Elree Canty, of Black Hills Energy, talks to Webster City Chamber of Commerce visitors who toured the new Black Hills Energy facility in Webster City Thursday morning.

Elree Canty, of Black Hills Energy, talked

Elree Canty, of Black Hills Energy, talks to Webster City Chamber of Commerce visitors who toured the new Black Hills Energy facility in Webster City Thursday morning.

BH employee, Lynn Porter, talks with visitors

Another BH employee, Lynn Porter, talked with visitors.

Here are some energy-saving tips shared by Black Hills Energy in time for Earth Day, which is today:

Stewardship through trees

A well-placed tree helps save on your energy bill, and is just one way we help our customers with energy saving solutions.

If you are a BH Iowa customer, its Power of Trees program provides tree-planting opportunities to communities and organizations in Black Hills Energy Iowa service territories.

The annual grant program is made possible through a partnership with Trees Forever. If your community is interested in tree-planting projects, applications and details are available at treesforever.org/power-of-trees and are due Nov. 1.

Know your appliance use

s Only do dishes once a day. It may be more efficient to do one dishwasher load a day than to wash your dishes by hand three times a day.

s Lowering your water heater temperature a few degrees can save on energy usage. With a dishwasher, you need a setting of about 140 degrees.

s Don’t crowd your dishes. Don’t block the spray arms when you load.

s Clean food off dishes first. Before loading, scrape off dishes and rinse them quickly in cold water.

s Don’t run your dishwasher when there are only a few items in it.

s Don’t use the rinse-hold cycle. It uses three to seven gallons of hot water.

s Air dry your dishes. You can save 10 percent of the cost of operation with this tip. If your model doesn’t have an automatic air dry switch, turn off the heated dry option.

s Don’t keep your refrigerator or freezer too cold. Recommended temperature is 37 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit for the fresh-food compartment of the refrigerator and 5 degrees Fahrenheit for the freezer section. If you have a separate freezer for long-term storage, keep it at 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

s Try not to pack too full. An overly full fridge reduces the efficiency.

s Defrost refrigerators and freezers regularly. Frost buildup decreases the energy efficiency of the unit. If you have a manual-defrost refrigerator or freezer, don’t allow frost to build up more than one-quarter of an inch.

s Make sure your refrigerator door seals are airtight. Test them by closing the door over a piece of paper or a dollar bill so it is half in and half out of the refrigerator. If you can pull the paper or bill out easily, the latch may need adjustment or the seal may need replacing.