Outside of the kitchen, air conditioner, and furnace, your bathroom is the biggest energy hog in the home. As we’ve discussed in previous blog posts, there is a distinct difference between energy efficiency and energy conservation. Specifically, if you want to lower your home energy bill, you need to actually lose less energy, not simply use it more effectively.

By paying attention to three specific parts of your bathroom, you can implement effective energy conservation tactics.

#1 Your Water

In a typical post about “energy efficiency,” you’d read about low-flow showerheads, fixing leaks, and other water-saving similar upgrades. All of those things are great! You should use less water – but they won’t actually help you use less energy if you don’t impact the heat of that water.

The creation of hot water for baths, showers, and sinks is the biggest driver of energy usage in your bathroom. By simply reducing the temperature of your water heater from 140 degrees F to 120 degrees F (or 60 degrees C to 49 degrees C), you can save up to 20% on your water heating costs annually.

#2 Your Lighting

Replace any and all of your old light bulbs with LED light bulbs. This new technology reduces the energy waste by 90% compared to incandescent light bulbs, and they last up 25,000 hours - or 5 times as long as the old bulbs.

Thus, when you combine how effectively LED light bulbs use electricity and that you won’t need to replace them as often, you can save up to $150 over the life of just one new light bulb.

#3 Your Appliances

As you’d imagine, your blow dryer and flat iron don’t use as much energy as your oven or stove. But since they still draw vampire power when left plugged in, you should unplug and store them when not in use.

And for those of you who employ sn exhaust fan to assist with humidity, odors, or both, you should turn them off after 15 minutes. Not only are you lowering the life span of the fan, but you’re wasting energy now that the task you turned it on for has been completed.

Energy conservation in the bathroom can be simple to achieve, but it takes a concerted effort on your part to learn how, when, and where you can reduce the energy you do use.