Room by room steps to reduce global warming and your electricity bill.

This is an instructable designed to cost next to nothing (except in the case of new things like dishwashers:) and reduce out global footprint. A movie I think you should all see first is this Link

This is interesting as well Link

Thanks to Greenpeace for the picture.

Also, basically, no matter what, whether you are a believer in global warming or not, this can help to wean us from non-renewables and save you a little money.

Step 1 Every room:

Free:
Turn off any appliances you either don't use very often or when you go on holidays.
Instead of turning heaters on high try wearing warmer clothes, and when the heater is on, close off any unused areas of the house and the blinds and curtains.
Instead of using the air conditioner just open windows when there is a cool breeze.
Lastly in the free section, make sure you leave no devices on standby. Standby in devices makes up about 10% of the average power bill.

Pays for itself:
The easiest thing to do is as a bulb blows buy a new replacement which is either a compact fluorescent or an LED bulb. These use a lot less electricity and last a lot longer. Led's last nearly forever and CF's last about 15,000 hours according to the package which is 15 times longer than the average bulb.
Remember though its even better to turn the lights off or just open the blinds! :) When you leave the room flip the switch!
This is a link to see how much energy you will save and to find out what type to buy!This is a link to see how much energy you will save and to find out what type to buy!

Another easy thing to do is to get eneloop or rechargeable batteries for you battery powered devices, for example wireless mice and keyboards, so that:
1. They stay on longer
2. There are no dead batteries being put into landfill.

Not free
Check your insulation, especially around lights and skylights and get it replaced or patched up if it is not completely covering everywhere or not working.

To keep a tiled room warmer try putting a rug down in winter.

What we have achieved this step:
We have reduced landfill, saved energy and become aware of how much energy we waste with incandescent light bulbs.

Comments

[ElSergio]

Also if you happen to keep fish tanks, when you do your water changes, you can use the water you take out to water your plants. Conviently the things in the water that make it not ok for fish, are GREAT for plant growth.

[ScotDeerie]

We just had our apartment checked for shared metering and while trying to figure out what was using so much wattage, we had to go over every appliance we had with a rep from the electric company.  He said big electricity users are refrigerators, stoves, freezers (especially freezers that aren't full)* and washer/driers.  He said a computer, even with lots of peripherals uses very little electricity.

* to fill up the freezer to make it more efficient, he recommended filling it with water filled, plastic milk cartons.  They fill the fridge and can be easily removed when you need the space.

[gearskin]

 Some other really great tips are to line exterior walls (walls that are against the outside of the house.. I can't think of a better way to say it) with book-shelves and books. Books act as great insulators and are awesome in general. You can also purchase or make some blankets and make a nice storage ottoman to store them in. We do this in our living area so that guests can feel comfortable as we keep the temp quite low. You can also try your hand at making your own detergent, toothpaste, and other such things, which save money and the environment :) 

[gearskin]

 Start a garden! It's really simple and even just growing some tomatoes can save you at the store. What better way to use that compost?!

[gearskin]

 A really good tip is to separate your fridge from your stove. It takes more energy to keep your fridge cool if it is sitting next to a constantly warm stove. Just rearranging can be very beneficial. Also, using vinegar and water to clean in the kitchen and reusable dish-towels is another way to say money and help the environment. You can get nice white dish-towels at Ikea for 49 cents and just bleach them if they get really discolored, or check out a local thrift store. 

[gearskin]

 Save* not say..

[labelreader]

I don't know why anyone uses cooking sprays. Oil is easy to work with for nearly all applications (the one exception I can think of: waffle irons -- what a pain!), and it always comes in a recyclable glass or plastic bottle with a lot less processing and waste.

[FooGlacticon]

Or you could buy a Misto. It's a refillable spray can that just uses pressurized air.

[gearskin]

 Mistos are fantastic. You can buy a giant thing of oil (less containers) and just keep refilling the misto. 

[crazycloud]

 When I was in college everyone was talking about the next ice age.  The other planets in our solar system that are not inhabited are heating at this time also.  Our planet needs us to do everything we can to help it but I don't see any benefit at all to this carbon tax idea they are trying to pass in the US.  We are a carbon based life form, plants need carbon or they will die.  Car exhaust and industrial waste have many much more pollutants that we need to address.  

[dkowis]

That's a CRT monitor not a CFC monitor. I think...

