How to Use Less Energy in Your Home During the Summer

Temperatures can soar during the summer, and homeowners worried about high cooling bills often fret over what to do. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to use less energy in your home during summer. Here are a few tips.

Use Your Fans

Although fans don’t drop the temperature of your home much, they do make it much easier to handle higher temperatures. Try out your ceiling fans to see if they let you use your heater less frequently. Make sure your fan is set to the “summer” setting as the winter setting won’t provide as much comfort. If you’re mostly concerned about keeping one room more comfortable, consider trying out a floor fan.

Focus on Important Rooms

Do you have a guest room or other space that’s rarely used? If so, try setting your vents so that only the important rooms are heated. If the room is on a separate thermometer, make sure to set it to a higher temperature. You might even want to tuck a towel or other item underneath the door to prevent air from seeping through. Consider reducing the sunlight that enters unused rooms as well; closing the curtains or shutters, for example, can provide better insulation and reduce heating from the sun.

Check Out Your Doors and Windows

One of the highest areas of energy loss is air leaking through doors and windows. By upgrading your doors and ceilings, you can cut back on your energy usage in both hot and cool months. In some cases, it’s best to install new types of windows to enjoy the latest in efficiency technology. If not, simply ensuring a proper seal along the edges can do wonders.

Install a Smart Thermostat

The days of setting thermostats manually are over for many people, and you can help tailor your cooling to you and your family’s needs with a programmable thermostat. These thermostats can be set to let your home warm up while nobody is home and turn on the cooling before people arrive. They can also provide energy reports and let you adjust your settings through the internet while you’re away from home.

Cook Outdoors

Firing up the grill can be a great way to enjoy time with family and friends outdoors, but it can also cut back on your cooling bills. All of the heat you generate while cooking will eventually leak into your home, forcing you to rely more on your home cooling.

Modern HVAC solutions keep us comfortable, but they also cost us money. However, by taking simple steps, you can ensure your home remains cool and inviting while saving some money on energy bills and reducing your impact on the environment.

Best Tips for Organizing Your Bathroom

Whether you want to sort your bathroom because you’re having guests or because it’s simply on your to-do list, it can seem like a daunting task. Here are a few of the best tips for organizing your bathroom to get you started.

Tackle Cabinets and Drawers

Maybe you’re a fan of throwing items into a drawer or under the sink for an “out of sight, out of mind” solution. Or maybe you prefer the “organized chaos” system. Either way, it’s time to tackle these cluttered spaces. A great way to organize bathroom drawers is with dividers, much like a cutlery drawer. Try tiered stands for sorting products in the cabinet under the sink. Place items and products you use most often on the countertop or in the closest drawer; everything else can go below the sink or in a lower drawer.

Install Shelves

Shelves are an easy way to give your bathroom a cleaner and more organized look instantly. By installing shelves, you can clear space from your floors, vanity, or countertops. Some shelves even serve a decorative purpose. For example, glass shelves are a great way to display decor, and these shelves serve several other benefits to your bathroom as well.

The same concept goes for inside and outside of the shower! Are your shampoo and soap bottles constantly performing a balancing act on the edge of your tub? Save yourself space and the headache by picking up a shelving system for in-shower use. You can hang these over the showerhead, stick them to the tile wall with suction cups, and more. This type of shelving can keep your bottles from slipping and falling every time you shower and keep them organized.

Towel Solutions

Folded towels take up a ton of space on shelves or in your closet. If you have more wall space than storage space, install a few more towel rods or hooks. This will keep towels accessible from the shower and free up more of that precious storage space. Hanging a towel to dry is also more sanitary and prevents mildew.

And there you have it! These are three of the best tips for organizing your bathroom that you can knock out in an afternoon. By setting up these organizational tools, you can more easily maintain your clutter-free bathroom too. Try out these tips today in your home!

Why Every Home Should Have a Portable Generator

When your home loses power, it can be frustrating and sometimes concerning to wait for your power to return to appliances. This blog will discuss how to be prepared for these inevitable power outages and why every home should have a portable generator.

What Is a Portable Generator?

Portable generators produce alternative power for your home appliances when your house encounters a power outage. Since these generators run on fuel such as gasoline and propane, they manually power your devices until automatic power can be restored to your power lines. Since generator installation is a convenient and straightforward process, these machines are a piece of must-have equipment for several vital reasons.

