Your Reliable Guide to Going Green

It makes sense to do everything that you can to make your home look good and be in good repair because your home is an investment. Beyond the obvious repairs and maintenance, did you know that it is a good idea to go green at home to keep it in great shape?

There are many benefits; green homes are more comfortable and durable; they usually have better indoor air quality and can help your social conscience too, because they are better for the environment. There are cost benefits as well.

Convinced and ready to go green? Here is how to get started.

Water Filtration Systems Instead

One of the biggest culprits that threaten the environment is plastic water bottles. You are far better served to invest in a home water filtration system instead.

They are inexpensive, easy to use and easy to maintain. They produce a superior product, without the environmental damage of empty plastic bottles ending up in landfills.

Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

You should be mindful of reducing your carbon footprint everywhere, but you can probably make the most impact in your home.

Only have EnergyStar appliances. Don’t run the dishwasher or washing machine unless full. Unplug electronics when you aren’t using them.

Inspect windows and doors to make sure caulking is intact. Ensure that exterior walls are properly insulated.

Plant a garden and grow your own produce. Consider converting to solar power. Park your car in the garage and walk or bike whenever possible. Switch your current car to a hybrid model.

Tankless Water Heaters

One of the smartest green moves you can make is to install a tankless water heater. Traditional storage tanks cycle heat around water in a specified period (usually 24 hours), which wastes the energy if you’re not using the water as it is heated.

Tankless units work on demand, which means that water is only heated once. Tankless water heaters are smaller than traditional tanks, which is appealing and cost far less to run.

Eco-Friendly Plumbing Fixtures

If you are going to pick one room to go green, make it your bathroom. That’s because the bathroom is where much of the household water use occurs.

For instance, your toilet accounts about a third of your household’s total water use. Reduce that by putting a dual flush feature on your toilet.

It uses more water for solid waste and less water for liquid waste.

Low-flow showerheads reduce the flow rate of water coming out of the shower without diminishing the water pressure or water temperature.

Plans for Earth Day?

Why not make this year’s Earth Day celebrations on April 22 personal for you. Take this opportunity to get educated about alternative energy, like wind and solar power. Find out about how to set up a recycling strategy that works. Go green!

Why World Water Day is Such a Great Concept

World Water Day will be celebrated on March 22nd of this year. This day stands to focus attention on the planet's freshwater, and how humans can develop a healthier relationship with this precious resource.

With the increase in urbanization and the resulting changes in lifestyles, our consumption of water has steadily bloated, as well.
 

Is Our Water Supply in Danger?

If the over-consumption of water doesn’t slow in the coming years, our supply of healthy and usable freshwater will be depleted. Already, tensions are building within in countries where borders share a large supply of freshwater with others. Water used for irrigation purposes, industrial areas, and domestic households is steadily increasing. Other factors have created a water crisis, including:

Environmental Crisis: Deep effects of water pollution and over-usage have detrimental effects on aquatic ecosystems and the species which exist within them. When low levels of water and pollution affect these ecosystems, natural balances can no longer be regulated.
Agricultural Crisis: On top of freshwater that is used for irrigation purposes, factory-farmed meat production is using unprecedented amounts of water.

How Can We Save Our Water?

Thankfully, scientists and activists alike are spreading the word, along with developing methods, as to how we can preserve and maintain a healthy water supply worldwide. Now, more than ever before, are humans wasting water in large quantities. There are several beneficial methods that benefit the conservation process, including:

• Avoiding polluting our water at all costs by creating regulations to maintain water quality.
• Improving the management of water usage that focuses on beneficial use for large populations, rather than wasteful usage by a small population of people.
• Reducing water waste, and use, with technological advancements and government regulations.

Do Your Part in Preserving Our Water

There are many small, beneficial changes that individuals can partake in both at home and at work. Taking shorter showers, limiting usage of water for dishes, and turning off the tap while brushing teeth or washing hands are just a few simple ideas to limit water usage.

