When it comes to energy-saving initiatives, we all win. Cutting down costs while reducing your carbon footprint can be done in many simple ways in your life. In an effort to inspire positive change for you, your wallet and the planet, the team at Timbercreek Communities has some easy tips for going green. Check out our ultimate guide to making any rental more energy efficient:
The phantom menace
If you’ve never heard of phantom power (or standby power), it is a mega-waste of megawatts. Your phone charger and your laptop charger are sucking up energy at an alarming rate (if left plugged in but not charging anything), not to mention other everyday devices and appliances around your home. According to HyrdoOne, you could save $150 a year just by cutting down on phantom power alone.
Cut the lights
Who doesn’t want a nice ambiance in their home? Brightly lit rooms can make a space feel inviting, but having several lamps on in each room of an apartment can also be really expensive and wasteful. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to hear it, maybe it makes a sound, maybe it doesn’t – we’ll never really know. But we know for sure that if the lights are on in a room and no one is there to see it, that energy is getting used up for nothing. Make it a habit to flick off the lights as you leave a room, and try to keep the excess ambiance lights (lamps, twinkle lights, etc.) to a minimum.
Waste not, want not
If you’re one of those people who loves long, hot showers, consider the benefits of taking a shorter one. Cutting back just two or three minutes on your showers may help reduce your monthly bills by quite a bit. You’ll also be doing the world a favour since water conservation is a major issue at the moment.
For more tips and tricks on how to make your apartment more energy efficient, check out the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance’s page. The team at Timbercreek Communities hopes that this information will help reduce your power bills while reducing our carbon footprint!
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