[theforester]

That is correct, CRT monitors are the "boxier" models that weigh a lot more. It stands for Cathode Ray Tube. LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) monitors are the "flat panel" monitors that are becoming the norm now. LCD monitors can have different light sources in them, the standard is a CCFT (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Tube) which is basically a more beefy version of a tubular fluorescent lamp. These do a good job, but they do burn out eventually. Many manufactureres are beginning to switch over to LED (Light Emitting Diode) lamps in their LCD monitors and TVs. These use even less energy, emit pretty much no heat, and last for a VERY long time. They are also shockproof. If you can purchase a monitor that uses LEDs as it's light source you would probably save quite a bit of money over its lifespan!

[dkowis]

I have a laptop that uses LEDs, and it makes a significantdifference in the power consumption, evidenced by much longer batterylife :)

[withnall]

Also make sure that there is plenty of free air flow around your fridge and freezer, the cooler the environment they vent into the less energy they have to use cooling the insides.

[withnall]

Alternatively,if you are lazy about plugging them in and unplugging etc just run them all through a powerboard(double bonus if you use a surge protected one you are ensuring against damage).Make sure its a board with an on/off switch and just switch it to off when you turn your computer off!

[Afka]

Don't forget, if you're using rain catching buckets, to use a screen, or to change the water often, as stagnant water is where mosquitoes lay their eggs.

[stranoster]

Thanks for the tip. I'll add it when I next edit.

[Oryctolagus habilis]

About the fridge: you can buy a cheap but accurate (NSF certified) analog fridge/freezer thermometer, so you can adjust the fridge settings until you're using dead-on the least energy to keep within the "safe food zone".

[kittiekat]

Nice ideas, a couple of new ones to try out, thanks for taking the time to put it together.

Thought I'd let you know freecycle exists in many countries, when I was in the UK I used it extensively! Main page is http://www.freecycle.org/

[stranoster]

Thanks, I'll add that to the next edit. It should be sometime soon. Glad you liked it.

[Joyce]

Great job. One comment even small trees are expensive bought from a nursery. Why not start your own in a pot then plant out. I have started mulberries, peaches etc this way. Seed came from picked or purchased fruit. Or a walk through most parks will yield fallen acorns dogwood berries etc.

[stranoster]

Thanks for the tip :) I'll include it in my next edit. I didn't even think to put that in, so thanks again.

[milhouse2k]

I leave my computer on to perfrom protein folding to improve cancer and other disease research

[milhouse2k]

Just never break one of those florescents and tell, or else have hazmat called on you! Also I've had those compact florescents go out a lot more frequently than standard inconstants and not nearly as bright =[. i like the idea bout LED's but they not cheap at all]

[bedeboop]

Hope I am not duplicating the request...would like to see the bird feeder made with floppies? Thanks!

[shooby]

I just moved to a smaller apartment, where everything I plug into the wall other than the built in microwave is on one switch. When the switch is off, the only power consumer is the smoke detector. Nice not to have to stare at a constellation of multicolored LED's anymore while trying to fall asleep.

[tornadoboy]

All I've got to say is that if Al Gore doesn't like my "footprint", he can leave his heated swimming pool at his mansion, take his private jet to Boston and have his SUV-driving armada of a security team escort him to my house so he can tell me in person.

[totally_screwed]

Jdurban Your posts reveal a person with strong and immovable views concerning climate science, that are derived from politically ideological pseudo-science but are unalloyed by any ISI peer-reviewed science. When challenged to provide supporting science for your views, you always change the subject, hurl yet more abuse and baseless accusations. Such a technique is commonly used by people who have expressed strident views regarding a subject concerning which they have very shallow understanding. Your attitude would be best summed-up with: �Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made-up! Sayings that sum up your mindset perfectly: �You cannot reason a man out of an opinion into which he was not reasoned to begin with.� Attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Johnathan Swift. �There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.� Søren Kierkegaard, 1813 to 1855 Since you evidently don't understand or obdurately refuse to understand what science actually is, you clearly are immune to being persuaded by it. Conversations with people like yourself are unpleasant, tedious, needlessly protracted and are singularly uninformative and completely futile. One might as well as talk to a brick.

[Jdurban]

If anyone ever doubts that global warming isn't more religion than science just look at the depths these people go to protect their unfounded beliefs Look at the panic stricken "Totally_screwed" postings. For one that is so secure in their daffy beliefs look at the sheer panic and rush to judgment that if someone does not share in their ill founded religion that they have to be an unintelligent heretic. Wouldn't these types be devastated to discover that I have an I.Q. of 133, hold 21 patents, 3 pending, with a career of over two hundred product designs some of which are "Green Tech". I was developing green technology 20 years before the term was born. Just google "Jack Durban" or a quick tour of the U.S. and European office will suffice. You will also see that I work in the field of free energy and I am helping engineers to replicate the only modern era device that actually functioned and was not a fraud. I am an environmentalist right up to the wobbly global warming theory where it is so laden with half-truths and junk science that only a fool could buy into it 's many unfounded and unscientific claims. Now I leave you to get back to the lab where we work in the real world and not hysteria or agenda driven pseudo science.

