I was driving around Dayton, Ohio looking for a nice house to buy. I was looking for a ranch thinking that it would be easier to maintain and easier to live in regarding green ideas such as solar panels, etc… I came across a site www.cabinfever.us.com and was very impressed. The company is based out of Florida and they basically can prefabricate a small cabin to a two bedroom home for example. They also do custom designs and send you everything you need such as nails and caulk. They can incorporate many energy green things such as tankless water heaters, gas powered appliances, solar panels, etc… Check them out. I also came across a company that is probably a bit more expensive at www.zeroenergy.com. Their designs seamed amazing. In Dayton, Ohio there is also a program where they are working with existing structures and building new with low environmental impact. You can find out more at www.litehouseliving.com. They have partnerships with local government agencies and a bank to help with financing. Some people say that it is difficult to finance a “green” home because many banks have cold feet regarding the technology and resale. Lite House Living took care of that by partnering with a bank that will finance one percent below market. How great is that?

The one constant throughout the year is that your refrigerator uses more energy than anything in your house. What do we use a refrigerator for anyway? Looking back at history it only really came into common use after WWII. Before that there were ice boxes, but those only exited for a relatively small time as well. Before that we simply did not use or need them. Many people simply had different practices. They would sometimes use spices to preserve things. They would go to market more often. They also practiced the art of canning. All of these things we can do today. Canning products are available today at just about any grocery store you go to. After making some observations I came to realize that about half of the refrigerator space is used for beverages. Do we need to refrigerate them? No. We only started drinking milk since about 1900. We could easily live on water only and be healthier for it. Guess what? Water does not need to be refrigerated! You certainly do not need a steady diet of pop in your life. The rest of the items could be purchase more often or you could buy different items that can be stored longer in a cabinet such as canned ravioli for example. If you do have to use a refrigerator, maybe you can buy one that runs off of propane. It is cleaner for the environment and will save you a lot of money in the long run. I believe most if not all of the original models of refrigerators ran this way. This picture is a propane gas refrigerator.

How does one do laundry without using energy from the grid? The same way you do dishes without a dishwasher. To do dishes you need a sink or tub to wash the dishes in and a sink to rinse them. Then you only have to put them on a drying rack or towel dry them clean. For laundry you just need two tubs. There are many designs you can by which are essentially two tubs side by side. Older homes actually have a double bowl sink made out of concrete for this exact purpose in the basements with wash boards built in. What you do is use one sink for washing the clothing with the laundry detergent. You can buy an agitator, but a regular toilet plunger works just fine. You then rub the clothing item on a wash board. After that you put it in the rinse tub to get the detergent off and run it through a wringer. The wringer typically gets more water out than the mechanized washer does at the end of the cycle. The final step is to put in on a clothing line to dry. Clothes do dry better when hung outside on a hot day. If you dry them in the basement it may take a couple of days to dry properly. This may seem extreme to some, but this is how most people washed clothes until about the 50′s and 60′s. Many still wash clothing this way today. The best part is that your utility usage for this entire process is zero. It does not get much better than that.   

 

Okay, you have lived your whole life with a water heater with a tank. This system looses a lot of energy. You can buy a heat blanket for it at a home improvement store to reduce the heat loss, but it is still a lot. They also have a limit to how much hot water they release. For example, if you have a smaller one and you have relatives over taking showers, you may find you are out of how water in the morning during the highest usage. These water heaters also have a live of about 10 to 15 years before you have to replace them. Tankless water heaters are not new. They have been used in Europe for many years. They are much smaller, about the size of a back pack, and they have no tank. They work on the idea of having the water run through a series of coils while it is being heated. The result is the heat is not lost while sitting in a tank and that it is essentially an unlimited supply of hot water. You can get them for both Natural Gas or Propane. I bought a Bosch one this year and hooked it to a 20 lb Propane tank. After about 8 months, I still have plenty of gas for hot water. The reason I chose the 20 lb tank was to avoid maintenace charges that the utility company charges their customers to maintain the gas lines. $19 to fill up the tank and it will probably last a year or two. I use it for my entire house! The heater also has a lifetime warrenty. The picture shows a tankless water heater next to one with a tank.

Often people overcomplicate things in an effort to grab on to the “latest thing”. This can work against us. One technology that we should embrace again is the use of rain barrels. You can really only use the water collected for watering your lawn and other vegetation, but this can account to 1/2 or 1/3 or your annual water bill. You can make your own or you can order them for about $100. You will also want a diverter. The way it works is that when the barrels are filled up, the water will then flow down the gutters. Most barrels are made from 55 gallon drums. I currently have two and I have never run out or water with the 110 gallon capacity. You can even attach several barrels in a row for more capacity. Even a half inch of rain on a small roof is often enough water to fill them to capacity. The best part of this water source is that it is free once you have the barrels. One thing you may not think about is that the water company does not really know how must sewage you use They simply take your water usage and times it times three. So the water you use to water your yard is overpriced by a factor of three.

In the beginning there was light.

I started this blog to share my story of how in 2009 I decided to save energy and the story ended with me in the center of a major metropolitan area with zero gas or electric from the grid. My journey actually stared years before when I got an energy audit of my house that was offered for free from the local utility company. I followed most of the recommendations. The easiest was changing the light bulbs to florescent bulbs which save a tremendous amount of energy. An entire floor of florescent bulbs uses about the same amount of energy as one older traditional bulb. I installed those in that house over 10 years ago and they still work just fine. I even moved them from that house to my present one. They are a bit more expensive, but they last a lot longer and also pay for themselves with the reduced electrical costs.