Room-By-Room Home Audit - Part 2, The Kitchen

We are continuing our series on making your home more efficient and comfortable. Last time we went through items in the bathroom. Now we are moving to the kitchen.

The kitchen is full of opportunities to save energy with the appliances making up the largest source of energy usage. Here are a few ways to improve:

Refrigerator: If it is time to replace your refrigerator, look for an ENERGY STAR certified one. These can save a considerable amount of energy/money, even up to $75 per year. Also make sure to recycle your old fridge. If replacing your fridge is not in the cards right now there are steps you can take to improve your current one.

1. Keep your coils clean. Vacuum them regularly and make sure there is a gap between the back of the fridge and the wall to lessen the build-up of dust and debris on the coils.
2. Minimize the number of times you open the doors. Also minimize the amount of time the kids sit there with the door open staring blankly into the fridge looking for who knows what.
3. Keep the fridge full – sounds odd, but a full fridge retains cold better than an empty one.

Range: With a range, it is more about organizing your usage.

1. Use the appropriate size burner for your need.
2. When baking, minimize the number of times you open the door. Each time you open it, a considerable amount of heat is lost.
3. Organize your task to minimize the energy usage. If you have multiple things to bake in a day, do them all at once while the oven is already pre-heated.
4. Don’t have items on the cook top longer then they need to be. Things like boiling water – once it is to temperature make sure to get the items you are cooking in right away instead of wasting energy.

Dishwasher: As with the fridge, if it is time to replace, look for an ENERGY STAR certified one. ENERGY STAR certified dishwashers can reduce the amount of water you use by almost 4,000 gallons over the lifetime of the dishwasher. Other ways to optimize the dishwasher are:

1. Only run the dishwasher when it is full. Sort of goes without saying but we are going to go ahead and say it.
2. Keep the dishwasher’s jets clean. Clogged jets will reduce the effectiveness and cause the need to re-wash items.
3. Use the cycle that you need. If a shorter cycle is all you need, use it.

Range Hood: Yes, we know many people don’t think about the range hood in the kitchen but we are a ventilation company so we think about it everyday! As with other appliances, if it is time to replace, look for an ENERGY STAR certified hood. Here are a few other ways to improve the efficiency of your hood:

1. Keep it clean. Regularly clean the grease filters of the hood. Dirty and clogged filters will reduce the efficiency of the hood.
2. If it has a light, replace the bulb with a LED.
3. Use It! Many people are tempted to not use the range hood – mostly due to the sound level (by the way there are really quiet ones now). This is a huge mistake. When cooking, the kitchen is full of contaminates that are just not good for you. If you are not ventilating them out of the home, that means you are breathing them in.

In addition to the above items also read our last post regarding the lighting and windows, as these can also be places to improve your efficiency and comfort.

Don’t miss our next post when we will take a look at the mechanical room.

To learn more about ways to make your home more efficient, saving money and energy, visit www.airkinglimited.com

5 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Home’s Energy Usage

When you take a look around your home, there are probably some easy changes you can make to reduce your monthly energy usage, which will in turn reduce your monthly bills. Who doesn’t want to save some money each month? Here are our top 5 tips:

Tip 1 – Use LED Lamps. Yes they do cost a little more than traditional bulbs, but the savings add up very quickly. The light output (measured in Lumens) of a 9 watt LED bulb is equivalent to a 60 watt incandescent lamp. That is 51 watts less in energy usage. Now lets assume you replace a main light in your home – one that might be on for 5 hours per day. That is a savings of 255 watts per day for just one light. Times that by 365 days and you get 93 kilowatt-hours. At an average of $.12 per kilowatt-hour that is a savings of $11.16 per year for one light bulb. ENERGY STAR^® Certified LED light bulbs also last 5 to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs.

Tip 2 – Adjust Your Thermostat. Turning your thermostat down 2 degrees in the winter or up two degrees in the summer can make a large impact. While this is a little harder to calculate than changing a light bulb to an LED, the savings can be significant and add up over the course of the year.

Tip 3 – Use a Programmable Thermostat.  Very similar to adjusting your thermostat is to install a programmable thermostat. The benefit of a programmable thermostat is that it will reduce your energy usage when you are not home. Even the most basic programmable thermostat will help you save by adjusting the temperature of your home up or down depending on if the home is occupied or not.

Tip 4 – Buy ENERGY STAR Certified Products. Look for the ENERGY STAR logo when you buy products such as TV’s, Appliances, Heating and cooling systems and of course Bathroom Fans and Range Hoods. Now we are not saying you need to throw out all your household items and immediately buy new ones, but as the time comes to replace that old fridge, TV, etc. look at the benefits of ENERGY STAR certified products and compare the cost savings.

Tip 5 – Eliminate Vampire Power. Most people don’t realize that many of the appliances and electronics in your home use standby power. The biggest users are devices like TVs, printers, microwave ovens and computers. Although the energy usage is small, when you add it up it can be significant. Using a power strip that can easily turn the power on or off to these devises is one way to avoid unwanted power usage.

To learn more about how you can save energy visit www.airkinglimited.com/page/climate-change.html or www.energystar.gov/campaign/home?s=mega to asses your home’s energy usage.