Greening My Apartment

I recently had the pleasure of moving into a new apartment and my goal has become to make it as green as possible. One of the first elements I look to address is the lighting. Why lighting first?  Lighting is one of the easiest ways to cut energy use in a home.  There are 2 ceiling fans with 3 light sockets each on them, and the apartment came with 60W incandescent bulbs in each socket, equaling 180W of total lighting per fixture!  I simply replaced those 60W incandescent bulbs with 13W CFLs.  The 3 CFLs in the fixture equal less energy use than one of the incandescent bulbs, which means I get nearly instant savings.  Even more attractive was my utility company’ offer to cover some of the cost. You see, my local utility company offers rebate program for switching to CFLs, so I get money back for making my apartment more energy efficient. Everyone, including the environment and perhaps most importantly my pocket books, win in this scenario.

Obviously lighting is the first choice, but what other ways can I make my apartment more efficient?  Well, your AC use plays a big part of that.  Living in Texas means it’s HOT, and I mean HOT! So you can imagine it’s hard to ever want to lay off my AC, but I generally try to manage my air conditioner use to when I am actually in the apartment. Now I like it COLD, but when I am leaving the apartment, I turn off of change the AC setting to Auto so as to limit the amount of time its in operation.  In addition, I use ceiling fans and other fans to help move air around the house and keep it cooler.

Another way to keep my energy bills down is to take advantage of natural light.  I specifically chose an apartment that has ample light so I can just open the blinds and naturally light my room. This contributes to the energy savings I already generate when I switched to CFL bulbs as they are only on in the evening.

Finally and perhaps the most literal way to make my apartment ‘green’ is to bring in some plant life. Plants offer a natural filtration system and the fresh air does wonders for my indoor air quality. A few plants not only add to the décor, but bring in some much needed freshness to my apartment!

What are some ways you make your home more Green and efficient?  Tell me, maybe I’ll borrow some of your ideas and adapt them to my own apartment.  I’m going to try and blog more, so are there any topics you would like me to write about?  Let me know in the comments below!