Reduce your carbon footprint – 10 easy steps to take today.

A lot has been written about carbon footprints and reducing the impact we have on the environment. While living “off the grid” might not be something all of us can do, there are some easy steps we can all take to reduce the impact our daily lives have on the environment. The added bonus is that most of these also save us money in the process. Here are ten:

1. Adjust your thermostat 2 degrees (up in the summer, down in the winter). It will lower your energy bill and reduce up to 500 lbs. of Greenhouse Gases (GHGS) per year.
2. Perform regular maintenance on your vehicles. Your car will drive better and save up to 800 lbs. of GHGS per year.
3. Reduce your driving by 20 miles a week. Do you have an opportunity to car pool? Can you take one car instead of two to the kid’s game? You will save on your gas bill and up to 1,000 lbs. of GHGS per year.
4. Reduce your kilowatt-hour usage by 20 per month. Does every light in the house need to be on at all times? You will save on your electric bill and up to 200 lbs. of GHGS per year.
5. Enable the power saver feature on your computer and monitor. A simple setting that can save up to 100 lbs. of GHGS per year.
6. Run your dishwasher only when full. This is one that has multiple benefits, you save water and energy, which save money and saves up to 100 lbs. of GHGS per year.
7. Wash clothes in cold water. Save the energy needed to heat the water being used and save up to 200 lbs. of GHGS per year.
8. Replace your incandescent bulbs. By investing in LED or CFL light bulbs instead of traditional incandescent bulbs, you can greatly reduce your energy usage saving up to 40 lbs. of GHGS per bulb per year.
9. Recycle. Recycling is something that is easy and in a lot of areas required. By recycling aluminum, steel, plastic, glass and paper, you can reduce up to 1,300 lbs. of GHGS per year.
10. Reuse. Even better that recycling, is reusing. Do you need a new bottle of water each time you leave the house or can you use a refillable one? The paper bag you pack your lunch can be recycled but what about a reusable container?

As you can see, some very easy and mostly free steps can greatly reduce your impact on the environment. Now here is the challenge – how many of these are you going to start doing today? For more tips and information visit www.airkinglimited.com

GHGS calculations courtesy of www.epa.gov

Do I really need a range hood? – YES!

Kitchen range hoods provide a vital function for the safety of your home as well as the indoor air quality. A range hood serves two basic but vital functions. The first is to prevent any flare-ups from the cooking surface from burning or damaging your cabinets.

The second function is to remove unwanted and potentially dangerous contaminants from the home such as smoke, grease, steam and odors. If you stop and think about it, the kitchen is one of the main sources of indoor air pollution. All of your heating (furnace, water heater, etc.) equipment has chimneys that take the pollutants outside of the home. When you are cooking (especially with gas appliances) you are generating a lot of pollutants. If you do not have or are not using a range hood, those pollutants are going right into the air you are breathing. As the saying goes, the kitchen is the heart of the home, so you want to keep the air in it as clean as possible. Think about the last time you maybe kept dinner on the burner a little too long and as you looked across the kitchen, you noticed a nice haze of smoke building up – be honest, it has happened to most of us. Now think about what you are actually breathing in at that point. If you had a properly sized and vented range hood operating, you might not have reached that point or at very least it would be vented out of the home much quicker.

The choices in range hoods have come a long way with traditional, contemporary, and professional styles to accent any décor. Air King also offers the largest selection of ENERGY STAR® certified range hoods on the market today. To learn more visit www.airkinglimited.com