Celebrated every year on April 22, Earth Day is the largest environmental event in the world! More than six million Canadians participate in an Earth Day activity in their community.

How can you get involved? Consider reducing your home’s carbon footprint with these strategies.

Properly insulate your home’s doors and windows

Afterglow1Did you know the average home loses up to 30% of its heating and cooling energy through air leaks? Yikes! Clearly, air leaks can waste a lot of your hard-earned dollars.

One of the quickest energy and money saving, tasks you can do is caulk, insulate and weather-strip all cracks and openings to the outside.

Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs

Afterglow2FACT: The electricity used over the lifetime of an incandescent bulb costs 5 to 10 times its original purchase price. That’s why when your incandescent light bulbs burn out, you should replace them with CFL light bulbs! They use approximately 75% less energy!

Purchase ENERGY STAR labeled products

Afterglow3Make energy efficiency a primary consideration when choosing a new furnace or air conditioner. Products that have the ENERGY STAR label are recognized for having superior efficiency. The EPA estimates that over the last two decades, ENERGY STAR products have kept almost two billion metric tons of greenhouse gasses out of our atmosphere. That’s amazing!

 

Adjust your thermostat

Afterglow4Simple adjustments to your home’s temperature can make a big difference for our planet. Keep your house two degrees warmer in the summer and two degrees cooler in the winter, and save big on your energy bills.

How much can you save? Up to 15% on your energy bill.

 Use cold water whenever possible

Afterglow5For tasks such as laundry and dish washing, use cold water (unless the items being washed must be washed with warm water). This will eliminate wasting energy on heating the water! If you don’t think washing your clothes in warm water is wasteful, consider this: washing every load on the hot/warm cycle for one year is equivalent to burning 182 gallons of gasoline in a car.

It’s obvious that you can reduce your home’s carbon footprint for little to no cost! All it requires is changing habits and using energy more efficiently.

Happy Earth Day Waterloo Region!

Afterglow. Water, warmth, well-being.