most computers will still keep power to the motherboard for different functions such as ethernet cards/network cards, modems, USB hubs, etc.

How Much Energy is Consumed by Appliances While Turned Off

The electricity consumed by electrical appliances while they are turned off depends on the electrical appliance. The range of electricity used by these electricity leaking appliances are anywhere from 1 watt to 50 watts of electricity! Now 1 watt doesn’t sound like a lot, which it isn’t, but when you have 20+ electrical appliances in your home using just 1 watt of power, that’s 20 watts being used!

A single cellphone charger will consume 1 watt while plugged into the wall, even without a phone plugged into it! The same cellphone charger will also consume 4.5 watts of electricity with a cellphone plugged into it that is already fully charged! The same cellphone charger will consume 8 watts of power while charging a cellphone.

A stand-alone DVR set top box will consume 48.5 watts of power while turned off. A digital cable DVR set top box will consume 43.5 watts of electricity while turned off, while a digital cable box without DVR will consume 33 watts of electricity. A satellite set top box with or without DVR will consume 33.5 watts of power while turned off.

Almost everyone has a TV in their home, so how much electricity do TVs consume while turned off? Rear projection TV will consume 48.5 watts of electricity while it is turned off! A standard CRT TV will consume 13 watts while turned off.

Most of you will have a mini stereo system, one of those with speakers, CD player, AM/FM radio, etc all built into one unit. They will consume 24.5 watts of power while turned off! I’m sure most of you have one of these in your bedroom, living room, or kids bedroom.

A home theatre audio receiver that most of you will have hooked up to your TV in your living room will consume 19.5 watts of electricity while it is turned off.

So with just the few things I’ve mentioned here, that’s a total of $127.69/year just for  electrical devices turned off for 16 hours every day. Most of you probably have more than 1 of each of those items in your home that are turned off, but still plugged in consuming power.

How Much Money Do These Appliances Consume While Turned Off

So now I’m going to calculate an average family of 4, and see how much electricity is leaking in their home, and how much it costs them. Well the parents are leaking 2369.74 kWh a year of electricity, which costs $236.97/year! Each of the children leak around 920.43 kWh of power each year, which costs $92.04 each child! So we have a total of $421.05/year being wasted because of electricity leaking on your electrical devices in your home!

How Can I Save Money by Stopping Electricity Leaking Appliances

There are 3 ways you can save money and save electricity by stopping these electrical appliances from leaking electricity. I will provide all 3 methods of stopping electrical devices from leaking electricity so you can save electricity. Some methods work better than others, but are not as convenient.

The cheapest and most effective is just by unplugging electrical appliances when you are not using them, which can become a major pain.This method works great as there will be no electrical usage at all since the electrical appliance is completely unplugged and can not use any electricity at all. As this method is the cheapest as you don’t have to buy anything new.

The next cheapest and least effective method is buying a standard surge protector and plugging your devices into surge protectors, when not in use, turn off the power switch which will cut off power to all the devices plugged into the power strip. Standard power strips and surge protectors are priced well and will pay for themselves if you turn them off and stop your electrical appliances from using electricity while turned off. The reason this method is not as effective as you would think, is that each surge protector will still consume electricity, so even though all your electrical appliances are not, the surge protector will still consume around 6 watts of electricity. So it is still a great method to use and cheap as well.

The next cheapest method and second most effective is using a smart power strip or smart surge protector. The smart surge protectors will cut off power automatically to only the devices that are turned off, while still powering the devices that are turned on and in use! These smart surge protectors cost about the same or slightly more than regular surge protectors, but use less electricity and you don’t have to turn off the power button when you’re done with your devices, just simply turn that appliance off! The smart surge protectors will still consume electricity when not in use, but not as much as normal surge protectors. The smart surge protectors will consume around 1 watt while in use, and less than 0.25 watts while turned off!

LCD Advantages

Some of the advantages of using an LCD computer monitor is that you will use a lot less electricity, so you will save money on your electric bill. Also since a Liquid Crystal Display monitor uses less electricity and you need an Uninterruptible Power Supply, you will not have to buy a large capacity UPS. If you do buy a larger capacity UPS, it will last longer using an LCD monitor vs. CRT monitor.

