Five Tips to Make Your Charlotte Home’s Bathroom Greener
No, this isn't about painting your bathroom walls green or adding green tile to your bath! We’re all into being as 'Green' as possible these days. Everything from recycling to lighting, we do everything that we possibly can to save our beautiful earth. We’ve considered ways to save in our kitchens but, what about our baths? Let’s look at a few ways that you can make your Charlotte home’s bathroom more eco-friendly.
Here are some tips on saving water and more in your home baths:
Turn down the water heater. Hot water heaters use nearly 20 percent of the average Charlotte home’s energy. Most manufacturers preset hot water heaters at 140 degrees. Reducing water temperature by 10 degrees saves 3 to 5 percent in energy costs. In most cases 120 degrees is perfectly comfortable.- Fix the toilet. A leaky toilet wastes unimaginable amounts of precious water. In addition, toilets made before 1990 use an average of 3.5 gallons with every flush. (Low-flow models use as little as .8 gallons.) But you don’t have to replace your toilet to save. To retrofit an old toilet, opt for this free fix and save ½ gallon per flush: Fill an empty 2-liter bottle three-quarters full with sand or stones; fill the rest with water and place it in the tank as far from the valve as possible.
- Don’t use commercial drain cleaners. Common drain cleaners contain lye, hydrochloric acid and trichloroethane—toxins that corrode the plumbing in your Charlotte home’s bathroom and linger in the water supply. For a safe alternative, use this easy method: Pour ¼ cup baking soda down the drain followed by ½ cup vinegar. Cover tightly until the bubbling stops and flush with a gallon of boiling water. Repeat if necessary.
- Replace or upgrade your old faucet. Faucets account for more than 15 percent of indoor household water use, so reducing their flow (by up to 30 percent) with WaterSense-labeled products will amount to huge savings. If you don’t want to replace your old faucets, you can achieve the same water savings with very inexpensive faucet aerators.
- Use recycled toilet paper. According to Greenpeace, Americans could save more than 400,000 trees if each family bought a roll of recycled toilet paper—just once.
Want to buy a home that already has a green bathroom? I can help. Give me a call today at (704) 491-3310 or email me at Broker@TheCharlotteScoop.com.
Originally posted at www.iCharlotteRealEstate.com
(THE best Charlotte home search available - no kidding!)
Debe Maxwell, CRS/Realtor®/Broker
Broker@TheCharlotteScoop.com
Phone (704) 491-3310
