Ways to Conserve Natural Gas

There are plenty of reasons to conserve natural gas, like helping your finances by reducing your monthly utilities bills or a desire to conserve natural resources and help the environment. Whatever your reason for wanting to conserve natural gas, there are plenty of methods to do it. The following list provides you with numerous ways to use less natural gas, including some methods you can start putting into practice right now.

Keep your house slightly cooler. During the winter months it’s tempting to jack your thermostat’s temperature way up as a way to stay warm. Keeping your house hot when it’s cold outside can cause you to consume quite a bit more natural gas. Instead keep your heat at or slightly below room temperature and dress warmer. It might take a few days to get used to the difference in your house’s temperature.

Use less hot water. Many hot water heaters use natural gas as a source for heat, so if you use less hot water you will use less natural gas. Run your house’s hot water only when you need to rinse the soap off your hands instead of while you are soaping up your hands. Instead of taking baths take quick showers. If you need to hand wash a few dishes only fill the sink up partway with hot water instead of filling the sink all the way. Anything you can do to reduce how much hot water you use will decrease your natural gas usage.

Fix leaky faucets quickly. Leaky faucets can make an annoying dripping sound and they can also waste quite a bit of hot water and in turn natural gas. Just placing your hand under a leaky faucet to feel the temperature of the dripping water will let you know if the leak is costing you in hot water. Leaky faucets can be fixed using inexpensive parts and an hour or less of your time.

Wrap your hot water pipes. Have you noticed that when you turn on the hot water at a faucet the water at first comes out cold? This is due to the hot water in the pipes losing heat through the pipes’ walls, which means you must run the hot water until you are drawing water out of the hot water heater. Hardware stores sell pipe insulation kits that you can wrap around your hot water pipes. The insulation keeps the water in the pipes hot for longer periods of time, meaning you use less hot water and consume less natural gas.

Buy a tankless water heater. Tankless water heaters are newer and so aren’t exactly cheap, but they will drop your natural gas usage by quite a bit. A tankless heater doesn’t use a huge tank like a traditional water heater. This means you only heat as much water as you need at a given time. With traditional water heaters the water heater reheats the water in the tank as the water cools off, keeping the water at the temperature you set. This reheating process means even if you don’t use much hot water you still are consuming natural gas to keep all of the water in the tank hot for future use.

Laura Ginn is always looking for ways that she can conserve energy around the home in order to keep the cost down. When it comes saving money on her gas and electricity she knows that uSwitch.com will always find her the best deal when she uses their online price comparison site.