Poop Shute

Being Green Saves You Green

I have become more and more concerned about my energy usage over the past several years. The past several months it has become a bit of a personal obsession. It has actually started to feel more and more like a quest lately. It's as though now that my own personal mental light bulb has turned on, I want to help other people turn on theirs too.

Here's the best part: Most of the strategies I've been employing don't just save energy...

THEY ALSO SAVE MONEY

That's right! Being energy efficient is also being cost efficient. I will admit this doesn't apply to all green strategies, but it does to many. There are some things that will cost you a premium here and there, but consider it a trade off. You save dollars off the power bill and the water bill and at the gas pump, so you spend a little more on local and/or organic produce, or the like.

Here's one little simple one that everybody can do... or not do, as it were, to save:

First, a question: When you use a sink in your home (any sink) to wash your hands or your dishes, which handle do you typically go for? Hot? Cold? Most of you probably use some combination of hot and cold right? Using all hot is too hot, but most of us want some hot in there, I think.

Well, did you ever stop to think why you use the hot water at all? I mean, we all know that to kill any germs at all, the water needs to clear up over 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and you couldn't keep your hands in water that hot, so no use there. If your dishes answer is to soften dried-on food, well you can kill that need by washing your dishes when you use them, or at least rinsing them. For particularly persistent cooked-on crust, you might try letting it soak.

Anyway, when we make it a temperature that our hands can bare, we make it not so much hot, as just very warm. The truth is that in both washing your hands and your dishes, very warm water does no good. It doesn't kill any germs at all. It's the soap and the scrubbing action that does all the work. Now, that water had to be heated somehow. I don't know about your home personally, but my hot water heater is natural gas powered. Whenever I run the hot water in any faucet in my home I can actually here it kick on and begin replenishing the tank, burning natural gas to do so.

So, now we know the hot water is useless for everyday sink use, and we know that (generally) we pay to use energy of some kind to heat it. Then it's not a far leap to figure that using the cold water handle saves us that little bit of money, and doesn't burn that extra little bit of energy.

Also, if you live in a house like mine, where the pipes aren't very deep in the ground, the Arizona sun warms them up plenty, so even the cold water side comes out pretty warm most of the year.

SO, there's a freebie tip. Hope you enjoy it.