What are you doing to conserve?

What are you doing to conserve?

I like Judity and Anne's comments about conserving. If a bunch of us post
what we are doing to conserve energy, maybe each of us will get more ideas.

We have two cars - drive the more economical one more now. For example,
going to a wedding in a couple of weeks, 2000 mile trip. Will drive the
one that gets 34 mpg on the highway versus the one that gets 21 mpg.

Home savings:

Xeriscaped lawn - rocks and a few shrubs, evergreens, and trees for color.
Automatic drip system for watering on a timer.

Low flow toilets.
Water saver on shower head.
Turn water heater temperature down.
Put TVs, VCR, and DVD player on a power strip. Turn off with that when not
using.

Home is very well insulated, so almost never run the central heat. Wife
heats living room first thing in the morning with gas fireplace. Computer
and monitor heat my bedroom office.

Ceiling fans in all bedrooms and office for air circulation for comfort.

Have replaced all the lights in the house with CFLs, including table lamps.
This required replacing globes in six ceiling lights. Also replaced outside
porch and garage lights with CFLs. Bathroom lights above vanities now have
3 CFLs each. They are all completely exposed - not very
pretty, but cost efficient.

Purchased a "Kill A Watt" current tester on eBay for about $21. I was
amazed at how much electricity a TV uses even when turned off.

The city put recycle bins behind Manzano Mesa Multigenerational Center,
three blocks from my house, and I take all my used cardboard boxes there.

That's all I can think of. I hope many contribute to this idea.
--
Neal
> Keep your words soft and sweet ~ Just in case you need to eat them
>

Re: What are you doing to conserve?

Wow, you've done a lot.

I haven't done much recently, mostly because I did a lot of the stuff
you mentioned earlier. Just about all of my light fixtures have CFLs.
The only one that doesn't is the fan in the master bedroom, and that's
because my husband thinks we should use the bulbs made for fan lights; I
think CFLs would work just fine, but this is one battle I don't feel
like waging. We do have a lawn, but the parking strips have low-water
plants without grass. My car is a Honda Civic coupe, not hybrid, that
gives me between 30 and 33 mpg, and I'm combining trips to minimize
driving as much as I can. Anaheim started curbside recycling many years
ago, and we're to the point where our recycling bin is full to
overflowing most weeks - I have 2 in case it spills over too much - with
the regular trash one only having 1 grocery bag of kitchen waste, 2
small trash bags from the bathrooms, and cat litter in it most weeks,
and I try to use Biobags or recycled plastic bags for this.

Recently we've installed a tankless water heater so the water only gets
heated when we need it. We finally got air conditioning in the house
last year - in SoCal a/c is kind of necessary to survive the heatwaves -
with an ultra high-efficiency model to minimize power use; our electric
bill was only about $60 a month higher than normal over the summer when
the a/c was kicking on pretty much 24/7. We also replaced the heater at
the same time to a high-efficiency model, and I've noticed that our gas
bill has been lower this winter than previous years. We have a low-flow
shower head, and we just replaced both toilets with low-flow - 1.2
gallons per flush - models. I've also started using reusable bags when
I do my grocery shopping. The last thing I did was put up a retractable
clothesline in my backyard so I can air dry sheets and towels. It's not
long enough for a full load of clothes, though, and I'd like to put up
at least one more so I can decrease the number of times per week I use
my dryer; just by hanging the sheets and towels I'm cutting out at least
5 dryer cycles per week.

Ultimately I'd like to get double-paned windows and solar panels, but
those will wait a bit longer; gotta recover from the other home
improvement stuff first.

The Other Kim
kimmeratsoylentgreenfielddotcom

"Neal" <nealbrown1@msn . com > wrote in message
news:657g2aF2ehqgmU1@mid.individual . net ...
>I like Judity and Anne's comments about conserving. If a bunch of us
>post what we are doing to conserve energy, maybe each of us will get
>more ideas.
>
> We have two cars - drive the more economical one more now. For
> example,
> going to a wedding in a couple of weeks, 2000 mile trip. Will drive
> the one that gets 34 mpg on the highway versus the one that gets 21
> mpg.
>
> Home savings:
>
> Xeriscaped lawn - rocks and a few shrubs, evergreens, and trees for
> color. Automatic drip system for watering on a timer.
>
> Low flow toilets.
> Water saver on shower head.
> Turn water heater temperature down.
> Put TVs, VCR, and DVD player on a power strip. Turn off with that
> when not using.
>
> Home is very well insulated, so almost never run the central heat.
> Wife heats living room first thing in the morning with gas fireplace.
> Computer and monitor heat my bedroom office.
>
> Ceiling fans in all bedrooms and office for air circulation for
> comfort.
>
> Have replaced all the lights in the house with CFLs, including table
> lamps. This required replacing globes in six ceiling lights. Also
> replaced outside porch and garage lights with CFLs. Bathroom lights
> above vanities now have 3 CFLs each. They are all completely
> exposed - not very
> pretty, but cost efficient.
>
> Purchased a "Kill A Watt" current tester on eBay for about $21. I was
> amazed at how much electricity a TV uses even when turned off.
>
> The city put recycle bins behind Manzano Mesa Multigenerational
> Center, three blocks from my house, and I take all my used cardboard
> boxes there.
>
> That's all I can think of. I hope many contribute to this idea.
> --
> Neal
>> Keep your words soft and sweet ~ Just in case you need to eat them
>>
>
>