Frugally Green » Products

Improve Your Water Heater Efficiency And Save $125 A Year

Tyler — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 12:00:03 +0000

Your water heater is one of the most important appliances in your home. Without it, you’d be taking cold showers, washing your hands with cold water, and your dishwasher would have a rather hard time cleaning all those soiled dinner plates. To keep your life as convenient as possible, your water heater is working really hard to make sure you have all the hot water you need on a daily basis. However, in doing so, it’s also using up quite a lot of electricity. In fact, the only thing in your house using more is likely your refrigerator.

At an average $0.11 per kWh for electricity, the average American family spends around $1.30 per day for their hot water needs. This equates to $475 every year. If you could improve the efficiency of your water heater by just 25% (a very attainable goal), you could save $125 every year. Below are 5 simple things that you can do to reduce your water heater’s electricity usage.

Turn down the thermostat - Your water heater’s thermostat will probably allow you to turn the temperature up to around 160°, but you shouldn’t if you want to save energy. Most people find that they can get by just fine with their thermostat set to 120° -- above that and you’re just paying for water that will serve little purpose but to scald you when you turn a faucet on too hot.

Insulate the hot water pipe - No, you don’t need to undergo any renovation to do this. Most of the heat that is lost in transmission from the tank to your faucet occurs in the first 6 feet of pipe leaving the water heater. If you look at yours, you’ll probably find that there is at least 3 feet of exposed pipe that you can insulate. This can make a big difference. Any hardware store will carry the insulation you need. Just be sure to measure the diameter of the pipe before you buy to ensure a snug fit. Identifying the hot water pipe is really easy, too. Just feel all of them. Only one will be hot to the touch.

Put a jacket on it - Do you get cold in the winter? Well, so does your water heater! By insulating the whole unit with a water heater jacket, you will improve your water heater’s efficiency by keeping the water it has already heated hot. When exposed to prolonged cold conditions, the heating element in your unit will have to stay on much more often in order to keep your water hot. Your local hardware store probably carries one or two that you can choose from. Here’s one available from Amazon.

Clean it out - Over time, sediment and deposits build up in the tank of your water heater, forcing it to work harder and harder to deliver the same performance. You can eliminate this problem by occasionally cleaning your tank out. It’s not that difficult and you only need to do it about once a year to really benefit. Just shut down all power to the unit, connect a garden hose to the emptying spigot and find a safe place to dump the water out. That’s really all there is to it. The video below gives an in depth explanation of how to do this safely and effectively for a gas water heater. For an electric one, just make sure you trip the breaker for it at the electrical panel. Check it out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmlLxEuhnGc

Reduce hot water consumption -- The best way to reduce your water heating bill is to simply use less hot water. Take shorter showers. Use an efficient dishwasher -- some newer models have a heater built in for on-demand use. Wash your clothes in cold water -- hot water is rarely needed to clean clothes these days with advanced detergents we have access to. Use less, spend less. It’s not the easiest concept to master, but it’s still the best.

If you’re extra ambitious:

Install a solar water heater -- This tip will cost the most to implement ($1000-$3500), but is a fantastic way to substantially reduce your electric water heating needs (well beyond the 25% we were aiming for). Don’t be put off by the price. You may be eligible for a number tax credits and rebates for installing a system like this.

There, you now have, on average, $125 a year to do something constructive with: put it in your emergency fund, use it to save towards another goal, or donate it to a worthy cause. The best part about these tips are that they all cost nothing or very little to implement. With the exception of the solar water heater, the materials you buy to implement the other 5 tips will pay for themselves within about 4 months.

Be sure to share any other hot water saving tips you might have up your sleeve!

Bottled Water is Stupid

Tyler — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:00:43 +0000

Such a strong opinion, I know, but once you’re done reading this article, hopefully you’ll see where I’m coming from. The more I learn about the bottled water industry, the more dismayed I am that a market still exists for it. I guess that says a lot about the power of advertising.

