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How to Make Your Bathroom Eco-Friendly

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The conversion to going green could be as simple as fixing a leaky faucet or shower head or could be as large as refitting your old toilet with a dual-flush handle.
Do something great for your family, your wallet and the environment.
Make your home a little greener by making a few simple changes in your bathroom.
This not only helps the environment but helps save money on reduced water and heating bills and can reduce the frequency of replacing items in your bathroom.
If your like me and enjoy those long showers or an afternoon or relaxing in the tub, these tips can help you save money and have a more energy efficient home.
Lighting Going Green with Light Bulbs, Did you know...
Replacing your incandescent light bulbs with ENERGY STAR qualified compact florescent light bulbs (CFL's) you can save over $100.
00 a year on lighting costs.
Not only will this reduce the cost you pay the electric company it will also reduce how often you have to buy light bulbs.
The CFL's cost an average of $2.
00 to $15.
00 (for specialty bulbs) but they save you about $30.
00 per year per bulb in lighting costs over their lifetime.
As the first step in going green you can replace the bulbs that you use most often...
Your Bathroom Lights! The bathroom lights are the second most used lights in the house, with your living room taking first place.
What's the Difference between an incandescent light bulb and a CFL? Incandescent light bulbs work by heating a tungsten filament, or wire, until it glows.
This is what produces the light you see.
Unfortunately, 90% of the energy used to generate that light is wasted as heat, making incandescent bulbs a very inefficient way to light your home.
CFL's, on the other hand, create a chemical reaction among gasses located inside the glass tube, causing phosphors to illuminate.
ENERGY STAR qualified CFL's provide bright, warm light and use 75% less energy, produce 75% less heat, and lasts up to 10 times longer.
Sited from ~Energy Star Going Green with Light Fixtures, Did you know...
The energy savings would be the same if you use a regular light fixture or an Energy Star® qualified light fixture provided you are using the Energy Star® CFL's.
However, the Energy Star fixtures come with pin-based CFL's that are required to last no less than 10,000 hours (or approximately 9 years at 3 hours per day), the screw in CFL's are only required to last 6,000 hours.
Water Use Dripping Water, Did you know...
If you don't repair your shower heads and faucet drips, lets say they dripped an average of 1 drip per second, that will cost you an additional $1.
00 per month.
That may not seem like much, but after time that cost adds up.
Going Green with Eco Friendly Faucets, Did you know...
Eco friendly faucets can save you money from water consumption or even in heating costs.
When you are redecorating your bathroom consider installing a new faucet with either an aerator or a sensor that detects when to start and stop the water flow.
These are already in most public washrooms as a means to save that company money.
This is achieved when you either install a "Touch-Free Sensor" faucet adapter or replace the old faucet with one that has a sensor built in.
Going Green with Low-Flow Shower heads, Did you know...
There are two basic types of low-flow shower heads.
The first is the aerating shower head, they mix air with water forming a misty spray.
The second is a laminar-flow shower head these form individual streams of water.
Most homes built before 1992 had a shower head flow rate of 5.
5gpm, if you know that your fixture is that old or even older you may want to consider replacing it with a new one.
Doing this will save you money in water consumption and in heating costs.
Here is an easy test to help you determine the approximate gpm of your shower head.
First place a bucket that is marked in 1 gallon increments under your shower head.
Next turn on the shower at the normal pressure you would use when you take a shower.
Finally time how many seconds it takes to fill that bucket to the 1 gallon mark.
If it takes less than 20 seconds to reach the first 1 gallon mark then you would benefit from a low-flow shower head.
Going Green with High Efficiency Toilets, Did you know...
Toilet flushing is one of your homes major water consumption's.
If your home was built before 1992 and you haven't replaced your old toilet you could probably benefit from installing a high efficiency toilet that only uses 1.
6 gallons of water per flush.
A family of four can save up to 25,000 gallons of water per year by making this replacement.
Toilets older than 1980 can use up to 7 gallons of water per flush but by installing a high efficiency toilet you can reduce your water bill by about a fifth of the cost.
If you are not wanting to replace the toilet just yet with a new high efficiency one think about using the dual-flush handle (dual flush water conservation kit).
These retrofit your toilet with the dual flush system like the low flow toilets and in some cases can save even more water than the high efficiency toilets.
Even better yet dual flush toilets were found to save an average of 26 per cent more water than the single-flush 6-liter (1.
5 Gallon) toilets when used to replace non-efficient toilets.
Painting Going Green with Low Or No-VOC paints, Did you know...
When we redecorate our bathroom walls using the typical paint and finishes the volatile organic compound level can be about 1,000 times the healthy normal levels.
However, if you make sure to paint with low or no-VOC paint and finishes you can reduce that level tremendously.
When you are at the paint store, have a look at the shelves of paint.
The cans go on and on, what should you be looking for when you are wanting to paint eco-friendly? Some paints come with a "Green Seal", these products ensure to contain only the lowest amount of VOC's.
Or try the list of low-VOC paints put together by Eartheasy.
It lists companies that produce low-VOC paints and directs you to Web sites that you can purchase the paints.
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