Good morning, savvy savers! For this week’s Greener Living Tip, I wanted to post about a very commonsense method for lowering your household electrical consumption, as well as lowering your carbon footprint, lowering your thermostat at night!
Here are a few reasons to lower your thermostat at night:
1) Help prolong houseplant life. Keeping your thermostat 75 degrees at night will prolong the life of household plants; cooler temperatures at night help to mimic outdoor, nighttime cooling off periods. This tip also allows plants to need less water when they’re cool. A helpful tip, when leaving to go out of town leave plants in the coolest part of the house, and they will instinctively know to consume less water, staying fresher until you return!
2) Help lose weight. To shed a few pounds, drop your thermostat below 70 degrees, for half of each day;. you want the room to be so cold enough so that a light sweater feels perfect. Why is this useful? When the temperature drops, your energy expenditure increases, which tells your body to burn more calories; this can burn roughly 100 a day. Over a period of one month, increased energy can translate into an extra 3,500 calories burned or one pound body fat!
3) Extend the Life of Your Fridge. Your refrigerator and freezer work really hard to keep your food safe and fresh, so when your home is cooler, large Freon-regulated appliances will not have to work as hard to keep your food cool. This will extend the life of the appliance, and help reduce the number of service calls needed to replace Freon.
4) Get a Better Night’s Sleep. Lowering your home’s temperature by about five degrees sends a signal to your brain to release more melatonin into your bloodstream, triggering the desire to sleep.
5) Lowering energy costs. Each one-degree drop on your thermostat can reduce your energy bill by 1-3 percent, and by lowering your thermostat to 68 degrees at night, you will help to lower your energy bill by 10-15 percent, which is an average savings of $120.00 annually!
So, friends, that’s one additional way you can save on your monthly heating bills and make your home a little more zero-waste in the process. And if you have any tips for saving on your monthly heating bills at home I’d love to hear about them below!