LCD monitors generate less heat. So in the summer time when you run your air conditioning, the A/C will have to work a little harder and longer to cool your home down if you are using a CRT monitor. So by using a LCD monitor on your computer you will save money because your A/C system will not have to run as hard and as long.

Liquid Crystal Display monitors are also easier on your eyes. When using a computer with a CRT monitor for long periods of time your eyes will start to strain and maybe even give you headaches! Using a LCD monitor will not do this to you!

LCD monitors are also smaller in size and weight. Almost anyone can carry an LCD monitor if rearranging rooms in your home. If you are moving a CRT monitor it will require a little bit of strength to move. CRT monitors are also a lot larger in size which makes it difficult to wrap your arms around. You will save room on your computer desk by using a LCD monitor, so you will have more work space or more room to place photos of your family or other things.

CRT Electricity Cost

I’m using a 17″ Flat CRT monitor for this calculation. Which is a great monitor but loves to consume electricity! This 17″ Flat CRT monitor will consume 150 watts! I also have a 14″ CRT monitor that will consume 65 watts! Most of you will have your computer running around 8 hours every day, some will be more, some will be less.

LCD Electricity Cost

My 17″ LCD monitor will consume 28 watts! There are some LCD monitors that are larger that will still consume around the same amount and consume less power! LG has a 22″ LCD monitor that only uses 22 watts!

So now you can see that LCD monitors save you lots of money! There are more and more energy efficient LCD monitors being designed and built every day. As for LG’s 22″ LCD only using 22 watts of power, that’s just the start, I’m sure there are other LCD monitors out there that are more energy efficient than the LG 22″ LCD.

How Much Money Will an LCD Computer Monitor Save Me

As you can see switching from a 17″ CRT computer monitor to a 17″ LCD computer monitor will save you $35.65 every year! So go green by buying an energy efficient LCD computer monitor for your home! For more go green tips on saving electricity continue reading through Go Green in Your Home!

How Much Electricity Do Christmas Lights Use

Christmas lights that are using incandecent lights use a lot of electricity. Depending on the brand, quality, etc. a string of 100 incandecent Christmas lights will use around 45 watts of power! Most of you have around 500 lights just on your Christmas tree. So that’s 225 watts of power being used by Christmas lights! Most people will probably have their Christmas tree on for about 9 hours per day, and probably from Thanksgiving until a little after New Years, so your Christmas tree will be on for around 40 days.

So  let’s calculate how much electricity your Christmas tree is using:

40 days x 9 hours per day = 360 hours of use
360 hours x 225 watts / 1,000 = 81 kWh
81 kWh x $0.10 per kWh = $8.10

So now after calculating your Christmas tree’s electricity usage we found that it costs $8.10 just to power your Christmas tree for those 40 days if you only have 500 lights on your Christmas tree.  Most of you will also have more incandecent Christmas lights decorating other things as well wreaths, stair hand rails, windows, icicle lights hanging from your gutters, etc.

How Can I Save Money on Christmas Lighting

You can save money on Christmas lighting by using LED ( Light-Emitting Diode ) Christmas lights instead of your standard incandecent lights. There are also many other advantages to using LED Christmas lights instead of incandecent Christmas lights. Go Green in Your Home suggests replacing all of your standard incandecent Christmas lights with LED Christmas lights to save money, save electricity, and save the environment!

What are the Advantages of LED Christmas Lights

LED Christmas lights have many advantages over your standard incandecent Christmas lights. The 2 major advantages of LED Christmas lights is that they use a lot less electricity than incandecent Christmas lights. The technology used in light-emitting diodes is based on a semiconductor diode. When the diode is forward biased, or powered on, electrons recombine with holes to release photons. This is called electroluminescence. The next major advantage is that the light-emitting diodes last a long time. So you won’t have to replace light bulbs every Christmas and check the strings to make sure they work. LED lights are very durable and will last anywhere from 25,000 – 100,000 hours! A lot of the light-emitting diodes produced in the 1970’s are still in use today! Some of the other advantages of LED lights are that they are smaller in size, very fast light (instantly turn on), do not give off a lot of heat, and overall more energy efficient!

How Much Does Electricity Cost for LED Christmas Lights

Light-emitting diodes will cost you a lot less than standard incandecent Christmas lights, but how much will LED Christmas lighting save you? Well lets calculate the electricity usage of a Christmas tree using LED lighting instead of incandecent.

