If I conserve water, will my energy costs drop?

Want to help conserve both? Take care with energy-intensive tasks by following these tips.

• Do full loads when you use clothes washers or dishwashers.
• Replace showerheads with low-flow models that save up to five gallons of water a minute.
• Showers use less water than baths, so shower and keep it short. Fix leaky faucets; small drips add up to big waste.
• Wash clothes and dishes after dark, when there’s less competition for electricity from your neighbors.
• Turn the water off while you brush your teeth or shampoo your hair. You can save 200 gallons a week.

Read more...

For more information and for answers to all YOUR Home Improvement, Landscape and Gardening questions, visit our website: www.rosieonthehouse.com

Should I get a solar water heater?

If somebody offered you free gas for your car, you’d gratefully accept. So why are you turning down free hot water for your home?

Up to 15 percent of your energy bill goes to heat water—but it doesn’t have to. The sun can do it for free.

When it’s time to replace your water heater, consider installing a solar version. Don’t let the price tag—several thousand dollars compared with several hundred for a conventional water heater—scare you off. By the time you claim your federal and state tax credits and get your APS rebate as an incentive for installing such an energy-efficient device, you’ll pay as little as $1,000 out of pocket for your fancy new system if your water use is average.

Read more...

For more information and for answers to all YOUR Home Improvement, Landscape and Garden questions, visit our website at www.rosieonthehouse.com

The Solar Store can answer your questions statewide.

What are the pros and cons of compact fluorescent light bulbs?

Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) are poised to replace those familiar incandescent bulbs we’ve been using since electricity became a household necessity.

Among their benefits:

• CFLs use 90 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs.

• They emit very little heat. Unlike CFLs, incandescents waste energy because they spend 90 percent of their energy on heat and only 10 percent on light. That also adds heat to your home’s air and makes your air conditioner work harder.

• CFLs last about 10 times longer than incandescents, so you don’t have to change your light bulbs nearly as often.

The quality of CFLs continues to improve. Early versions of fluorescent light bulbs were an odd white color, took a long time to light up when you flicked the light switch and gave off a buzzing sound. Today’s CFLs are smaller, come on almost instantly, appear close in color to the traditional incandescent bulb and are silent.

Read more...

For more information and for answers to all YOUR Home Improvement, Landscape and Gardening questions, visit our website: www.rosieonthehouse.com

What are some steps I can take to save money on my electric bill by running my pool pump more efficiently?

Sign up with your electric utility for a “time of use” rate plan; both APS and SRP offer them. You’ll pay a reduced rate for electricity if you run your pool pump and other appliances—like your dishwasher or washing machine—during hours of the day when demand for electricity isn’t at its peak.

1. Example: SRP will cut your “off-peak” rate from the standard 11 cents per kilowatt-hour (a measure of electricity use) to around 6.5 cents if you run your pool pump and other appliances between 8 p.m. and 1 p.m. during the summer. If you run the devices between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m., you’ll pay more to use the same electricity.

SRP estimates that “time-of-use” customers save up to 7 percent on their electric bills.

2. Run your pool pump less. It’s not necessary to run it around the clock. Most manufacturers recommend running it between eight and 10 hours a day in the summer and about half that in the winter.

3. Put a timer on the pump so it automatically shuts off after those hours, and set it to run only when you’re paying off-peak rates.

Read more...

For more information and for answers to all YOUR Home Improvement, Landscape and Garden questions, visit our website: www.rosieonthehouse.com

Tap Hidden Storage

If Santa brought you everything on your Christmas list this week, your new year’s resolution might be to find a place to store it all.

In surveys of homeowners, most say they don’t have enough storage space at home.You might have more than you think. Here are some places to look:

Walls. Cover an entire wall with open shelving, where you can display books, knick-knacks and pictures. Place decorative baskets on some of the shelves to hold—and hide—small items that you want to keep out of sight.

