Is Your Garden Water Efficient?

Spring is finally here! It's time to start planning your garden and making your yard beautiful.  We have been scouring the internet, looking for ways to help you make your garden more energy efficient! Water is the most important natural resource that garden needs (well that and sun), reducing the drain on the water supply is very important.

Here are some neat ideas on conserving water:

Install a rain barrel to collect water for your garden. Make sure you water early in the morning before gets to hot. This mitigates evaporation and encourages the roots to grow deeper.

Via

In fact, mulch your gardens to reduce the amount of moisture needed by helping the soil retain the water.

So many colors. Via

Using plants native to your area also helps reduce the need to water them!

Energy-Efficient Homes

One way of saving money on utility bills is when purchasing a property, to seek out efficient, net-zero homes. Today, these are substantially dropping in price. For example, the first net-zero home to be built in Buckeye, is owned by the Ploesers who now enjoy substantially lower utility bills. What this means is that everything in and out of the house is energy-efficient as well as energy-saving items built into the home. This makes a huge difference as, until now, these items have been added on. When it is within the actual building, the savings one makes will be much bigger.

How It Works

These net-zero homes use the sun when it’s shining to create even more energy than one would ever need for their home. This means the utility meter goes backwards and actually earns credit. When the sun goes down, at night, when one needs energy and the sun isn’t shining, that credit can be used. Ultimately, in the winter therefore one can make money and it can be used for the summer and their utility bills will still remain low.
So these homes – that at one point were quite costly – are now seriously worth considering for their affordability, environmental-friendliness and utility saving strengths.

Managing Heating and Cooling Costs

According to IDT Energy, a New-York based energy provider, "the best way to manage your heating and cooling costs is to conserve."
Energy conservation and money-saving tricks are a hot topic in almost every community as the seasons change and heating and cooling costs rise. IDT Energy offers some tips:

• Lower the thermostat and dress warmer. As little as 1 to 3 degrees (F) makes a noteworthy difference in energy consumption.

• Lower the temperature on your electric water heater to 120 (F) degrees and turn it off when leaving for extended periods of time. It is important to note that electric water heaters can be set on timers, but gas heaters must be set manually.