how do you do 'green' at your house? hints, suggestions & warnings welcome

[NMDemDist2]

since I've moved here is what I have done to 'green' up my house

all CFL bulbs
composting
recycling (technically I did recycle in PHX but that was city pick up, out here I schlep it myself)
heavy drapes on drafty windows (and I'm gonna try the bubble wrap this winter to seal them better)
6 econo heaters cut down the LP gas consumption
bought an older car that gets great mileage instead of buying a newer car (less resources to use up an old car than buy a new one)
A/c never below 79 degrees
take my collection of canvas bags shopping (collected at thrift stores etc over the last couple years)



things I still need to do

make hot water cheaper
garden for veggies
rain barrels
buy a few chickens
put up clothes line


how do you practice your green lifestyle??

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

1. No where near as good as you, unfortunately.

We're trying, but we've got a long way to go.

I'm trying to cut down on house cleaning stuff -ergo using vinegar instead of chemicals.

We don't use any pesticides.
I line dry as much as possible, but we live in the Pacific Northwet so it's not always an option.
We feed the sheep all leftover food & we put very, very little down the garbage disposal.
I don't run the dishwasher until I couldn't fit another teaspoon in it & of course, I don't pre rinse.
CFL light bulbs.
Turn off the water always.
Turn off all lights, always.
Rarely, if ever turn on the A/C.
Heating is hard. We have lots & lots of windows & no way to have drapes or even thermo shrink. We have a wood furnace that's vented into the duct work. But wood isn't very eco friendly. :shrug:
We drive our cars until the engine falls out. And combine trips as much as possible. DH's fishing/crabbing extravaganza has cost us & the environment dearly.
We still stink at remembering to take our cloth bags, but as much as possible we just carry our stuff out without getting paper/plastic. The first times we told the clerk that we didn't need anything they just looked at us funny. Now it seems to be more the norm. I don't need a plastic bag for 6 or 7 items. That's what my mondo purse is for.
Keep tires inflated & cars tuned for better gas. I haven't had to fill up for at least 3 weeks & we live far from town.
Shop resell/thrift/& do without.
Shop online. That's kind of a crap shoot since ups has to deliver so I'm not sure if I'm helping the environment or not.

Glad you started this & I'm hoping to see more ideas.

:thumbsup:

[NMDemDist2]

2. tip on the canvas bags

they live in the car, not the house. when I empty them after shopping I put them in front of the door, or hang them on the doorknob, so I trip over them the next time I go out to the car. makes it easy to remember to grab them and stick them back in the car for the next time. if you already carry a 'mondo purse' take a look at these instead of canvas, you can keep them in your purse

http://www.organicbags.net/Stringbags.htm

and yes, I almost never buy new stuff except food of course. 95% of my purchases are resale/thrift store/ebay. about the only thing I buy new is underwear/socks

glass is your friend in the winter time if you have south facing windows and any sunshine. it helps heat the house in winter. I ran my econo heaters last year 24/7 for about $25 a month and used very little LP gas in exchange. the bad news on that is my current electrical provider uses lots of coal plants to make the power.

have you looked into a pellet stove instead of wood? they are fairly cheap and much less smoke/pollution. you can buy the pellets by the pallet load and most pellet stoves have a auto feeder so you only have to load the stove once a week or month.

as for online shopping, try to get the seller to use the Post Office, your postman comes every day anyway whether he's carrying one piece of junk mail or a box of goodies, right?

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

5. Shoot. We've set the bags on the floor board of the car &

still managed to forget to take them into the store. We're hopeless.

The glass does help in the winter. The third floor has 6 foot French windows that face south & it really can warm up the space. Plus, we turn on the whole house vent to get the warmth down to the first 2 floors. In the summer DH puts up an awning to cover it & provide shade & cut down on the heat.

DH installed wood/pellet/gas. He won't go with pellet. Plus, our electricity cuts out too much in winter for it to be a viable option.

I go with USPS if it's an option, but UPS is always in our neighborhood anyhow, so I don't think it's too bad. Certainly no worse than if I drove to the store, bought a present, came home, wrapped it, drove to USPS & dropped it off for them to deliver.

