Going Green

At our house, we've recently become fascinated by the Planet Green channel on TV. We like to watch Living with Ed, where Ed Begley Jr is on a continuing quest to tweak the everyday encounters with electricity that we all have into a more green, planet friendly form. After watching the show for a while, we made some changes in our daily lives that have resulted in our electric bill being cut in half from what they were a few months ago.

Some of the changes we have made are: changing our light bulbs from incandescent to fluorescent bulbs. The next generation of screw-in fluorescent bulbs is here, they are more roundish than the older ones which look like a cross between spaghetti strings and a soft serve ice cream cone. You know which ones I mean! The light is a bit blue and faint when you first turn it on, but in a minute or so you can't tell the difference from incandescent. We turned off all of our outdoor lighting, which was nice to look out at, but not necessary. We also cut our pool pump run time in half, which didn't seem to affect the water quality at all. We make a conscious effort to unplug our TV's, phone chargers, and any small appliances when not in use that are otherwise just sitting there sucking juice all day.

We learned about solar tubes, shown above. Michael recently cut a circular hole in our garage roof and inserted this tube, which allows daylight to come through some sort of a prism which makes the area under the tube really bright. It looks like there is a light on, but you can't find the switch to turn it off. Very cool.
Yesterday, we had a solar hot water system installed. As we live in South Florida, it seemed a smart way to go. It is sunny for at least part of every day here. I took this photo nearly at dark, when they had just finished the install. We actually got money back from the state, a tax rebate, and an incentive from the company that installed it so that the final cost to us was very reasonable and will pay for itself in several months' time. My husband cautioned me that we will not be able to regulate the temperature of the hot water, and that we must be careful to mix it well with cold water so we don't get burned. He said we would'nt need to boil water for tea any longer, it would be hot enough right out of the tap! I woke up this morning all ready for a hot shower, with water heated by the sun. I stood under the tap and...well, lukewarm would be a generous way to describe the temperature of the water. Since they finished installing it last evening, there was no sunshine to heat it overnight and therefore my tepid intro to the world of solar heated bathing. It was sunny and 80 degrees all day today, so will hope for a warmer shower tomorrow morning. And of course, a nice cup of tea!