Food Safety

When many people lose power, they don’t realize just how many of their home appliances are affected. Perhaps the most significant and dangerous appliance to lose power indefinitely is your refrigerator. Regardless of how full your fridge is, your entire fridge is compromised once the temperature isn’t regulated and kept cool. 

Foods such as chicken, eggs, and milk are likely to become inedible and unhealthy if they’re left in warmer environments. In order to avoid wasting foods or eating things that have gone bad, every home should use a portable generator immediately. These power sources will keep your fridge running and protect the safety of your foods.

Sump Pump Functioning

When your home experiences flooding, sump pumps are installed in basements to pump away excess water so you can avoid getting damage inflicted upon your basement flooring and walls. These pumps are vital to controlling flooding in a home and preventing widespread damage.

If your home loses power during a thunderstorm, these pumps will be defunct, and your basement will be at risk of immense flooding. However, when you plug your sump pump into a portable generator, you guarantee it’ll be able to drain your basement without hassle or concern.

Working From Home

One of the most significant reasons why every home should have a portable generator is to back up all the information of your home office. Now that more and more people are working from home, owning a portable generator has never been more essential.

If your home experiences a power outage during your workday, you must be able to log back onto your computer to avoid falling behind on tasks. With a portable generator, you can rest easy that you’ll be prepared for your workday.

When you lose power, you compromise several of your home’s appliances and functions. Avoid unnecessary damage and waste by investing in a portable generator. With these effective machines, you’ll be more prepared for extreme weather and power shortages.

Eco-friendly cleaning hacks for World Environment Day (June 5th)

With everything going on in the world, maybe the last thing on our minds is the environment—but green thinking and cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore! Simple swaps can go a long way when it comes to living an eco-friendly lifestyle. 

Just in time to celebrate World Environment Day, we wanted to share small changes that you incorporate within your home that can make a big impact for the environment. There are many ways to tidy up for a cleaner, and greener household. One way is to use green cleaning products during your cleaning regimen. But finding what works best for you and your household dynamic is the first step toward sustainable living.

Below, we have outlined different eco-friendly swaps you can make at home, along with printable recipes for DIY all-natural cleaners. 

Use reusable cloths to clean up

When scrubbing down dishes or wiping up spills, grabbing a disposable sponge might be your first instinct. Instead, consider a microfiber cloth. 

Microfiber cloths have many eco-friendly perks such as:

• Naturally attracting dirt, grease, and oil

• Stain removal

• Two-sides to scrub different surfaces with the same cloth

• Durable and guaranteed to last around 300 washes 

Declutter monthly

Make efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Schedule a time to throw away trash and unwanted items to a local recycling site or donation center. Recycling and donating clutter will allow you to maintain your home and protect the planet. 

Benefits include:

• Lowering the risk of allergies in your household

• Giving back to the community

• Having a healthier lifestyle

• Focusing on being clean and organized 

• Being mindful of materialistic items

Switch to all-natural surface cleaners

Opting for natural cleaners with organic elements isn’t just eco-friendly but friendly to yourself, pets and children as they are non-toxic. Eco-friendly cleaners are often stored in recycled containers as well. Although, it’s important to keep in mind that stronger cleaning products are the best defense against germs and viruses such as COVID-19. 

Get the kids involved

Making eco-friendly products can be easy and fun—even your kids will be into it! And even better, unlike products with loads of chemicals, it will be safe for them to use, too. Many green cleaning products will quickly replace commercial cleaning with toxic ingredients. 

Looking for all-natural cleaning recipes? Create DIY cleaning products with these fun printables. Under your supervision, this will make for a great afternoon activity, but will also contribute to a cleaner household. 

Cleaning tips and tricks:

Following a weekly cleaning schedule will make your house tidy and organized while you use eco-friendly materials. Cleaning smarter, not harder can be accomplished by:

• Tackling a different part of your house each day instead of rushing to scrub every surface in sight 

• Switching to non-toxic surface cleaners

• Choosing water safe cleaning options

• Opt for eco-friendly bathroom cleaners

Download the weekly cleaning schedules here.