Probably the Coolest Article About Energy Usage Ever

Okay, you've just got to read this article:

How many cyclists does it take to power a hairdryer? The answer's 18, as one family discovered in a unique TV experiment

If everyone could see the impact of their energy usage so clearly, I think peoples' behavior would change so much more easily! Very Very Cool!

It All Adds Up

Not too long ago, we started looking over our energy bills for the past year. One year ago, we had a renter in our basement apartment (a 650 sq foot "mother-in-law" unit). This has been our first opportunity to compare our current energy bills from those of the same season when we had the apartment rented. What we discovered was pretty darn interesting. Our utility bill is half of what it was when we had our renter living downstairs. Yep, four people in a 1670 sq foot house upstairs use about the same amount of energy as one person in the apartment downstairs. I've always been a mite suspicious of those carbon footprint calculators on the web (although I think they're a great tool for raising awareness), because they typically make assumptions about our energy use based on our house and number of people living here. This is the first time I've had solid proof that energy-efficient everyday living practices can make a huge difference in how much energy we use.

The things we do are pretty simple - our house gets great natural light during the day, so we don't use interior lighting in daylight hours. At night, we turn off lights as soon as we leave a room. We turn off and/or unplug appliances that we aren't using. We try to use energy wisely (like making an entire pot of tea instead of once cup at a time). We hang clothes out to dry instead of using the clothes dryer, and open the dishwasher before it enters the drying cycle. Our clothes washer is an efficient front-loader that does a ton of laundry in one batch. We conserve water in other ways, like turning the shower on halfway instead of on full, and we set our thermostat to 58 in the winter (using a heat pump) and don't use air conditioning in the summer. Probably our biggest energy drain is our chest freezer, but that gives us the ability to buy local organic pastured meats, and store all of the berries and other fruits and veggies we grow and glean during the summer.

None of these things are particularly difficult or odious. We don't really feel deprived. We aren't living in left-field, or god forbid not showering to save water. Patchouli never enters our house and none of us particularly likes granola. But the little things do add up. Every year we try to add a few more of them to our pile of little sustainability stones. This last year we bought honeycomb blinds for many of the windows, especially the ones that get a lot of sun in the summer. Next year we'll try to add some more to the other windows. We're hoping that a homemade solar hot water heater is in the works for us sometime soon. We implemented the garage clothes-drying racks this winter which drastically reduced the amount we use the clothes dryer in this wet season. We changed out even more bulbs to CFLs. Incidentally, all of the light in the photo at the top of this post comes from two flourescents that are our main indoor lighting. We've changed them only once since we moved in eight years ago, now that's what I call efficient!

I'm excited to learn that all of our little efforts add up. I have friends, both on-line and in real life who are living the ultimate energy efficient lifestyles in off-the-grid or Net Zero homes. Right now, that's not in the cards for us, but it's great to know that making these smaller efforts can have a huge impact on our energy usage, and thus on our carbon footprint and overall environmental impact. I like to think that if regular ol' folks knew what a difference they could make (a family of four using less energy than one person!), they might be inspired to implement a few more changes themselves.

Tired of the Solar Run-around

Twice now we have committed fully to buying a solar system and twice it has not ended up on our roof. This last time, we actually had the panels in our basement, waiting to go up. Both times, we've been stymied by the lack of professionalism in the solar industry. Why is it that when we wanted to look into getting a new heat pump, we call the heat pump specialists in town, they set up an appointment, the guy shows up precisely at the time he says he will, takes a look at our system, gives us a run-down on what we need, and a bid with a solid date we can have the new system in place; yet when you start delving into the world of "alternative" energy, when you commit many thousands of dollars to a solar system, the guys from the solar company don't give you a straightforward bid, can't commit to a date, and never return your phone calls (the first time, six months went by without a phone call).

If you ask me, alternative energy will never gain credibility until the people working in the field stop running on rainbow time and start acting like professionals. Now I'm all for stopping to smell the roses and carpe diem and getting all Thich Nhat Han in the moment, but for heaven's sake not when someone is trying to depend on you to be reliable, straightforward, honest, and hardworking.

Right now, I'm just very very frustrated, and I still have no solar panels on my roof. We are researching the whole do-it-yourself angle, but then of course you don't get many of the monetary kickbacks from the utility (conveniently, their "approved" people have to put it in and certify it in order to get the monetary credits). We can definitely get a solar hot water gizmo on the roof by ourselves for cheap enough that it doesn't matter, but the solar PV is another story. My next research project will be looking into wind power.

How to Get Energy Efficient in a Hurry

Thankfully my family watched a movie in the basement the other night. And also thankfully my husband fell asleep downstairs and I wisely decided to not disturb him to come up to bed. I say thankfully because that was the night our hot water heater decided to give up the ghost and start leaking gobs of rusty water all over the place. My light-sleeping hubby managed to get up and turn off the water, mop everything up (albeit with some nice bath towels that are now destined for the dustbin), and avert a total disaster. But now we need a new hot water heater.

For years, we've been looking longingly at the tankless or on-demand systems. We first encountered them in Tanzania over a decade ago and wondered why we'd never seen anything so smart in the USA. Over here, we apparently think it's a good idea to keep warming gigantic tanks of water and expend electricity to keep them warm even when no one is using them. Eventually, we saw some gas on-demand heaters come out, but our house isn't hooked up to gas and we don't really want to do so. Now they have electric tankless water heaters that will manage enough water volume for a whole house, so that's what we're researching today. It's not an expenditure we were planning on making right now, but since opportunity has presented itself, it's a good time to get more energy efficient. Many of the new heaters will also work well with a solar hot water system when we eventually get one, so that's a big bonus as well.