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Sunday, November 10, 2013

5 Simple Ways to Make Your Kitchen more Energy-Efficient

The nature and extent of home renovation projects vary. Some people renovate their homes completely to optimize their look and feel. At the same time, many homeowners even remodel specific sections of their room like basement, kitchen or bathroom. It is always important to decide home renovation requirements according to your specific objectives. If you are remodeling your home to enhance its energy-efficiency, it is a good idea to remodel your kitchen. As the biggest energy hogs in a home are found in the kitchen, you have to consider options to cook smartly to save both money and environment.
5 Simple Ways to Save Energy in Your Kitchen
1) Replace Conventional Oven with a Microwave
Many reports have highlighted that microwaves consumes almost 50% energy lesser than the conventional ovens. So you can save energy by using microwave on a daily basis to cook and defrost food. If you are using the microwave for the first time, spend some time in reading the instruction manual. Once you know the basic principles, it will be easier for you to use the microwave to cook food quickly, while producing a lesser amount of heat.
2) Start Using a Pressure Cooker
In comparison to microwaves, pressure cookers allow you to cook food more quickly and efficiently. The pressure cookers are further effective in retaining the natural juices and vitamins in food items while preparing the dist. The latest pressure cooker models also come with safety features to enable users to cook food in a much safer way.
3) Use Layered Trays
The layered trays can be used as a smart medium to organize your multiple cooking tasks. You can use the layered trays to prepare multiple dishes at a time using microwave. Similarly, the tray can also be used to group multiple items in the oven. It will also be ease for you to bake fish fillets or French fries in a single batch. Also, you can easily microwave asparagus and steam rice at the same time. On the whole, the layered trays will save both energy and your time.
4) Properly Operate and Maintain the Refrigerator
Often the refrigerator has to work harder due to dirty condenser coils. The dirty condenser coils further make the kitchen hotter, while wasting energy. So you must check and clean the condenser coils of your refrigerator at a gap of few months. You can also save energy by closing the refrigerator door more promptly. It is also a good idea to decide the items you want to remove from the refrigerator, before opening the refrigerator door.
5) Maintain the Oven
Often a small gap in your oven allows a huge amount of heat to escape. So you must check the over at regularly intervals for cracks or tears in the door seal. The faulty door seal must be repaired or replaced immediately to save energy. At the same time, you also need to keep the oven clean to allow heat to be distributed throughout the over in a more efficient way. It is also a good idea to determine the proper temperature setting by using calibrating your oven. You can calibrate the oven by using any of the inexpensive oven thermometers available in the market. Once the over is calibrated, you can save energy by cooking food at the right temperature.

If you have an old kitchen, you can always consider revamping its look and feel completely. It is also a good idea to opt for professional kitchen remodeling services to make your kitchen both modern and energy-efficient.

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