In a world where the costs of living are in a dramatic increase, more and more people are turning to greener concepts. However, most of those who choose to go green, over complicate a very simple process. There are a number of ways to go green without having to spend a lot of money or time changing things about your home. To help you get started, here are 10 ways to go green that you can do right now with ease.

1.) Bye-Bye incandescent bulbs. The incandescent light bulbs which most people use today are very inefficient light producers. Inside of these bulbs is a tungsten filament which when electricity is passed through it, it gets very hot; close to 3,000°F at 100 watts. The light you get is actually radiated heat making these bulbs more efficient space heaters then light producers. While compact flourescent bulbs are expensive, you have to remember that they will use 1/3 of the power and create 2 times as much visible light. They will also surpass the life of an incandescent bulb by more then 10 fold.

2.) Mercury thermometers are dangerous. Most homes still make use of the old thermostats for their furnace, boilers and the like. These devices make use of a coiled piece of metal which uncoils at a specific rate depending upon the temperature. When the thermostat approaches the temperature you have set, a mercury switch activates the furnace. That’s right, it has mercury in it. By replacing all of the home’s thermostats with new electronic ones, you can save plenty of money and get rid of the mercury in your home. Electronic thermostats make use of what is known as a thermocouple. A thermocouple is basically 2 pieces of wire made of different materials and create electricity; the amount of volts created is dependent upon the temperature difference between the ends of the wires. This then goes into a small microprocessor to determine the exact temperature and compares it against your settings before actually turning on the furnace.

3.) Have an electrician check your home’s appliances for shorts. OK, this seems never to be covered by anyone else as if it is some how not important. When you plug an appliance into the wall, even if it is turned off, it may still be using electricity. Simple shorts that can be found in the wires, switches and the like, allow the electricity flowing into the appliance to flow through into the grounding system, which then goes straight into the grounding rod of your home. It may not be a lot of electricity, but it will cause the meter to spin.

4.) Go solar for the lawn. It used to be that solar lawn lights were expensive. However, in recent years, the development of new thin-film panels allows the construction of these lawn lights to be considerably less. By no longer needing to have your outdoor light hooked into the grid, you can save a lot of money every month in electrical costs. Of course we are not just talking about walkway lights anymore because you can now get flood lights and more. All of them make use of a back-up battery system built-in and a solar panel to collect the energy of the sun throughout the day so it can be used to light your yard at night time.

5.) Get rid of your hot water heater. You would be amazed as to the amount of heat energy that reaches every square meter of the Earth’s surface every single day. This energy is enough to purify more then 10 liters of water every day, per square meter. It will also allow you to keep hot water in your home without the added expenses. The systems are installed on the roof and exposed to the southern sky to get the most warmth each and every single day to heat your home’s water.

6.) Start experimenting with different technologies. There is plenty of information on the internet that you can start to experiment with different ways of going green in your home. You can build your own cooling system by placing pipes under the ground. These will intake air at one end; the ground will cool the air and then exhaust the cool air into your home at the other end. There are so many great ideas that you can experiment with.

7.) Plants give us life. OK, this should already be known. If you have a yard, with absolutely no trees in it or anything other then grass, then you need to plant some shrubs and the like. These plants absorb the heat and allow the yard to stay cooler. With tall trees in the yard, it is like creating a second layer of insulation for the home; just outside of the home’s structure. Plants inside can also help a lot.

8.) Start using alternative power sources when possible. We already discussed the use of solar powered lawn lights. But you can also get things like solar or wind powered water pumps for your home. You can even build your very own wind generator as long as you have a little bit of skill with a saw. There is a countless amount of information available on the internet that will show you how to build the alternators used in wind power generators.

9.) Leave things turned off when you are not at home. This means turn off all of those extra lights and turn down that thermostat. Let’s face it, when it is in the middle of winter, all you want is to come home to a house that is comfortably warm inside. But upon arriving home, you are still wearing a jacket or sweater for at least 10 to 15 minutes after arriving home. That’s all the time it takes a home to warm up from 55°F to 70°F if you have a good furnace. The temperature is not too low that pipes will freeze, but it is low enough to save you a bundle when you are not actually in the house.

10.) Go Energy-Star compliant. This Energy Star system was built for a reason. The appliances which are approved through the Energy Star system have been designed to reduce potential short circuits and of course to use a lot less energy in the process. They do cost more, but in the end they are worth it. Look at it this way, if you have your grandmother’s old color television in the living room and replace it with a new Energy Star television of the same screen size, you can save anywhere from 1/4^th to ½ of the monthly costs in use.