4 Easy Ways to Save Water and Energy
Author: Bill Hoelzer / Published: February 2022 / Read Time: Two Minutes
Accounting for 17% of energy bills, water heating stands as the second largest energy expense for the average American. Only space heating and cooling takes more energy.
This article offers low and no cost strategies you can use to save energy in your bathroom and laundry room. We focus on conserving hot water, but we’ll throw in a few other strategies as well.
Contents
How's Your Water Heater?
The designed lifespan for most water heaters is 10-years. It’s likely that a water heater will last longer than 10-years, but the performance and efficiency tend to decline noticeably after the 10-year mark.
If you have an older water heater, consider upgrading to a heat pump water heater or tankless water heater. The savings can be significant, especially with a heat pump water heater.
If you have a 4-person family, ENERGY STAR estimates that you’d save about $350 a year when replacing a standard electric water heater with a heat pump water heater. After accounting for energy savings, financing the installation would cost about $7 a month (pricing subject to change).
Cost to finance: $36 a month (5.99%, 7-year term)
Estimated energy savings: $29 a month
Over the 13-year estimated lifespan of a heat pump water heater, this 4-person family would profit by almost $700 and save enough energy to remove more than 54,000 lbs of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Saving that much energy is the same as offsetting the entire energy consumption of three average homes for a year.
How much would it cost to replace your water heater? Start by giving us a call at 541.330.8767, or schedule an appointment with one of our consultants.
You Gotta Fix That Drip
It couldn’t be more common to see a drip from your faucet, showerhead, or pipe. But those little drips add up. A leak of 1 drip per second wastes 1,661 gallons of water and can cost up to $35 per year. Fix that drip!
Go for Low-Flow Fixtures
By law, new shower heads can’t exceed more than 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm) with a water pressure of 80 pounds per square inch (psi). New faucets must stay below 2.5 gpm at 80psi or 2.2 gpm at 60 psi. You can purchase high quality, low-flow fixtures for $10 to $20 each and achieve water savings of 25% to 60%.
Low-Flow Shower heads
Look for a shower head with the WaterSense label, which indicates that the shower head flows at less than 2.0 gpm. A shower head with a WaterSense label would save an average family 2,700 gallons of water and 330 kWh each year. In Oregon, that translates to a savings of about $177 over 5-years.
Shower heads produced before 1992 had flow rates of 5.5 gpm. So if you have an older shower head, you’re definitely going to want to swap that out.
Not sure whether to swap out your shower head? Here’s how to find out:
Grab a bucket with gallon increments.
Place the bucket under your shower, and turn it up to the normal pressure you use.
Time the number of seconds it takes to fill your bucket to the gallon mark.
If your shower fills a gallon in less than 20 seconds, you’d benefit from a low-flow shower head.
Faucet Aerators
Aerators screw onto the ends of faucets. They don’t cost much and are generally seen as one of the most cost-effective ways to conserve water at home.
Again, look for the WaterSense label. A WaterSense labeled bathroom sink faucet or aerator has a maximum flow of 1.5 gpm. Replacing an older, inefficient faucet and aerator with one that has a WaterSense label will save an average family 700 gallons of water each year. That’s the same amount of water needed to take 45 showers.
PRO TIP: If you’re planning to replace an aerator, bring the original aerator to the store to make sure you get the right size.
Save While Doing the Laundry
Go with colder water
Washing with warm water rather than hot can cut your energy use in half. Using cold water will save even more energy. If you’re dropping the water temperature, buy a cold water detergent to make sure your clothes get clean. Let’s face it - if your clothes don’t get clean, you’re going to crank the temperature.
It’s also worth a quick search to see if your washing machine manufacturer recommends a high efficiency detergent (look for the “he” symbol).
Wash full loads but not too full
Most washers use the same amount of energy for a load, regardless of how full it is. So fill it up! But if your dryer gets too full, it will take significantly longer for the load to dry. When possible, go for the Goldilocks load - not too small, not too full.
Get the most from your dryer
Give your dryer a break and hang dry clothes when you can.
Wash consecutive loads to take advantage of the heat that’s already in your dryer.
Use wool dryer balls to reduce drying time and static (so you won’t need dryer sheets).
Clean out that lint filter after every load, and if you use dryer sheets, it’s a good idea to scrub the filter with an old toothbrush once a month to increase air circulation.
We hit some of the highlights here, but if you’re looking to save even more energy in the laundry room, check out this article from the U.S. Department of Energy.