It’s always a good idea to find ways to improve your home’s energy efficiency, but spring is a particularly ideal time as it accompanies spring cleaning! There are some simple cleaning tasks and adjustments that can greatly improve your home’s efficiency. These appliance maintenance and usage tips will make a difference for the environment and your wallet:

DIY Maintenance Tips to Improve Energy Efficiency This Spring

For Your Refrigerator:

There a couple of commonly overlooked tasks to keep in mind when it comes to your refrigerator. For one, make sure to clean your refrigerator’s condenser coils. When the condenser coils get dirty, the compressor is forced to work harder, which means more energy is spent to keep your food cold. A refrigerator that has gone too long without being cleaned is at risk for premature failure. To avoid this, there are some nifty tools that can help you clean the coils easier. For instance, this versatile appliance brush set makes reaching into tight spaces a breeze.

Organize and remove clutter from your fridge to improve efficiency. When you know exactly where the food is that you need, less time is spent with the door open (therefore reducing your energy usage). Also, consider placing smaller items towards the top of your fridge and reduce the number of items placed at the top of your fridge in general. Doing this can reduce your compressor’s energy usage, helping you in the long-run.

For Your Washer/Dryer:

Simple adjustments to your laundry routine can make a significant difference. For instance, consider using cold water for your loads. Using warm water is usually not necessary to get stains out of clothes and doesn’t make a significant difference in the cycle’s cleaning power. Water heating accounts for 90% of the energy of your washer! So think of all the money you could save by making this simple adjustment!

Last but not least, be sure to clean your dryer vents! Using daylight savings time as a reminder is a great way to remember do this (as it happens every six months). This is an important task for multiple reasons. Yes, it will indeed improve your energy efficiency because your clothes won’t take as long to dry when the vents are clean (decreasing your energy usage). Also, dirty dryer vents are a considerable fire risk! That makes this a particularly important cleaning project. If you don’t feel up to the task, we suggest hiring a professional dryer vent cleaner to do it for you.