This iReport is part of an assignment:
Going green
About this iReport
 |
Posted May 2, 2008
by
|
Location
Middleton, Massachusetts
Middleton, Massachusetts
Assignment
 |
More from NewEnrgyWrks
Living Green and saving
We are doing all that we can to live a green lifestyle, and we are saving money too! What started with energy, and we found that the more natural you live, the more money you can save without being uncomfortable. Below, I provide details as to what we have done, and how it is working for us. Heating Costs- Total with renewable energy: $1900. Oil only: about $4200 (1200 gallons at $3.50/gallon). We bought our home four years ago, and the first changes that we made included new windows. We have three old windows remaining, and we use plastic to cover those in the winter-- This is a cheap and easy way to save heat if you cannot buy new windows! Our home is 2040 sq.ft., built in 1980. The house had a wood burning stove, so we chose to heat our home with cordwood- about 4 cords/year. We have since change to BioBricks (www.biopellet.net) and EnviBlocks (www.enviblocks.com) for this year, as they are cleaner, produce about 1/4 the amount of ash, easier to start, and produce less particulates than cordwood. Our main heat and hot water for the house is an oil boiler. It needed a new heat exchanger, so we used that opportunity to install a solar hot water system. I bought three used panels for $200 each, a hot water storage tank ($1800), and I performed the installation. The whole system cost us about $3000, including the plumber connecting the system with the boiler. 35% was returned by the federal tax credit (expiring this December!!) and also from Massachusetts. The result? Between the wood heat and the solar hot water, we used only 70 gallons of heating oil since last July, or about $280. Cooling For cooling during the summer, we are fortunate to have many trees around our house, but to keep the house cooler, we open the windows at night and use fans to push the hot air out of the upper-floor windows. Then, we close them during the day! Horizontal blinds can also help, keeping them slanted in a way that keeps the heat on one side (heat rises). We do not need any air conditioning. Electricity- our electric usage for our family of four is between 250 - 400 kWh/month ($30-40for our utility). For lighting, we have changed all of our lights to Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs), which use about 20% of the energy of a regular light bulb. The light quality of the new bulbs is much better than the older ones- you can hardly tell the difference. In cold weather, they can be dim. We have an electric stove, but we use the woodstove for cooking and tea/coffee in the winter and a propane grill in the summer for most of our cooking. We unplug anything that does not have an OFF swtich- most televisions, home theatre systems, stereos, portable radios, etc..... are using electricity eventhough they are not ON. This is called Standby loss and this adds to your electric bill. Our home theatre system is on a power strip with a switch. We try not to use the clothes dryer also: each load uses about 5 kWh of electricity and wears out your clothes fastter (www.laundrylist.org). Laundry- saving about $50/year As mentioned above, we use a clothes line, saving us about 40 kWh/month, or about a month's worth of electricity over the course of a year! Our clothes smell great, we can pull them down whenever we like (unlike a drier where they wrinkle), and our clothes are not being turned into lint. Far more convenient, less destructive, and cheap to operate! We are trying the new Cold-Water detergents, and they have been working well. You can wash hot and warm laundry in cold water with this detergent. Use regular detergent for cold water laundry. We also have a front-loading washer (bought used), which use half the water and half the detergent for larger loads. Transportation- 2003 Toyota Prius (45 - 60 mpg) and 1998 Volvo V70 station wagon (25 mpg) Prius is saving us about $1600/year at $3.50 / gallon. The Prius give us room for the whole family on trips to Canada for a week, shopping at Costco for the bulk of our groceries. We use the station wagon for heavier loads. I suppose if we needed something bigger, we could rent an SUV, but we have not come across any need in 8 years. The Prius gets less mileage during the winter months, as the batteries are cold and not used as much. This gives about 45 mpg in the 2003 model. In the summer, 60 mpg can be obtained easily. The newer and more common Prius gets slightly less mileage, as they have given the car more power, which costs efficiency. This should be thought about when considering a 200 HP car and a 400 HP SUV. Waste- We recycle everything and compost our garbage at home. Our throw-away material can fit in a 30 gallon drum over the course of two weeks, including diapers! This reduces the amount of waste that our town has to pay to dispose of, possibly reducing tax increases. Composting reduces disposal again, and it turns waste into fertilizer and carbon dioxide instead of the more damaging methane, which comes out of landfills. Methane is 22-times more "warming" than carbon dioxide. Food- We are buying our vegetables from a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) (http://www.localharvest.org/csa) over the growing season. CSAs produce mostly organic vegetables that are not shipped from across the country. This gives you a more natural and fresher vegetable. We buy most of our groceries from a "wholesale club"- most of these products have less packaging as they are packed in-bulk. This usually leads to lower pricing. We buy our milk, eggs, and ice cream from a local farm. A gallon of milk there costs us $2.76, and our farmer does not use any growth hormone in his cows. A more natural product for less, and it supports your local farmer! Lawn care- We have a Reel mower- the type you push around to cut the grass. These are great if your lawn is not too big. They always start, provide a great source of exercise, they are quiet, and do not take any longer than a small gas mower. They do not cut the grass as well, but its grass! For raking, I use a rake. Again, these are quiet, provide exercise, and use no fuel! It is something that can be done with the family too! In doing all of these, we produce a lot less carbon dioxide, and save a lot in costs. We have everything that everyone else does. Everyone cannot do all of these, but have a look and try some out. Take on more if you like how it works. The recent price hikes for food, electricity, and fuel are not worrying us either- we are saving enough to cover the costs of the increases.
- TAGS:
- planetinperil,
- environment,
- green,
- solar,
- hybrid,
- compost,
- recycle,
- costs,
- csa,
- wood,
- energy,
- global,
- warming,
- conservation,
- laundry
- GROUPS:
What do you think of this story?
Select one of the options below. Your feedback will help tell CNN producers what to do with this iReport. If you'd like, you can explain your choice in the comments below.
Be and editor! Choose an option below:
More from this assignment - Going green
iReport welcomes a lively discussion, so comments on iReports are not pre-screened before they post. See the iReport community guidelines for details about content that is not welcome on iReport.
© 2011 Cable News Network. 
Comments