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All bulbs are CFL. Almost all of my appliances are Energy Star rated. I line dry my clothes much of the year and use the quick wash on my front-load washer. I use space heaters and personal coolers whenever possible instead of the CAH. In the winter, my thermostat is set on 64; in the summer it's on 82. I use small appliances as often as possible to prepare meals rather than turning on the oven.
All our lightbulbs are CFL. We don't have central air conditioning (our house is too old, it would be expensive to install it, and in Boston we really don't need it). We do have Energy Star window units--but we use them only when it's so hot that it's uncomfortable (it's that hot in Boston maybe 2 weeks out of the year). We keep the thermostat as low as comfortably possible during winter. I drive two days out of the week (back and forth to work), and to do minimal errands (grocery 2x/week, approx.), take the dogs to the groomer (1x/month) or vet (1x/year), etc. We're fortunate that we have excellent public transportation (subway), so cars are really secondary to our lifestyle, anyway. We never have to drive far since everything we need is pretty much within a 10-minute drive from our house. We keep the water heater low, and try to be conservative with water use, in general. We switched to organic lawn care a couple of years ago--and organic lawns take MUCH less water. Also gets rid of the "need" for toxic chemicals (like weed-killer) that runs off when it rains into the sewage system and ends up in the ocean. Takes awhile for an organic lawn to develop--but it is SO worth it. In these parts, we only have our small "lawn" for a few months out of the year, anyway. We buy only "green," non-toxic household products (laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, floor cleaner, etc.), and only organic food (whenever possible) and only local (whenever possible), which helps support local farmers and doesn't contribute to the demand for products shipped long distances (BIG energy guzzling and crazy system). In the evening, we turn off all lights except the room we're in. That's all I can think of at the moment.
My house consumes more energy than the average American household does in an entire year. I cut a check for $24K per month to cover my electric and gas use. I'm really trying to do my part.
Just for the record. CFL's on average have about 5 mg of mercury. On the other hand thermostats for HVAC systems had somewhere around 200 times that amount. Let's work together.
Reality is that most of this "Green" is driven by those making money off it, not saving from it.
I have a cabin with a solar panel, bank of batteries, inverter that converts 12 volt to 110 AC. Very nice place to hide out at and enjoy a slow paced time.
The problems with creating a lot of this "Green" stuff is the hazmat they create when making them.
There is all sorts of tech's that are coming on line that will save us energy in the future, but they are mostly pipedreams for most people.
You can't stop drilling for oil, when there isn't anything ready to replace it and buying it from overseas is doing nothing but putting money in the banks of those that want to kill us....
I get a kick out of all the goofballs that want an electric car that only goes 50 to 100 miles before requiring a charge.... But they have no idea that it requires a power plant somewhere to charge it. But they don't want to build coal plants, drill for natural Gas, set up new nuclear power plants or flood a valley to make a dam to produce hydroelectric power.
Getting a hybrid car that goes 50 miles before the "Gas" engine has to start to charge the batteries isn't any better. A good KIA will get the same mileage at a third of the purchase/maintance costs. Very few people drive city all the time. Not to mention that the hybrid will need to have new batteries after a few years and that is a "Hazmat" issue again, and heavy cost to boot.
There is a good reason to be "Green", but it doesn't seem to be as cheep to do as claimed.
IFC foundation walls, R49 ceiling and R22 walls. Wood stove for heat, front load washer, Marathon water heater. CFCs in commonly used rooms where lights are on long enough to justify the warm up time. Carpool to work most days. Diesel P/U for longevity and FE. No organically grown food (too expensive and yields too low). None of this is to be "green", just part of being cheap.
Just for the record. CFL's on average have about 5 mg of mercury. On the other hand thermostats for HVAC systems had somewhere around 200 times that amount. Let's work together.
Those thermostats last quite a lot of years. In fact, at lot of them are still working just fine 40 years later. However, thermostats with mercury switches can be replaced with electronic thermostats that contain no mercury.
The initial cost of CFL's is high, and disposing of it properly is high, too. Most people probably toss them in the trash can, while dropping one that breaks to pieces spreads minuscule droplets of mercury (gas form). To make matters worst, unless the vacuum cleaner is an official HEPA one (with the proper HEPA filter), vacuuming the mercury translates to dispersing it around for the rest of the family to breath. CFL's are a 2-edge sword, but they do use little electricity.
1. CFLs virtually everywhere.
2. Seer 14 AC.
3. Energy Efficient (low e-coating) windows.
4. Energy Star appliances.
5. Solar powered landscape lighting.
6. LCD television (as opposed to Plasma)
7. 70-72 degree heater setting during winter daytime and 66-68 at night. 78 degree ac setting (80 at night with ceiling fan on).
8. Attempts to maximize mileage from my cars (by 15-20%) regardless of gas prices, often also avoiding peak hour traffic.
9. Car pooling to work with a friend.
10. Reusable grocery bags.
11. Minimal lighting inside the house.
12. Shorter wash cycles for dishwasher and fewer washer/dryer loads.
CFL's where we can - now I'm looking at LED for some of our lighting.
Evaporative cooling ("swamp cooler") during most of the hot weather, AC set at 80+ during monsoon.
Recycling paper, aluminum, & plastic, including recycling aluminum castings from our business. Our business is all about salvage, so that's recycling, too.
We combine trips to run errands and rarely need to make separate trips for groceries, etc.
