Seven Ways to Make Doing Your Laundry Greener

Well, you can! Here are seven tips to help get you started;

1. Use Cool Water

Most modern laundry detergents are designed to work in cool water, so there is really no need to wash at a higher temperature. If you do want to do a hot wash, you can still rinse the clothes in cold water.

2. Full Loads Are More Efficient

Every time you do a load, it uses energy. While most washers have a small load setting, a single full load uses less energy than two small loads. Make sure you don’t overfill the machine though, as clothes need to move freely in order to get them clean.

3. Dry Your Clothes Naturally

Drying your clothes on a washing line uses no energy at all, and your clothes will smell great as well! Of course, sometimes the weather just won’t cooperate, but even if you just air dry your clothes when the sun is shining, you will end up saving lots of energy.

4. Vinegar Is Your Friend

Vinegar is excellent for washing and is environmentally friendly. An equal mix of vinegar and water can be used to pre-treat stains, avoiding chemical sprays and saving money as well. A half cup of vinegar in the rinse cycle will soften your clothes, and will eliminate static cling.

5. Lemon Juice, Not Bleach

Bleach is a harsh chemical which pollutes the environment, but how else are you going to get your whites really white? The secret is lemon juice! If you add half a cup to your wash, the citric acid in the juice will whiten your wash, and the lemon will make your laundry smell wonderful.

6. Add Baking Soda to Your Wash

Baking soda can help to get your clothes cleaner! It is mildly alkaline, which helps to dissolve grease, and it will deodorize your clothes. Adding baking soda has another benefit; it softens the water and helps to prevent lime scale build-up. However, make sure you don’t mix baking soda and neat vinegar, or you will end up with a fountain of foam!

7. Detergent Alternatives

There are number of eco-friendly detergents on the market, but there are other natural alternatives. Soap flakes are kind to the environment, although you may need to do a warmer wash to get your clothes clean. Another option is to use soap nuts, which are actually the fruit of a small shrub. Soap nuts help to dissolve dirt and grease, and have been used for thousands of years in Asia and in the Americas. If you have time feel free to checkout our related article on Soap Nuts.

We hope you enjoyed this guest post by Christian, if you have any related ideas for making laundry greener we’d love to hear from you

Adjust your home’s thermostat to reflect the changing of the seasons: This is important because, after all, heating & cooling your home represents a large consumption of energy so a little efficiency here goes a long way. Adjusting your thermostat during the warmer months to start cooling at around 78 degrees or so and setting it to start heating at 70 degrees in the cold season will make a surprising difference in the amount you pay for energy. Not only that, but you’ll find that your house still maintains a comfortable enough temperature. Of course, if you live in a moderate climate your home might stay at that magical 74 degrees (That doesn’t happen very often here in Texas!)

Adjust Your Thermostat Based on the Seasons

While we’re on the subject of heating, let’s focus on another area of considerable energy loss. If your insulation is poor or damaged you’ll find that a lot of the heat in your home escapes, leading to a massive increase in the amount of fuel or energy required to heat your home. Repairing or just upgrading the insulation in your home doesn’t have to cost a fortune, and remember that anything that you spend on it can well be considered an investment in heating efficiency, reducing the amount you spend on power and heating for years to come.

A third area of power wastage that many home owners tend to ignore are appliances. While it’s true that the appliances of a few years ago tended to be sturdy & heavy-duty construction (built to last), they usually fall short on energy efficiency. If you still have any of these behemoths around, you might consider whether the trouble free service it gives you is worth the amount you pay out in energy bills for the privilege of using it. You need to especially beware of devices that have a heavier rate of consumption like refrigerators, air conditioners and boilers. Remember when you buy a new appliance to look for the energy star label and in the case of air conditioners, check their Seasonal Effective Efficiency Ratio (SEER) rating – the higher the  better.

Check out our related article on upgrading home cooling systems to a higher SEER rating;

http://www.oureverydayearth.com/our-upgraded-cooling-systems/

Remember that appliances bearing the energy star label can sometimes run nearly three fourths more efficiently than a similar appliance that is a few years older. It’s a policy among many electric companies today to even discount the power bills of home owners that use energy efficient devices, so if your appliances have the energy star label, remember to ask your electric company if they offer a similar discount.

Switch Off Lights

You’d be surprised as to just how much energy you can save by simply using a little common sense. For example, just turn off the lights when you leave a room. It’s not much trouble to step into a room a press a light switch, but you’d be amazed at how much power this can save you. A light or television when no one is using it represents one hundred percent of wasted power, and if you are trying to conserve energy, that’s something that is absolutely unacceptable. So turn off lights and appliances like television when you leave the room, and drastically cut down on the amount of power that you use in your home.

Check out our related article on reducing “Phantom Power Loss“;

http://www.oureverydayearth.com/smart-electric-stopping-phantom-power-loss/

Just use a little common sense and keep up with the times. The Internet is a considerable resource, and you can use it to keep yourself up to date with the latest advances in energy efficiency. As I said in the beginning, energy efficiency in the home is all a matter of knowledge, dedication and motivation.

Chloe is a writer working with Digidave.co.uk a supplier of Replacement power supplies

We easily managed without the ice maker and water dispenser but we quickly realized that the clothes dryer was a fairly critical piece of what makes our lives tick by so smoothly. Without our clothes dryer the pile of dirty clothes quickly reached new heights and a pile of already washed rugs started to stink up the laundry room with a rather nasty “sour” smell…

Our Old Washer and Dryer (In a Messy Laundry Room!)

But as the saying goes, for every cloud there is a silver lining, and our silver lining was the chance to upgrade our out-dated washer and now broken clothes dryer. We went to our local Lowes store and spent about an hour checking out the new features and ratings for the “high efficiency” front loading washer and dryers.

We quickly found a washer and clothes dryer pair which fit both our budget and our desire to go green with energy star appliances. We ended up choosing a pair of Maytag appliances and together they cost about $1600 which was a lot but we managed to take advantage of a 0% for 12 months deal so the decision was easy (well fairly easy – big purchases always give me a cold sweat!)

We read that the new high efficiency front loading clothes washers can save anywhere from 20% to 66% of the amount of water an old top loading washer would use! Also, the tumbling motion of the front loader is less harsh on the fabrics being washed so our clothes should look good longer…

Our New High Efficiency Washer and Dryer Installed

An early Sunday morning delivery woke us up and got the dogs barking! It was all totally worth it, the new washer and dryer looked great. We had to run the dryer for 30 mins without any clothes to burn off any dust left over from the factory (the installation technician gave us lots of tips like that!).

One big change was that we had to switch to the new High Efficiency (HE) laundry detergent which forms less suds and helps wash clothes more efficiently. After our first load of washing through the high efficiency washer we noticed how dry the clothes are once the wash cycle has finished. The install technician explained that the spin cycle of the washer actually removes a lot of the water from the clothes which makes drying times even shorter.

Top Loading vs New High Efficiency Designs

The above diagram shows how the front loading high efficiency washer uses much less water than the traditional top loading washer.

We are going to monitor our electricity and water usage to try and figure out exactly how much the new washer and dryer are saving us, stay tuned for more updates next month!

Next on our hit list of high efficiency or energy star appliances is the fridge freezer, we will be getting a new energy star fridge freezer which should further improve our energy savings. Have you recently replaced some old energy hog appliances? Tell us your story by leaving a comment…