So why the contempt for such a seemingly insignificant product? People need water, right? And the best tasting water comes from a bottle, no? Let me start off with…

A brief history of plumbing

Somewhere around 3,000 years ago, the people of the Near East (now more popularly categorized into the larger category of the Middle East) realized that trading goods would get them farther in life than forever hanging out next to the rivers that sustained them. Though, in order to trade their wares, they had to move away from these oases…but they still needed their water. After what was probably a lot of head scratching and beard stroking, they devised a plan to dig a ditch, later known as an aqueduct, that would carry the water to a more prominent trading location. Several hundred years later, the Romans, flexing their mental (and just as often physical) muscles, took this concept to a whole new level, conquering lands far and wide across Europe, The Middle East, and Northern Africa and carrying water across hundreds of miles of plains and valleys with aqueducts built of stone and, later, concrete in order to support the growth of their empire and sustain the trading hubs that kept them growing. Life was good, and getting better. However, there was one big, ugly problem. As cities grew and grew, water-borne illness began to claim more and more lives. Unfortunately, this was not fully understood until more than 2,000 years later when Louis Pasteur and a handful of other scientists brought widespread acceptance to Germ Theory. Less than 100 years later, there wasn’t a developed nation in the world that didn’t protect their municipal water and even begin using it to convey human waste away from buildings where further treatment would render it harmless. Throw in a bit of invention here, a touch of innovation there and…Voila! Modern plumbing and water sanitation.

As you can see, billions of lives were sacrificed and thousands of years of thought were spent creating a system that allows you to walk into your kitchen and drink a glass of water while being more than reasonably sure that you will not die or even become sick. Drinking bottled water is like slapping each and every one of those people in the face. Sure, that’s complete hyperbole, but you get my point.

The cost of bottled water to you

As much contempt as I have for the bottled water industry, I am also amazed by their ability to get people to pay for something that they can obtain more conveniently for virtually free. That is, as far as I can tell, utter brilliance used for evil rather than good. Do you think you should pay more for water than you do for gasoline? Here’s an exerpt from an article that puts it in perspective:

Take, for instance, Pepsi’s Aquafina or Coca-Cola’s Dasani bottled water. Both are sold in 20 ounce sizes and can be purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks — and at the same price. Assuming you can find a $1 machine, that works out to 5 cents an ounce. These two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their distribution point. Most municipal water costs less than one cent per gallon.

Now consider another widely-sold liquid: gasoline. It has to be pumped out of the ground in the form of crude oil, shipped to a refinery (often halfway across the world), and shipped again to your local filling station.

In the U.S., the average price per gallon is hovering around $3. There are 128 ounces in a gallon, which puts the current price of gasoline at fraction over 2 cents an ounce. (Editor’s note: The station down the street from me is currently advertising regular unleaded at $2.37 per gallon, putting it at a fraction under 2 cents an ounce)

And that’s why there’s no shortage of companies which want to get into the business. In terms of price versus production cost, bottled water puts Big Oil to shame. (Full article here)

Environmental and Social Impact

Of course, this post wouldn’t be complete without an overview of the impacts that the bottled water industry has on our environment and society at large. The production of it, the bottles that contain it, the thousands of miles it has to be transported to get to your store, the distance you have to travel to purchase it – every step of the process requires precious energy to support the system. Compare that to the single plant that treats your municipal water and the few pumps that conveniently deliver it directly to your home and the energy disparity becomes pretty obvious. Also, take into consideration that when you finish that bottle of water, it has to go somewhere. Hopefully, if you’re reading this blog, it at least makes it into your recycling container. While certainly the best option and kudos to you for making the effort to recycle, even recycling comes at an energy cost that can’t compare to the energy saved by simply drinking from you tap. One more issue that should not be taken lightly is the fact that the rise in popularity of bottled water detracts from the improvement of our municipal water systems. While I’m far from a Doom’s Day theorist and water is safer than it ever has been, attention to the continued safety of our public water is just as important as it has ever been. If a worst case scenario were to occur and public drinking water were to become unsafe to drink, you can be sure that most of us would no longer be able to afford its bottled counterpart. The protection of our public water is important to your health, no matter how little of it you currently drink.

But my tap water tastes awful!

I can hear you right now saying to yourself, “Ok, I get it. Bottled water is exorbitantly expensive and you think I’m irresponsible for drinking it, but my tap water tastes horrible and I can’t stand it.” Well, hold on there. You’re putting words in my mouth. I didn’t say you’re irresponsible and I don’t think it, either. Taste is a valid concern. I know because half the time I take a plain salad to work for lunch, I end up staring at it for five minutes before putting it back in the refrigerator and going to a restaurant down the street. Luckily for us water snobs, there are a number of companies that have gone to a lot of work to develop products that will make it taste a lot better to be frugally green (see what I did there?). Brita and Pur are practically household names these days, but there are other companies, as well, offering competitive products worth looking into. Check out these websites to find reviews, tips, and side-by-side comparisons to help you choose the best filtration system for you:

There are plenty of options out there to fit nearly every need from basic pitchers to faucet mounted devices to full household systems at any price range, including frugal, like you and me! Personally, my household doesn’t require a lot of filtered drinking water, so I use the standard, old Brita pitcher unit that I keep in the fridge. The sticker on the side says that I should change the filter every 2 months, but we’re going on about 6 months (maybe more, who’s counting?), and the water still tastes great. Since I’m not currently concerned with all the possibly “terrible things” that could be in my drinking water, I will keep using this filter until the water running through it gives me bitter-beer-face (remember those old Keystone Light commercials from the 90s?). For water on the go, consider picking up a couple of aluminum bottles like these. I still use those plastic Nalgene bottles. But, once the media finally convinces me that they’ll give me cancer, I’ll probably switch to aluminum (This concern exists for disposable plastic water bottles as well, so just one more reason to stop buying them).

