Most of the home improvement projects I’ve done around our home are one-time savings events. I’m doing the work once and saving money over hiring a contractor one time. There are a few projects, however, that continue to save me money even though I finished them years ago. In this post, I’ll share with you three DIY projects that still save me money well after the work has been finished.
1. Reverse Osmosis System. Lisa and I installed a reverse osmosis system under our kitchen sink back in 2012 and since then it’s saved us hundreds of dollars. Instead of purchasing bottled water or using a Brita, the reverse osmosis system has a dedicated tap that we use for drinking water, coffee, tea and even cooking pasta. How much money it saves depends on how much bottled water you’d normally go through, but here’s an example. If the average adult drinks 8 servings of 8 oz. of water per day and you have two adults in the house, that’s something like 120+ cases of bottled water in a year. If a case of Dasani costs $4, then that’s $485 per year in bottled water. The Whirlpool reverse osmosis system we installed cost $146 and will cost anywhere from roughly $99 to $133 per year to maintain (replacement filter costs). That represents a savings of approximately $339 the first year and $350 to $385 each additional year. Those numbers don’t even include water used for tea, coffee or cooking. That’s just drinking water.
2. A Whole House Surge Protector. How does a surge protector save you money? If you ever get a power surge or a power outage, your electronics can be damaged if they are not properly protected. The year we moved into our current home, we had three or four power outages. Before the power went out, the lights would flicker on and off for a few seconds. When that power is flickering, it could be going above and below the amount your electronics can safely handle and cause it to fail. One option to protect your equipment is to connect your computer to an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), which can usually filter out those power spikes as well as provide a backup power source to give you time to safety turn off your computer. An UPS is a smart idea for computers, but for the rest of your home a whole house surge protector can be a smart idea to help prevent damage to flat screen televisions and other electronics and appliances. It gets installed directly to your circuit breaker box and will filter out those power surges from affecting your home. It’s much cheaper to purchase and install a surge protector then to replace all of your electronics.
3. Outdoor Lighting Timer and LED Bulbs. By now, if you aren’t using LED or compact flourescent light (CFL) bulbs then you know that you are spending more for your lighting costs than you should. Despite the fact that we were using LED bulbs for our exterior garage lights, we were still wasting energy by having them on all day. We would try to turn them off in the morning and off again in the evening, but it’s an easy chore to forget. The longer the lights are on, the quicker they’ll burn out and there’s no reason for them to be on during the day. To correct this issue, we installed a lighting timer to automatically turn the lights on and off for us. It was fairly simple to wire up and now we don’t have to worry about it. The lights will last longer and we get the added security of a well lit house at night. Boom. Time and money saved.
How are your home improvement projects saving you money?
