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Community Corner

Recent Rewards Winner and Long-Time Energy Saver

Mark and Susan Ragatz heard about the Live More, Save More program through a post on NextDoor.com, a private social network for neighborhoods. They received a $100 gift card for saving energy in their home and here are some energy tips they currently practice and shared with us “ I have been hanging my laundry to dry for years, I choose to do laundry based on the weather forecast, year-round.  This saves a LOT of energy/money. I also set up my laundry on a timer, to run overnight, during the low use hours. As we purchase appliances, we buy energy efficient.  We just replaced the hot water heater (the old one was 14 years old). We keep the house at 78-80 degrees in the summer, and use a whole-house fan to pull in the cool air as soon as the temperature goes down outside.  In the winter, we only heat at night if it drops below 52 degrees in the house.  During the day, it’s usually set to 64 degrees, and we turn it up a few degrees as needed.  We had the house zoned a few years ago, to allow us to heat upstairs and downstairs separately.  Almost all the bulbs in the house are CFLs or the new LED type. I used Styrofoam to insulate the garage doors, which has made a world of difference in regulating the temperature in there, and consequently, the rooms above it! Our vices are the extra fridge, and deep freezer.  We have boys of the ‘eating’ age, and I preserve much of the bounty from our summer garden, so we are saving a lot more money on food than it costs to run the freezer and extra fridge.  When the kids are grown and gone, I expect we won’t need it, but now it’s key!” Susan is a great example of how saving energy can be easy with a few changes in habits and low cost improvements to your home, which is what the Live More, Save More program strives to teach Livermore residents. Thanks for sharing your story with us Susan, we hope your husband enjoyed the family outing for his birthday courtesy of the $100 gift card to Livermore Downtown, Inc.  Happy birthday Mark, keep up the energy savings.

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