[homunkoloss]

I also think the Climate Change is happening. But even it would not I think it would be better to reduce the emissions of cars cause they pollute our world. And would anything bad happen cause of trying to need less energy ? mfg Daniel

[taleya]

Outside pays for itself - something akin to Shade Cloth on sun facing walls. We've done our western wall of the house (eastern has a courtyard, and doesn't get as much radiant heat) and it cuts down heat in summer hugely. Means the aircon is run less, and lowers bills.

[Jdurban]

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[totally_screwed]

Jdurban Please provide evidence for each of your various claims, or please stop making them!

[Jdurban]

(removed by author or community request)

[totally_screwed]

Jdurban None of your claims so far have been true. Why should anyone believe you now? Your comments reveal more about you than your fantasies do!

[Jdurban]

(removed by author or community request)

[totally_screwed]

Jdurban ONCE AGAIN YOU RESORT TO INSULTS and FALSEHOODS. I'm not too lazy, I think YOU ARE NOT TELLING THE TRUTH! Everything else YOU'VE SAID HAS BEEN UNTRUE and I suspect you are a sad pathetic individual person who cannot impress with the truth. I'm impressed by YOUR INABILITY TO TELL THE TRUTH AND TO UNDERSTAND THE SCIENCE. I think you suffer from M�NCHHAUSEN (also spelled Munchausen) SYNDROME. You have HIJACKED THIS THREAD with your POLITICAL GARBAGE, politics is NOT science!

[Jdurban]

(removed by author or community request)

[totally_screwed]

Jdurban Why should anyone have even the slightest interest in researching the person you purport to be? So far, everything else you have claimed has been untrue, so why should anything else you say be treated except as most probably just another lie? You behave as if you have a pathological inability to recognise or speak the truth and you repeatedly make baseless offensive accusations, as if you have Tourette's. You also appear to live in a world of fantasy. I feel sorry for you! I hope you are happy in your delusions of adequacy. I will not engage in any further communication with you, you seem to need it as a form of sustenance, like some kind of blog-vampire.

[totally_screwed]

Jdurban

Thanks for effectively admitting that you can't prove your ridiculous claims! I also note that you have yet failed to substantiate even a single example of your earlier laughable claims.
If you have the proof, then share it with us. If you cannot, please stop making these claims – it makes you look bad.

It seems that at long last you're beginning to realise you're wrong, and I knew it long before you did!

Anthropogenic climate change is a nasty rumour being spread by people who have studied the evidence and are concerned by what it indicates. This is the reason for scientists of all descriptions and informed members of the public being convinced about the need to combat AGW, it's the evidence, NOT any imaginary world-wide conspiracy concocted by fossil fuel industry shills !

Those who disagree with it primarily fall into two groups:
a) Those who have been deceived by what they read on politically biased 'skeptic' websites
and
b) Those who have been paid by the fossil fuel industry to lie about climate change in order to deceive the public.
This is documented.

Your politics are showing! Politicians tend to have a problem with science that contradicts their ideology.
Al Gore is not a scientist! Ignore him, just stick to the science!

Nice smear! What evidence do you have for �Group-think�? None, because it's untrue of course.
Nothing to do with group-think, religion, or politics, it's called science!

Nice fallacious argument! An expert in subject A is not automatically an expert in subject B.
Your experience outside climate science is completely irrelevant!

Statement of the incredibly obvious, but it seems necessary to remind you.
Climate science is so-called, because it's the science of the climate!

You appear to be exhibiting the Dunning-Kruger effect (google it). Luckily a cure is readily available, see below for the free cure!

The Cure for the Dunning-Kruger effect
Please read some real climate science and stop visiting political websites of ANY flavour, this includes many that purport to be about the climate, but in reality are sources of politically biased propaganda. When you've done that you will actually realise that what you've been talking about was completely wrong and made-up by Exxon & etc.
You can even apologise to me later for all your silliness.

---

Now for some science, not absolutely bang up to the last minute, but still pretty recent. This gives a good grounding nevertheless! Has links to the underlying science. From the American Institute of Physics.
Spencer Weart's "Discovery of Global Warming" http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html

What the IPCC really said:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html