[NMDemDist2]

6. LOL i feel your pain on the bags. what I did was force myself to walk back out to the car

after a few of those, I started to remember

yeah, that's the downside of pellet stoves, and why I haven't installed one just yet either however a good stove will radiate heat for hours even with no power....

[NMDemDist2]

8. i talked to a guy at the pellet stove place who said for about $100

you can set up a backup battery to run the stove for 6-8 hours without power.

he said you need an inverter and a car or marine battery (and of course a trickle charger to recharge)

this is actually sounding pretty do-able now.....

or a generator would do the same thing

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

9. DH just won't go for it. He installed them

& just doesn't like them.

We also live on several acres & get a lot of wood for free from downed trees. And, our power has gone out for a week at a time. No joke. 18 degrees, gusts at 100 miles an hour & no electricity. Oh joy. Oh rapture.

[NMDemDist2]

11. yup, I don't blame him then, save your money for some solar panels

:hi:

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

3. I thought of a couple more. One in particular, I would like

thoughts on.

Of course, we recycle everything.
Front loader washer.
Sheep to mow the lawn.

This is the one that I'm not sure about: I bought a Eureka Steam Cleaner (I think that's what it's called) to clean the floors. On the down side it was $50 & it uses electricity. On the up side, I can clean my kitchen floor using one cup of water & no detergent. If I do it by hand it takes gallons & gallons of water plus some kind of cleaner. So I've never been sure if it's pro environment or anti environment or just a wash. :shrug:

[NMDemDist2]

4. what I do is use old diapers or bar towels on a 'Swiffer" type pole

they tuck in just like the throwaway sheets, but I can fill a bucket and rinse them out and reuse them again and again. and vinegar water can get thrown on the trees to save irrigation

I used to get 2-3 dozen of the towels at Sams or Costco (look in the automotive section) fairly cheap and use them till they're just shreds

[NMDemDist2]

7. Link/Cross Post in Energy forum for those who don't have a donor star

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=113821&mesg_id=113821

[roody]

10. Plug your electronics with remotes into a power

strip, then turn off the strip when not in use.

[NMDemDist2]

12. hubby refuses

says it will shorten the life of the electronics

:shrug:

[Kolesar]

13. That's what I do

Tell him an electrical engineer told you. I have actually pored over the schematics of my Panasonic 27" TV. Almost everything except the CRT/video tube is "ON" when the TV is in standby. I also "know" that there is no reason not to disconnect the power.

[Warpy]

14. You can make your hot water cheaper right now

by turning the thermostat all the way down. Nobody needs hot water near boiling. The lowest setting is adequate for all normal use.

Then, if it's accessible, you can insulate the tank. I didn't bother in my trailer since the heater was in its own little cabinet in the bathroom and the exterior walls were insulated.

[NMDemDist2]

15. done and done

it's down to 125 and I bought a blanket for it first thing

it's in a closet too, but it's access is on the outside

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

16. We can't cover ours.

Our WH has a warning label not to cover it with a WH blanket.

edited because the first response came across wrong.

[NMDemDist2]

18. maybe a timer? we had those in PHX and it helped a lot n/t

[OnionPatch]

24. But I find that the dishes don't get as clean

when the water is turned down. How do you deal with that. (Please don't tell me to wash them by hand....that is NOT going to happen despite any good intentions I can muster up.)

[NMDemDist2]

25. my DW has a 'hot wash' option that heats the water to a higher temp

it's a pretty standard option these days. they also call it "sanitize" but the bottom line is it heats the water to 160 or so....

[OnionPatch]

26. I guess my dishwasher is pretty old

I have a pots and pans setting that may do that. I'll have to check. Thanks.

[TygrBright]

17. Well, we got pretty lucky... the builders did a lot of it.

Our house is in a development that the City of Santa Fe owned the land for. They only release small parcels to developers who will build according to very high-level green standards. For example:

Everything in the house that CAN be Energy Star rated, IS... including windows, doors, etc.

