Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
HOUSTON -- It is bad enough that gasoline is hovering around $4 a gallon, but the ethanol blend of gas pumped into many cars - containing up to 10 percent of ethanol - is also causing problems.
Which was concerning news to motorist Lakesha Lewis.
“Actually, I thought it was supposedly better,” said Lewis.
Experts KHOU-TV spoke to said, not necessarily.
Consider a car sitting in the David McDavid Nissan's repair shop.
The driver had problems starting it and that did not surprise mechanic Billy Deremer.
He said the ethanol-blended gas does not burn as well as fuel without the additive. As a result, the vaporous residue has gunked up a good car.
“It doesn't break down as good, so more carbon deposits are inside the intake (valves),” said Deremer.
And fixing it isn't cheap. Deremer said the cost to get your engine back up and running after the gunk could be $650 to $1,000.
Then there are the high-end cars serviced by Silvio Bucheler. He said the ethanol-blended gas is wreaking havoc with BMWs, Mercedes and Audis that he services.
“It just dirties up the oil quicker, therefore you have to change to oil more often,” said Bucheler.
And if the oil isn't changed?
“You get that sludge build up. It clogs the lube ports, the ventilation system,” said Bucheler. “It can ruin an engine.”
And no one wants that, especially from a fuel that was supposed to help us all pay less for gas.
