Reina Mikla

My eco-challenge is focuses on heating and cooling my apartment naturally. My roommate and I have been working to reduce our electric bill before winter arrives, when we'll need to use more heat. So far we've had success with cooling; the weather hasn't been too cold, so we've been opening windows and using fans to keep air circulating around our space. Heating, however, has been more of a challenge. Since we live in a small two-bedroom apartment, there's not a ton of space to heat, which is helpful. We layer up with warm clothes when we get home, a few times even kept our coats on, and cozied up with blankets. In case we get too cold, we have a small, energy efficient heater instead of the main heaters in our rooms, which cuts down power usage. One unique way we've managed to warm the apartment is by taking advantage of our showers. The bathroom fan isn't working, so we shower with the door open. The steam from our hot showers heats up the apartment nicely.