200 LED lights use 12 watts of power. So we will use 500 lights as we did when calculating the incandecent Christmas lights. So 500 LED lights will use 30 watts of power. We will also use the same amount of time and days used in the incandecent calculation.

40 days x 9 hours = 360 hours of use
360 hours x 30 watts / 1,000 = 10.8 kWh
10.8 kWh x $0.10 per kWh = $1.08

As you can see $1.08 for lighting a 500 LED Christmas tree is a lot more efficient than the incandecent Christmas lighting. So buy LED Christmas lights for your Christmas tree, Christmas wreaths, and all your other Christmas lighting needs so you can start saving money, and not have to replace all those light bulbs every year!

How Much Heat is Wasted

When you are sleeping your furnace is heating your entire home when your bed only needs to be warm! So all that extra heat is wasted for those 8 hours of sleep time. You are also wasting heat while you are away from your home for 8 hours at work or school and you leave your heat turned on. So in total there is 16 hours of heat being wasted in your home!

How Will I Save Money Using an Electric Blanket

Using an electric blanket at night will allow you to turn your furnace’s thermostat down to 55°F instead of your normal 70°F. This 15°F temperature drop during the 8 hours you are sleeping will save you money. How will you stay warm in 55°F temperatures? Easy, use an electric blanket, a 90watt electric blanket on for 8 hours a day will only cost you $2.20/mo. for each electric blanket in your home, yet will drop your gas bill or electric bill which ever you use for heating your home dramatically.

How do I Save Money on Heating While I’m at Work

Easy, turn your heat down to 55°F for the 8 hours you are at work or school as well. There is no point heating your home when no one is in it to benefit from the warmth. Now if you have pets or someone still in your home, them maybe don’t turn your thermostat down to 55°F, but you can still turn it down at least a few degrees. For every degree you turn down your heat you will save around 2% – 3% on your heating bill.

How Much Money Will I Save on Heating My Home

If you follow these steps and turn down your thermostat to 55°F for the 8 hours your sleep and the 8 hours you are at work or school, you will save around 22.06% on your heating bill!

So if your monthly heating bill is usually $140/mo. your new heating bill following these gas saving tips will be only $109.12/mo. which saves you around $30.89/mo. on your heating bill! Well subtract the $2.20/mo. that you would be paying for each electric blanket running. So you are saving $28.69 every month during the winter on your heating bill!

Programmable Thermostats

For those of you that forget to turn down the heat thermostat to 55°F while you are at work, school, and sleeping, you can buy a programmable thermostat! Basically you can program the thermostat to automatically turn the temperature down to 55°F for the 8 hours you are sleeping, and also for the 8 hours you are at work or school! This way you can have your heat kick back on and heat your home to 70°F before you get home, or before you actually get out of bed!

Electric Blanket Tips and Recommendations

When buying an electric blanket, make sure you get a decent one. You don’t have to buy anything very expensive, but make sure it has a temperature control and also an auto shutoff. This way when you get up in the morning it will automatically shut off incase you forget about it, so you are not wasting electricity to heat your bed when no one is in it. There are also programmable electric blankets, and also auto temperature controlling electric heating blankets. These blankets are a little more exspensive, but they auto adapt to your body heat, you get too warm in the middle of the night it will automatically turn itself down or off. If you get out of bed to go to the bathroom and come back, it will sense that your body temperature has dropped and heat you back up! But, any electric heating blanket or matress heating pad will work great to help you save money on your heating bill.

If you do buy an electric blanket be sure to also buy a decent quilt or comforter to put over top of it so the comforter or quilt will help keep the heat under the covers so the electric heating blanket doesn’t have to run all night to keep you warm.

So if you are saving $28.69/mo. for heating bills, and around my area I am heating my home for about 8 month of the year, so $229.52/year I save! But if your normal heating bill is more than $140/mo. originally, you will save even more money than me!

I hope you use these money saving tips to lower your heating bill. Using an electric blanket to heat your bed is more efficient and also usually a little more comfortable.Your entire bed is nice and warm, even when you first get in it. I hate getting into a cold bed and having to rub my body to create heat by friction to get warm enough to fall asleep. With an electric blanket you will be nice and warm in no time at all. So now you can sleep great knowing you are saving money while you sleep!