Carrier Pickup for most of our shipping saves us gas.
Energy Star appliances, all new or almost new.
Short cycles on dishwasher, air dry dishes. Same with washer - wash runs either cold/cold or warm/cold, depending on need, line dry. In Tucson, that takes about 20 mins.
I turned off my TV 13 mos ago sick of pundit noise but its a nice vacation until sanrene gets chatty. I think I'll keep it off even if I got an extra reprieve with rabbit ears and 2 channels LOL. Laptop- this one appliance goes farther for me esp multitasking. Morning papers, radio, mail, research research research... it doesn't make coffee yet but someone at sharper image is scheming I just know it.
I'm remodeling a home that needed updating to this century. They had no insulation in those days. I've completely insulated not only with batt, but added layers OSB, housewrap, fan fold, used reflectex on the southern exposure of the house. Added 4 mill plastic inside over batt for northern and western exposure walls for prevailing winds. Total walls are R-21(?) after siding. Attic is R-38 with room to add blow in layer.
I saved some old cedar plank to build an experimental shed this summer. Rice hull insulation with diatomous earth added. I want to see how it performs 4 seasons before using it directly on a home structure. Indian head moths are the only thing known to consume/nest it, but diatomous earth is like razor wire for insects. Rice hulls class a fire, low settling, low moisture (silica) and are waste stream for rice plants.
I recycled the old windows to build a cold frame garden to extend my growing season. Saved seeds from produce last summer and I just picked up some peat pots for sprouting.
The heating system is an old floor furnace that was serviced for winter so I didn't waste more than I had to on inefficiency. Dimplex space heaters make up the difference in odd spots. The coldest cycle of the day is a bit before dawn, so if I cook something larger in the oven about an hour after sunset the residual heat kept that side of the house warm overnight. Summertime I barely use the stove at all and prefer a convection oven or nuwave oven on the countertop. Either way supper schedule offsets heat/ cold.
Heat system is getting replaced with a fully zoned hydronic system installed from ceiling access directly to the subfloors of 100 yr old floors so I minimize waste & preserve the character of the house. Easy access for inspection using tin ceiling instead of drywall planning murphys law. The system can optionally be run on 3 different systems-- electric hot water heater, gas hot water heater, and an augmentation system of solar hot water panels that piggy back into the main. This means daylight hours, any heat on my roof will be captured by the roof panel and sent to my hot water heat system for direct use.
The system also offers a passive cooling capacity in summertime because cool water will run through those pipes picking up residual heat everytime a toilet is flushed etc. No stagnant water issues in direct system.
I added windows that would maximally catch the breeze on my hill because I don't like ac much, but one window I did beef up the framing for supporting a large unit strategically (top of the stairs window) to cool the whole house if heat wave conditions came this way.
Windows are low e. 1 & 1/2 cases of caulk for all of them. . Found a huge loss of heat between fireplace masonry and stickbuilt wall- solved that with the blue foam roll insulation used as ledge seal for window installs. Sealed it up better than canned foam & better bang for the buck overall. No water wicking from stone=no potential mold. Did the CFC bulbs, 60 watt equivalent-- I got the bulbs that look like real bulbs, and yellow bulbs do keep bugs away. I made the error of motion sensor flood light in CFC-- that doesn't work because it takes too long to fully light- defeating the point of a security light. I trimmed back a tree that kept triggering it off & went back to a regular bulb for that one. Christmas lights were replaced with LED this year.
A wood floor that requires replacement will be cork flooring, if I can get around to that end of the to do list.
Construction debris- find a useful home for materials. So far I've kept apx 80% of it out of the landfill. Materials with useful life can be offered up to habitat for humanity, posted online through groups like freecycle, metal scrappers, and of course the handyman around the corner. Tommorow someone will be picking up my drywall scraps to repair water damaged wall in their home. Mortar scraped out of bricks needing repointing I've recycled into a retaining wall.
Appliance home work-- CDR recomended affinity front load washing machine. I didn't get the matching dryer because of the $500 price difference in available dryers. Clothes line + better water extraction of washer= the cheaper scratch and ding dryer with moisture sensor function won't be needed as much even in winter. Maximum water extraction preserves clothes longer, commercial grade bock centrafuge couldn't pay for itself unless I had a family of 6 so this was best cost effective arrangement I could assemble. One less electric monster to feed as well.
Got rid of microwave-- kills too much nutrition in food & never liked them anyhow. Another plug out of the wall.
Avoid passive juice. Just because it's off doesn't mean it isn't consuming (think of it like a leaky faucet of electricity). .
Great source of info on electric ... http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cooling.html
THE best blog on alternative energy experiment is an epic tale well worth reading //www.city-data.com/forum/tenne...tennessee.html
geez... why am I up this late? alright I'm shutting up now. <pulls plug>
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. Found a huge loss of heat between fireplace masonry and stickbuilt wall- solved that with the blue foam roll insulation used as ledge seal for window installs. Sealed it up better than canned foam & better bang for the buck overall. No water wicking from stone=no potential mold. Did the CFC bulbs, 60 watt equivalent-- I got the bulbs that look like real bulbs, and yellow bulbs do keep bugs away. I made the error of motion sensor flood light in CFC-- that doesn't work because it takes too long to fully light- defeating the point of a security light. I trimmed back a tree that kept triggering it off & went back to a regular bulb for that one. Christmas lights were replaced with LED this year. 