Technological advancements in plumbing have created opportunities for any business or homeowner to conserve water from key access points – pipes and drains. Here is a selection of affordable plumbing technology to consider when choosing to save on water, and your water bill:

• Dual-flush toilets. These toilets have two levers to control the amount of water being flushed, and use up to 67% less water than their conventional counterparts.
• Garden hose nozzles, to disturb the flow of water when not in use.
• Faucet Aerators. These easy-to-install tap heads work to break up the flow of water into particles rather than a straight stream, allowing for the same wetting effectiveness, but using less water.
• Low-flow showerheads, which are also known as energy-efficient showerheads.

Protecting the planet's water starts at home. Celebrate World Water Day by making a few affordable changes to your home or business. For installation assistance in the Lansing, MI area, or to chat with a plumbing expert, call Meridian Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Electrical at 517-339-6300.

Quick Guide on How to Plan for a Healthy New Year

With the New Year’s arrival, families across the country are considering how to develop their strategies for staying healthy in 2017 and beyond. As with most self-improvements, this work begins at home. To help lead you in creating a happy and healthy home environment this year, we’re offering our quick guide to a healthy home in this latest post.

Flush Your Water Heater

You rely upon your home water heater to provide you with access to hot water on demand. This can be critical on those cooler winter days. And so, it’s important to work to protect the water heater and ensure its performance for the coming months.

Flushing the heater regularly is a critical maintenance process. The flushing process will remove the sediment build up that might otherwise damage the interior of the system and cause component breakdown.

Clean Home Drains

By following a drain cleaning regimen, you can help prevent the spread of foul odors and bacteria across your home. Mold spores and bacteria thrive in dark, confined environments and that’s why you’ll often find a large number of these household contaminants in the average drain area.

By having your home drains expertly cleaned, you can remove many contaminants and help prevent the spread of dangerous bacteria.

Install Water Filtration Systems

The latest water filtration technology, including reverse osmosis systems, carbon filtration, and water softeners can help ensure that your family members have access to safe drinking water throughout the year.

By having the systems installed by professionals, you can minimize integration challenges and make sure your family begins on the road towards optimal health at the earliest possible time.

Identify Home Leaks

A leak in your piping structure could be a clear indication of a safety risk in the home. It might also mean that the home is without access to fresh water until a plumbing specialist is available to address the issue.

This means that home leaks should be identified at the earliest possible opportunity. Make sure you watch for water spots on the walls and for water settling in basement spaces. Then call for a plumber the moment the problem is identified. They can then mitigate any home leaks and protect your home water supply for the coming months.

Don’t wait to begin improving the safety of your home space! To discover more tips for creating a healthy home environment, call our team at Meridian Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Electrical in Lansing, MI now at 517-339-6300.

Follow These Tips to Stay Warm in the Winter

As winter settles in for the long haul, you need your home to be heated comfortably and reliably. It’s not enough just to have a warm home to retreat to. Given the high cost of heating, homeowners everywhere should take note of how they can actively reduce their heating bills.

You’ve got to make sure that your home is airtight and that you take advantage of all the tools that you have. You can even try out some low-tech options that mean that yourfurnace doesn’t have to work so hard.

Humidifier Installation

Yes, you definitely need your home to be heated adequately in the winter, but you also need the air quality to be high. Some unique problems are presented in the winter because of the heated air.

It’s very dry and can cause dry skin and respiratory irritations. To combat against this, install a whole-home humidifier that will put moisture back into the air as it heats it.

Upgrade the Thermostat in Your Home

One of the most useful tools at your disposal is a programmable thermostat. If you don’t have one, the cost saving in heating bills can be significant, so you should consider upgrading.

Simply, you save money because you aren’t paying for heat that you don’t need. You are programming the heat to be on when you need it - and where you need it. Many thermostats offer the opportunity to program heat by zones in the home.