Gallons of Water Used in the Shower

First lets see how much water does an average shower use? The average use of water in a shower depends on 2 things, how long the shower is, and what kind of water flow your shower head is rated at. Well first off I’m going to go by the average non water conserving shower head rating which is usually 5GPM – 8GPM! If you have read my How to Save Water Brushing Teeth information you know some of the numbers that you will be seeing just with a 4GPM, just think your shower is probably 8GPM rating and usually takes longer to shower, than to brush your teeth! So we will go with a 8GPM shower head as our non water conserving shower head.

Next, we need to figure out how long the shower will be. On average an adult will take a 10 minute shower if they are not in a hurry and 5 minute shower if they are in a hurry. The average teen will take a 15-20 minute shower if they are not in a hurry and a 10 minute shower if they are in a hurry! Most homes will have at least one teen showering, so I’m going to use the 15 minute shower as the average shower time for the rest of this water conservation information.

So how many gallons of water does an average 15 minute show use? A typical 15 minute shower will use 120 gallons! Now 75% of those 120 gallons is hot water, which is being paid to heat either by electric of gas! So 90 gallons from that 15 minute show is heated!

How Much Does an Average Shower Cost

Well if we are showering and using 120 gallons of water for each shower that’s around $0.36/shower just for the water, now you also have to pay to heat 90 gallons of that water! But I’m not going to do that much research just yet. Let’s bring this to a yearly rate. Each person that showers once a day will use 43,830 gallons of water a year! Which costs $131.49/year for every person!

How Do I Conserve Water While Showering

You can buy a new energy efficient or water efficient shower head, so instead of pumping out 8 gallons every minute you can get a low water consumption shower head that will use as little as 0.5 gallons every minute! You can also turn off your showers water until you need to rinse. Your showering procedure should be get in shower, turn on water, get wet/rinse off, turn water off, wash body, wash hair, turn on water, rinse, turn off water, put conditioner in your hair, turn water on, rinse hair, turn off water, and get out of shower! Using this method you will use a lot less water.

How Much Money Can I Save Showering

If you buy a 1.5GPM water saving shower head, and also turn off the water when you are not using it like I explained in the paragraph above you will save quite a bit of money. You will save money on your water bill, and also in your water heating bill whether it be electric or gas! Remember 75% of the water used diring a shower is hot water!

If you follow these tips you will save $129.85/year per person from switching from a 8GPM shower head running the entire shower time to a 1.5GPM low water efficient shower head only running during rinsing! Now I did not factor in the cost per gallon of hot water, as I have not calculated and tested to see how much it costs to heat 1 gallon of water. If I ever do calculate and test this I will add it to this information.

Here is a chart comparing the water usage of taking a shower using a non water conserving shower head vs. a shower using a low water usage shower head and turning off the water when not in use!

As you can see in the water usage chart above, taking a shower is expensive if you don’t use a 1.5GPM low water usage shower head and also turn off the water when you are not using it. Also remember I didn’t calculate in the gas or electric to heat 75% of those gallons of water! Which would make the cost of taking a shower even more, and you would save even more! But, so far I am just calculating just the water usage itself! I read that on average the heating of 1 gallon of water is $0.0025 so 75% of the gallons used you would multiply gallons of hot water by $0.0025 so on the 8GPM shower head for 1 person using 43,830 gallons a year, 75% of those gallons are hot water which would be 32,872.5 gallons of hot water which would cost $82.19/year to heat that hot water! Taking a shower my way and using a 1.5GPM shower head would use 547.875 gallons which 410.90625 gallons are hot water which would cost only $1.03/year to heat that water! So just in heating the water you are saving another $81.17/year in heating water for your shower!

Help conserve water and save money while taking a shower, go buy yourself a 1.5GPM water saving shower head that probably costs around $10.00 – $30.00! Which the water saving shower head will pay for itself in the savings it will produce! Even if you do not turn off the water during a shower, just replacing your non water conserving shower head with a low water consumption shower head will save you tons of money! Thanks for reading these water conservation tips while showering. Continure reading through Go Green in Your Home for more water conservation tips, go green tips, and also other money saving tips!