The radiant downstairs heat and baseboard register upstairs heat run on seven separate zones, so during the few months we actually use the heat, we rarely have more than one or two zones upstairs active (we close the unused rooms off) and only one downstairs, which is really enough for the whole open-plan downstairs.

The house is built for passive-solar efficiency, sited on the lot and fenestrated to maximize winter sun exposure and with very cleverly angled window overhangs, etc., to minimize summer exposure. It's on an extra-thick slab and the downstairs floors are all large-size ceramic tile so those puppies soak up a LOT of heat on winter days-- we're chilly when we wake up but HOT by 2:00 PM.

Every plumbing fixture is low-flow, maximum efficiency and the hot water runs on an on-demand recirculating system that minimizes energy use. It takes a little while for the taps furthest from the pump to get hot, but the showers are close and heat up quite quickly.

In addition to that we've installed ceiling fans and solar shades so that we don't need to run the swamp cooler much even when it's pretty hot in the summer. And it's never set lower than 80 degrees.

I compost practically everything except meat scraps, since I'm trying to turn the adobe yard into something resembling soil.

I'm gradually changin' over the most-used light fixtures to CFLs.

I recycle everything the City will allow and take any usable discards that I can't re-use to one of the city's several thrift/recycle shops.

I use string bags and cardboard tray-type boxes for shopping.

I bundle all of my errands to Tuesday (Farmer's Market Day,) so I don't have to get the car out but once, and make my "rounds" as efficient as possible. Oh, yeah, and I drive a well-maintained '93 Plymouth that I won't let the esposo replace even if it does look tacky.

I'm working on getting the veg gardens installed, but at the moment am growing many of my own herbs in containers.

This year, better than 60% of our holiday gifts are going to be homemade, some recycling old fabric or jewelry or boxes, etc. so that I don't have to buy too many new materials. Most of the rest of the gift (the ones I can't make) will be stuff like gifts via Heifer International and similar charities, with a few gifts of things like fresh fruit deliveries or other stuff that can be eaten, hopefully without too much packaging.

I'm cutting down on and in many cases have eliminated entirely cleaning products that use creepy scary chemicals. Mostly I use vinegar, soda, ammonia, witch hazel, etc. BKF or Bon Ami for cleanser. Sometimes a little bleach solution in the kitchen.

I am trying to cut down on paper products use, saving rags and using them for a lot of cleaning tasks.

I don't buy a lot of new stuff-- I've bought some cookware this year, and some Land's End knit shirts for the esposo, a couple of other things, but mostly shoes, socks and underwear. I mend and patch stuff like bedding, trousers, etc. instead of throwing out and buying new. I fix or reconfigure or recycle busted stuff instead of throwing out, whenever possible. I wear aprons, coveralls, and old clothes when doing messy stuff, to keep my 'good stuff' in decent shape so it doesn't need to be replaced.

In the office, I keep discarded paper that's been printed on only one side in a stack and when I've got a bunch I cut it in fours and use those for "scrap" notepaper by the phones, etc. instead of buying pads. I keep the shreddings from the paper shredder for packing material-- you can wrap a few handfuls of it in clean newsprint for 'pillows' and stuff it in when mailing boxes, packages, etc.

I keep all the poly bags that food comes in-- bagels, veggies, etc., and use them for holding the scoopings when cleaning out the catbox. I use the larger ones for wastebasket liners in the "messy" wastebaskets.

There's probably other stuff, but that's what comes to mind at the moment. My stepfather always taught me a couple of things: 1. It's cheaper to do it right than to do it over; and 2. Use it UP, wear it OUT, make it DO.

thriftily,
Bright

[NMDemDist2]

19. sweet! that is the only thing I wish we had

a better house LOL

BTW how is the lasagna plan working on the soil, it's been a year now are you seeing results?

our next big purchase is new windows for the house which luckily is situated correctly on the land so we do OK on the sunshine in winter and summer...

another use for those plastic bags from the grocery is to bag the shredder paper for packing material but thanks for the tip on wrapping them in plain paper, I had never thought of that....

