Most people don’t think about their kitchen needing to be energy efficient, but indeed there are many ways you can make your home more eco-friendly right in your kitchen. These tips for Making Your Kitchen Energy Efficient are easy to implement and very effective. Not only can you save on energy expenses, you are being eco-friendly and helping your environment in the process.
How to Make Your Kitchen Energy Efficient
Don’t overcrowd your refrigerator or freezer. This is one thing that people don’t think about as much as they should. Overcrowding your refrigerator and freezer means the air can’t circulate well. That results in it having to work harder to keep things cool. Make sure to allow space between items and not overcrowd so it cools efficiently.
Bake multiple items at once. Don’t turn on your oven just to bake 2-3 potatoes. When you bake make sure that you are using your oven for multiple items at once. Add dessert, homemade bread or a main dish into your oven all at once. Adjust temperatures and cook times as needed, but make sure to use that heat source effectively.
Only run the dishwasher when it is full. This one will make many people upset, but it really is the most efficient way to use your dishwasher. Make sure you are loading your dishwasher properly to use the space wisely. Typically that means glasses, bowls and larger utensils are on the top rack with plates, cutting boards, and other larger items on the bottom rack.
Prep foods all at once when you buy them. Rather than getting your cutting board out every day to slice vegetables or even separate and cube meats, do it all at once. We spend an hour or more as needed each weekend doing prep for the weeks meals. This includes slicing, washing and separating out all vegetables like onions, peppers, squash, and others for use in recipes. It also includes separating and bagging meats for the freezer when we get a great deal and stock up. Not only are we using our time efficiently, we are avoiding multiple uses of knives, cutting boards and counter tops later in the week. Use them all in one sitting and avoid having to do a lot of extra cleaning throughout the week.
These are simple ways to make your kitchen more energy efficient. Even these small steps made on a regular basis will help to keep you in budget while also doing our environment a favor in the process.
More Eco-Friendly Tips:
- Eco-friendly Tips for Going Green in the Kitchen
- Eco-Friendly Tips for Going Green in the Bathroom
- Eco-Friendly Tips for Going Green in the Bedroom
- Eco-Friendly tips for Going Green in Your Living Room
- Eco-Friendly Tips for Going Green in Your Child’s Room or Nursery
- Eco-Friendly Tips for Going Green in the Garage
LKitsch says
One caveat on the dishwasher — you need to run it, at least through a rinse cycle, once very couple of weeks, ideally. And certainly at least once a month — that’s because the gaskets and seals will dry out if the machine is not used for long periods of time. Generally, this is not an issue for most people, but for us single folks who don’t use a lot of dishes, it can be!