NOTE: I would recommend buying a 1.5GPM Low Water Usage Showerhead that has a quick on/off button/lever/switch built in. The reason I recommend this is that if you follow my steps of showering and turn on and off the water, you don’t have to readjust the water temperature. You can adjust when you first get in, then use the built in on/off button/lever to turn the water off until you are ready to use it again, then turn it back on with the quick on/off lever/button so you don’t have to readjust and waste time, water, and money while adjusting your water temperature again.

• Save money ($37.80/person/year)
• Save water (12,600 Gallons/person/year)
• Save Environment
• Less gas/electric to heat water
• Less wear and tear on your plumbing, valves, pumps, etc.
• Less electric to pump water.

Most people don’t think about it but you can save water and save money by turning off the water to your sink while you are brushing your teeth! Most homes have a 4GPM, Gallons Per Minute, fitting on their bathrooms and kitchen sinks or even higher!

How Much Water is Used While Brushing Teeth

If you are one of those people that don’t think about how much water your sink it putting out, you will probably leave your water running while you brush your teeth. The average person will turn on the water, rinse off tooth brush, put tooth paste on tooth brush, brush teeth, spit a couple times, brush a little more, rinse tooth brush off, use a mouth rinse or mouth wash, swish that around a bit, spit it out, rinse out sink, and finally turn off water. This process will usually take 2 – 3 minutes to complete. During those 3 minutes you just used 12 gallons of water! The average person brushes their teeth 2 – 3 times a day, which would now make your water usage is at 36 gallons of water per person per day. The average person will also brush their teeth everyday which I will use 30.5 days for a month to make up for those with 28, 30, and 31 days. So now we are up to a single person brushing their teeth uses 1098 gallons of water to brush a single person’s teeth every month! Now there are 365.25 days in a year, so how many gallons of water does a single person use a year while brushing their teeth? The answer is, 13,129 gallons a year! Now let’s move onto the cost of this water usage.

The average cost of water is $0.003/gallon. So if a single person uses 13,129 gallons of water a year to brush their teeth, this costs $39.45/year for 1 person to brush their teeth. So take $39.45 and multiply this by how many people live in your home and you will see how much water is costing you just for you to keep your teeth clean! Now I didn’t factor in using hot water, so if you are using hot water to brush your teeth you are also paying to have that water heated either in your electricity bill or gas bill.

How Do I Save Money Brushing My Teeth

So how can you save money while brushing your teeth? Turn your water off unless you are using it. Don’t turn on your water and just let it run in the sink while you are brishing your teeth! Also, do not use hot water to brush your teeth, the amount of water used waiting for hot water to arrive at the sink, and letting it run while you are brushing your teeth is wasting water and also wasting gas or electric to heat that water. So make sure when you and your family is brushing their teeth, use cold water and only cold water, and turn it off while you are not using it. Let’s do a sinple comparision chart of how much money you could save while brushing your teeth.

Buy a 2GPM or lower faucet fitting for your kitchen sink and bathroom sink, this will allow you to use 50% less watter, while the water is turned on. I have seen some 1.5GPM, 1.6GPM, and even 1GPM faucet fittings! The fitting is normally called an aerator, which screws into the faucet.

NOTE: If your faucet is newer than 1992 you already should have at least a 2.5GPM fitting on your faucet. Federal Energy Policy Act of 1992 requires that all faucet fixtures manufactured in the USA are to  restrict maximum water flow at or below 2.5GPM. So you shouldn’t be too bad, but you can still buy a more efficient fitting for your faucet! If your faucet was purchased before 1992 you probably have a faucet rated at 4GPM – 7GPM! So if your faucet is older than 1992, you NEED to buy a new one, the chart below is based off of 4GPM so if you have a 7GPM faucet then figure almost double the amounts!

I will base this off of letting water run while brushing your teeth using cold water, and compare it to turning off your water while brushing your teeth using cold water as well so I don’t have to factor in heating the water. Also remember you are also using a little bit if electricity to pump the water to the sink, which is not factored in either. So you will save more money on electric bill as well! This is a yearly chart:

Looking at this chart you aren’t saving a whole heck of a lot of money, but you are saving many gallons of water, and also saving a bit of money every year! So conserve water and save money and also help save the environment by going green in your home using these water conservation tips. For more tips on saving water or saving money on other utility bills continue reading throughout Go Green in Your Home!