Considering all options, ditching the bottled water for a filtration system is a pretty darn cheap and easy way to save money, help the environment, and give your fellow man a hand. Who knew it could be so simple? I know, of course you did. You’re so smart!

Do you use any sort of water filtration system? Do you recommend one? Maybe you’re tougher than the rest of us and just drink from the tap? Can you think of any time a bottle of water from the vending machine is a better option than the alternative (like visiting a 3rd world or developing nation)?

Editor’s note: I would like to make it clear that I do not promote or endorse any of the products in this article. All links are for imformational purposes only. When I decide to promote a specific product that I feel strongly about, I will make it very clear that I am doing so!

E-Waste: Where Do Your Old Gadgets Go?

Tyler — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:15:48 +0000

Last week, in celebration of Earth Day, the construction management company that I work for recognized me in its newsletter for being sustainably minded. I was very honored, and it got me thinking. We are in the midst of a company wide cell phone upgrade process. This replacement of, quite literally, thousands of phones made me stop to ponder about how often this sort of practice occurs in other, smaller companies and on a personal, consumer level with cell phones and other personal electronic devices. Turns out, after researching a bit, it happens a lot! According to the National Center for Electronics Recycling, Americans tossed out 2.25 million tons of electronics in 2007. Not necessarily surprising, but it certainly makes you think about where all those do-dads went. 82% went to landfills.

Sure, mankind needs to continue to develop technology in order to improve the efficiency of life and devalue the cerebral cortex, but how often do you and I really need to partake in the vicious cycle? Sometimes, I wish I was more technically proficient. My computer is about 6 years old, I have a first-generation Zune that I bought used and my last TV was a nearly 20-year-old hand-me-down from my parents. I replaced it last year for no good reason besides wanting a different one. Whoops. In today’s Information Age, by my own estimation, I live in the dark ages a bit and have a hard time relating to the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. In a Frugally Green sense, here’s why:

It’s Expensive

Is it just me, or does the next generation of the item you just bought always seem to come out right after you bought it? Usually, the improvements between the latest updates are not significant enough to warrant purchasing again. If you’re like me, all your electronics are at least a few generations old and still have a number of features that you don’t particularly need. While I’m obviously not the most technologically savvy (just getting Frugally Green started was quite a task), I can’t believe that companies like Apple, Sony, Garmin, and others don’t offer consumer level leasing agreements for mp3 players, laptops, and GPS systems. If you’re the type that needs to be on the cutting edge, at least this would give you an easier out when the next best thing comes along.

It’s Unsustainable

Continually consuming new electronics for the sake of consuming new electronics is hard on our environment as it drives unnecessary demand for an unnecessary item. The amount of resources used to create these gadgets is quite staggering. The energy conserved indirectly by simply lowering the demand for these items would be astronomical, not to mention the direct reduction in the amount that ends up in landfills.

There’s good news though. If you have to have that new gizmo and the one you’ve got is still technologically relevant, there are a number of resources for you to find it a new home, either with someone less technologically inclined, like me, on Craigslist (there’s one for nearly every major city in the world now) or eBay, and many major companies now offer a recycling program for their own legacy products.

Those of us that always seem to find ourselves with yesterday’s cell phone face another challenge when we’re ready to upgrade- nobody wants it. If you find yourself in this predicament, you’re going to have to work a bit harder to be environmentally responsible. Luckily for us, someone went to the trouble to create websites like myboneyard.com, which might give you some cash if they can use the device for something, and mygreenelectronics.org, which provides a searchable database of local electronics recyclers based on zip code. A quick search revealed that I have a Free Geek in my neighborhood. I like what they stand for, so I think I’ll take my next outdated item to them. Although, the idea of getting a little cash for it is tempting. For old cell phones, I suggest doing a search for a local woman’s shelter. They’re often looking for emergency cell phones that they can give to their patrons.

What kind of electronics consumer are you? Always updating to the latest and greatest or delicately coaxing the last breath out of your dying gadget? Do you find yourself behaving similarly in other aspects of your life? Where can you improve?