Also, a programmable thermostat is convenient. It lets you be comfortable immediately when you get home from work or holidays, rather than waiting for the home to heat up when you arrive.

Schedule Your Furnace Tune Up

Another energy saving feature is to change the filter in your furnace. That’s just one of the many services that you’ll receive when you get a furnace tune up. Additionally, you’ll get your system cleaned and inspected. It’s great to have that kind of peace of mind during the cold weather.

Winterizing Tips

If you take on these simple tasks, you will keep a lot of the warm air from escaping, which will make your furnace happy. Seal cracks around windows to keep warm air from seeping out. Apply film over top. It’s easy to do with some tape and a hair dryer.

If you don’t want to put on film, hang insulated drapes. Leave them open during the day to let the sun heat your rooms. Close them when the sun goes down.

For doors with gaps, raise the threshold by putting in weather stripping. A quick fix for doorway gaps is simply to put a pool noodle if you have one against the space. Don’t forget about other escape routes for warm air, like through your fireplace flue. Keep it closed when not in use.

Do you want to save even more money on your heating bills? Call Meridian Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Electrical inEast Lansing, MI at (517)-339-6300 to learn more about your heating options.

Avoid These Common Plumbing Problems and Enjoy the Holidays

There is never a good time to have a plumbing problem, but the busy holiday season is a time that you really don’t want that kind of unwelcome distraction.

It is worth its weight in gold to be able to take a few minutes before the season gets in full swing to inspect some key components of your plumbing systems to make sure that they aren’t vulnerable.

Given the harsher weather of the winter, there are additional considerations to take.

Foam Insulation Makes a Difference

You understand the role that insulation plays in keeping cold air out and warm air in, which is why you take care to insulate your roof and walls. You’ve got to do the same thing to your pipes during the winter season.

Keeping your pipes warm can prevent freezing. It’s that simple. Wrap pipes that might be more vulnerable to the cold, like those installed in exterior walls or those in areas of your home that tend to get less heat (i.e. the basement or crawl spaces).

Warm up Your Water Heater

What’s the first thing you do when you’re cold? Reach for your jacket, perhaps? Help keep the source of your hot water (your water heater) warmer by applying a water heater jacket.

This is especially important if you have an older tank. Newer tanks tend to already be insulated, but every little bit helps. This is an energy efficient move. Also, making sure you’ve got warm water flowing is one way to prevent frozen pipes.

Winterize Your Outdoor Faucets

First off, if you haven’t removed your hoses from your outdoor faucets, you need to do that straight away. Drain the faucets of any remaining water. Pooling water, even though it is on the exterior of the home can freeze and then end up flooding the inside of your home.

That’s why, in addition to draining the faucets, you’ve got to activate the shut-off valve as an extra safety measure. If you want to be really thorough, you can buy a faucet insulation kit and wrap them tight for the season.

Warm Your Home Adequately

By all means, turn your thermostat down if you are away for an extended period of time over the holidays, but take care to make sure that it’s not lower than 55°F. Any lower than that and the risk of water freezing in the pipes rises. It’s not worth the risk.

Don’t Forget the Sump Pump

If you should experience flooding as the result of a frozen pipe that has burst, you need your sump pump to kick in and mitigate the damage from the flooding. You don’t want to realize that your pump isn’t functional when you really need it. That’s why it’s recommended that you get it inspected regularly by a professional.

To quickly test it yourself, clean the sump pit out of debris. Pour buckets of water into the pit. The sump pump should kick in automatically.

Test Your Faucets

After you’ve been away, and especially if you know that there was a cold snap while you were gone, turn all of your faucets on when you get back. If you discover one that isn’t flowing, the problem may be pipe damage sustained due to freezing.

Formore help with your holiday plumbing preparations, call Meridian Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Electrical today. Call (517) 339-6300 today for trustworthy service in East Lansing, MI , and the surrounding area.