Bedroom closets. If your closets are the old “pole-and-plank” kind—with a single rod for hanging clothes and a shelf so high you can’t reach it, get ready to reorganize. Closet organizers let you add shelves, drawers, racks, hooks and cubbyholes so every blouse, suit, shoe and necklace has a place. At the very least, move your rod up so it hangs 84 inches from the floor, and add another one underneath that is 42 inches from the floor. Keep your tall shelf; it’s a good place to store out-of-season clothes.

Kitchen pantry. Chances are, yours has two to three feet of wasted space near the floor. Place shelves from floor to ceiling in the pantry. Choose slide-out shelves so you can easily retrieve the cans and small appliances you keep in the closet.Inside kitchen cabinets. Unless your cabinets are fairly new, you’re probably stacking pots, pans, dishes and food so deep that you can’t see what’s in the back. Retrofit you cabinets with lazy Susans and slide-out shelves that make easy work of retrieving your items—so you can stuff more in them.

Under every work surface. Opt for built-in cabinets or open shelving under the kitchen island, the tool bench and the bathroom vanity.

Inside furniture. When it’s time for new furniture, replace kitchen chairs with benches whose seats open up to double as storage chests; find ottomans with hollow centers for hiding magazines.

Read More...

For more information and for answers to all YOU Home Improvement questions, visit www.rosieonthehouse.com

I'm overwhelmed with holiday preparations. Can you help me get organized?

If you’re feeling that it’s impossible to get your home ready for holiday houseguests. Good news: You can do it.

A tip: Fix yourself a cup of hot cocoa, start a fire in the hearth and get comfortable in your favorite chair. Then make a list—and check it twice—of everything you need to do so your home makes a good impression on your houseguests—and so it makes them feel comfortable during their stay. Then enlist the help of your family and make appointments with any service pros you’ll need to help you finish the chores on time.

Here’s my pre-holiday honey-do list:

1. Have the furnace inspected. Chances are, you’ll have the heat on while company’s here, at least overnight. You’ll rest easier knowing a heating and air conditioning technician has given your system a once-over and cleared it—or repaired it—so it won’t leave your guests in the cold.
   
   
2. Sweep the chimney. It’s a messy, time-consuming job, so you might want to hire a professional chimney sweep. Choose one who can do both a cleaning and an inspection. An inspector will look for cracks in the masonry, damaged dampers, worn-out chimney caps and other problems, in addition to removing what you can’t see: the creosote, soot, ashes, dust, leaves and even birds that are stuck in the flue and chimney.
   
   
3. Hang your stockings by the chimney with care—a lot of it. Hanging stockings can damage your mantel and pose a fire hazard. Tips: Use the smallest hook or nail you can find so the hole you pierce into the mantel will be nearly invisible when you remove the nail after the holidays. Move holiday stockings away from the mantel before lighting a fire.
   
   
4. Gussie up the guest room. If it’s been doubling as a sewing room, a storage space or a home office since last time grandma came to visit, get in there and clean it out. Move your personal items to another room so you won’t have to bother your guests to retrieve them during their stay. Make room in the closet for company to hang clothes. Launder the bedspread, and place a candy cane on each pillow. And if your guests have stayed with you over past Christmases, frame a holiday photo from their last visit and display it in their room.
   

Read more...

For more information and for all YOUR Landscape, Garden and Home Improvement Questions, visit www.rosieonthehouse.com

Will 7UP extend the life of my Christmas tree?

You’ve added bleach, aspirin, soda, syrup or sugar to your Christmas tree’s water to help the evergreen last longer. Did they work?

Tree experts say they don’t. It seems like they would: The common blend of 7UP and bleach seems like it would, indeed, make the tree’s water more acidic and help the tree take in more moisture and food. The sugar in the soda, it seems, would help feed the tree. The disinfectant in the bleach would prevent mold, fungi and algae from forming.

So it seems. Yet it’s an urban myth, and it’s not true.

Read more...

For more information and for all YOUR Home Improvement, Landscape and Garden questions, visit our website: www.rosieonthehouse.com