Thursday, October 11, 2007

Be Green or Die

Here is what I do to try to be green (or to save energy which means the same thing these days)
  • recycle as much as I can, as provided by the city
  • made a compost pile
  • put plastic foil all over all windows during winter
  • insulated duck tapes underneath the house and in the attic with a "zipped blanket" over the entrance to the attic
  • gradually switching to cars with better MPG ... 50% there (34 MPG and 20 MPG)
  • do not use plastic bags in groceries - takes some thousands of years for them to degrade in the land fields and some barrels of oil plus 4 litters of Arab blood per million of them produced ... (my wife was instrumental in this switch)
  • I "smartly" use wood fireplace. It can help your heating bill ... (weekends and turn off your normal heat; install blower with fireplace as specified by manufacturer of the fireplace insert)
  • put down the thermostat to max 67 in the winter, 64 when we go to sleep
  • in the summer we shut windows covers to block the sun from heating up the inside
  • in the winter, I or my wife turns the thermostat 10 degrees lower before last one goes to work in the morning ... after I come back it will take around 15 minutes to get it back to comfortable levels ...
  • around 80% of our lights use energy efficient light bob

My heating bill in the winter was 40% lower in comparison to the previous year (based on consumption shown on the bill, not price which went up slightly, 5-15%)

It is the ECONOMY stupid!

Sincerely,
Shamick Gaworski

2 comments:

Zen said...

Excellent!

Shamick P. Gaworski said...

no, that's just all I can afford as of today

one day I'd like to have energy efficient appliances, thermal or heat pump, wood stove (not fireplace insert), solar panels on the roof, well built and insulated house strategically positioned and with "green" landscaping, two Priuses or some equivalent ...

but that takes lots of money ... maybe one day?

thanks for the comment