Lands End rocks doesn't it? hubby's knit shirts from them lasted ten years! :wow:

that's one thing I've noticed here in the south state, we NMicans don't throw anything out, we use it UP!! :rofl:

[youthere]

20. What we do now:

CFL Bulbs

compost our food scraps-or feed to the chickens (who are so appreciative they reward us with lovely eggs)

recycle...in fact, we just remodeled our kitchen and built in a terrific recycling center

collect rain water for the garden, houseplants and also for the rabbits and chickens

We use cloth towels for cleaning rather than paper towels..I keep a bucket in the laundry room full of soapy water, and we just throw them in there until I'm ready to wash a load.

Ditto on the napkins. I bought a "mega pack" of cheap washcloths that we use as dinner napkins. I have some nicer ones for special occasions, but for every day the washcloths work perfectly. I made sure they are a different color than the washcloths we use for showering, so we could keep them straight.

I make my own cleaning products whenever possible-lemon, vinegar, baking soda, ammonia or bleach pretty much covers the gamut.

Ditto on the beauty products..witch hazel, vitamin e, chamomile tea,hyrden peroxide and/or tea tree oil will pretty much solve any skin issue.

We use a front loading washer and hang out clothes to dry, either outside or in the basement-we strung up several lines a couple years back, since my washer and dryer were always down there. Since then we've remodeled and moved the laundry room upstairs so I really would like to put up one of those retractable clotheslines.

We use an outdoor woodburner in the winter. We have a lot of timber in our area so there's a great deal of dead wood to harvest. The woodburner heats water that runs into the house via underground lines (and also through our water heater so we always have plenty of that!) and into a heat exchanger on the furnace. We are planning on adding a corn or pellet burner to the furnace as well, but that will be down the road somewhere. The wood really saves us though. The first year we lived here (we moved here in February) we went through FOUR full tanks of propane (we're talking feb-april and that's with the heat set at 62). That summer we replaced all the windows and doors and the next winter we went through two tanks of propane all winter. The next year we put in our woodstove and now we do a minimum fill (250 gallons) every third year or so.

Everything we eat we grow ourselves or buy from local producers.

Several years ago we replaced all the doors and windows in the house with energy efficient ones. They helped a lot, but we still get drafts (it's an old house) so I sewed these thick roll down shades for all the windows out of an old comforter I found at goodwill. They attach/detach easily, so we put them up every winter to cut down on drafts. We keep them on the south facing windows year-round because it helps the cooling as well if we can block some of the heat beating in.
We planted deciduous trees along the south side as well...they aren't large enough to help with shade in the summer, but hopefully in a couple of year they will be mature enough to do some good. In fact we planted a bunch of trees around the yard..once mature, they should help immensely with cooling costs. The evergreens we planted as a windbreak are just now large enough to block a lot of the wind and snow we get.

And we are also canvas-bag shoppers.

We'd really like to eventually add that pellet stove, and also some solar panels to the house. We've talked about putting up a small windmill too because wind we got a lot of!

[NMDemDist2]

21. any suggestions on frugal water barrels?

I have 4 points from the roof that a water barrel would be a great idea but I'm not sure what kind of set up I need and don't want to put out a bunch of $$$$ on a guess

suggestions?

[youthere]

22. Well I got a great deal on mine...

My husband's cousin is a union painter so we got them from him for nothing...I don't have a clue where you would go to actually buy them...BUT 50 gallon trash cans would work terrific-and I don't think they are horribly expensive. You could also put out a "WANTED" on your local freecycle.

[NMDemDist2]

23. thanks. we really need new windows and we're hoping next spring

so that's another winter with the old ones. but our econoheaters kept us from having to turn on the gas furnace until Dec and we still didn't go through a whole tank (250 gallons) of LP last year which was a VERY cold one for around here. we moved in July of 06 and I've only bought 200 gallons so far but do need to buy another load before the cold sets in (we're at 20% in the tank)

the old owners had a winter they bought 4 full tanks, then they bought a pellet stove but they took it with them.