How Much Money Will I Save Filling My Tires With Nitrogen

Depending on how many miles you drive, your car’s current fuel efficiency MPG, and a few other minor variables, you will most likely save around $130.00/year on fuel, and around $70.00/year on tires. Which means you will save around $200.00/year! These numbers are based from driving 15,500 miles a year, on a car that gets around 20MPG. Continue reading to find out why nitrogen filled tires saves you $200 every year!

Increase Your Gas Mileage

How does nitrogen filled tires help improve your gas mileage? Regular air filled tires lose 1-3 PSI every month! Which makes your tires slightly more flat! Ever tried pushing a car that had flat tires? If you have then you know that it requires more work for you to move that car. Same applies to your car’s motor, it has to work harder to move your car when the tires are flat or even low. If the car’s engine has to work harder, your engine will consume more fuel! Nitrogen filled tires do not loose as much pressure. See the image at the very bottom right, see how regular air leaks through the tire’s rubber more than nitrogen does.

Regular air filled tires will also vary in air pressure in the tire, just by them being hot or cold. So if the temperature changes in your tire, the tire pressure changes as well. The longer you drive the hotter your tire becomes. Nitrogen filled tires will keep a more stable pressure when the tire’s temperatures change!

So filling your tires with nitrogen will improve your gas mileage by keeping your tire’s pressure more stable!

Increase the Life of Your Tires

Your tires will last longer when they are filled with nitrogen! Regular air inside of your tires will have nitrogen N₂, oxygen O₂, water vapor H₂O, argon Ar, carbon dioxide CO₂, neon Ne, helium He, methane CH₄, krypton Kr, hydrogen H₂, nitrous oxide N₂, xenon Xe, ozone O₃, nitrogen dioxide NO₂, iodine I, carbon monoxide CO, and ammonia NH₃. Some of these gases in the air will cause rubber to break down, dry crack, etc. Nitrogen doesn’t damage rubber. So if you fill your tires with air they will dry crack and also the tread will wear faster!

Filling your tires will nitrogen will not harm your rubber in the tire, and will increase the life of your tires, so you don’t have to buy tires as often!

Nitrogen Filled Tires are Safer

Some of you may have already figured out why nitrogen filled tires are safer from reading the information above, but for those of you that haven’t I will explain why nitrogen filled tires are safer. First of all in the section explaining that nitrogen filled tires increase your gas mileage, it says that air filled tires lose 1-3 PSI every month. Under-inflated tires are more prone to blowing out! So you are driving 65mph on the highway and your tire blows out because it is under-inflated! Filling tires with nitrogen will reduce the risk of a tire blowing out on you as it will maintain tire pressure.

Secondly, in the next section explaining how nitrogen increases your tire’s life, it says that regular air filled tires will start breaking down and dry cracking, which can cause a tire blow out as well.

Nitrogen Filled Tires Help Save the Environment

By switching to nitrogen filled tires vs. regular air filled tires, your car will burn less fuel, which will put off less emissions into the air we breathe. We will also use less tires, which will put less pollution in the air by making more tires.

Nitrogen Filled Tires Perform Better

If you are into performance on the street or track you want to have your tires filled with nitrogen as they maintain pressure at different temperatures better than regular air filled tires. When on the street or track racing you are putting a lot of stress on your tires, accelerating, breaking, etc. this causes your tires to get even hotter, which will change your tire’s air pressure. Filling your tires with nitrogen will not change pressures while the tire’s temperature changes!

Also while taking a turn at high speeds, your regular air filled tires will allow the tire to roll slightly, which creates resistance and slows you down, and possibly roll the tire off of your rim. Nitrogen filled tires will roll less, allowing you to maintain speeds through turns. Filling your tires with nitrogen will give your car better traction and handling!

Who Uses Nitrogen in Tires?

FAA requires all commercial air-crafts to have their tires filled with nitrogen. Nascar racers are required to have their tires filled with nitrogen, so they are safer, faster, change tires less, and use less fuel! Jay Leno’s car’s tires are also filled with nitrogen, and you know how much Jay Leno loves his cars!

Anyone can fill their tires with nitrogen to increase their tire’s life, safety, fuel mileage, and performance! So go green and save money by filling your tires with nitrogen today!