Energy Showdown finale
The 2010 Energy Showdown is now officially over and we kinda won! Okay, we didn’t win the grand prize, but we won the 3rd and 4th quarter prizes, saved about $300, and expect to save more in 2011. As a whole, participants reduced usage by over 11 megaWatt-hours (that’s over 11,000 kWh!). Since Indiana’s electricity is produced almost entirely by coal, that’s a reduction of 22,000 lbs of CO2!
At the SIREN meeting this week, some of the other families talked about their experience in the showdown. One thing that struck me was the diversity. The 1st quarter winners were a married couple who’ve been slowly improving their house over the past 5-6 years. The 2nd quarter (and eventual overall) winners were a family of four, who didn’t want to make any significant lifestyle changes. The 3rd and 4th quarter winners were us, who have pretty good habits, but were willing to try some pretty crazy stuff.
Despite our willingness to try things out, in the end, we didn’t have to do anything particularly difficult. Getting a new refrigerator was painless, as was caulking and sealing areas around the windows. Line drying was sometimes annoying, but wasn’t particularly bad. We’ve decided that 56 degrees is too cold, but we’ve discovered that we’re comfortable at 59.
I think that the biggest obstacle for most people to reduce their consumption isn’t the difficulty or discomfort, but the fact that usage is pretty much invisible. There are so many things that use electricity, and in such a hidden way, that it’s really difficult to know what your biggest energy hogs are. From the perspective of activities, it’s also difficult to know what things cost. How much electricity do you actually use to watch a movie? What if it’s streaming through a computer? How does that compare to playing video games? It’s hard to tell.
I think that if people had a sense of how much electricity (and money) they could actually save by changing their behavior, they’d do it. If my non-eco friends found out that it cost twice as much to watch a movie on TV as through their laptop, I think a lot of them would switch. I’ve talked about this some before, but I think it bears repeating. It doesn’t take crazy lifestyle changes or lots of money to make a significant dent (over 20%) in usage. You just have to spend the time to make the consequences of your activities more visible, at least to you. One way to start is to use a Kill-A-Watt to identify the appliances in your house that are the energy hogs (e.g. refrigerator, space heater) and look at the Energy Star ratings to know what benefits you might get from upgrading - as well as thinking about cutting usage entirely if you can (e.g. ditch that extra refrigerator in the garage).
It’s also extremely useful to track daily electrical usage overall to get a sense of your normal usage. This helps capture some of that hidden electrical usage – like water heaters, dryers, and furnaces that don’t plug into regular outlets – and also gives a baseline for comparing when you make changes. If you lower your thermostat from 59 to 56, how much energy do you save? We found it saved about 0.5 kWh/day and decided that wasn’t really worth it for the added discomfort. What if you line dry your clothes instead of using the dryer? We found it saved nearly 6 kWh/use and decided that was TOTALLY worth it (although we still sometimes use the dryer when it’s raining or freezing outside).
There are a lot of painless ways to reduce electrical usage but it can be hard to know where to start and which changes to embrace. With that in mind, Maggie and I are preparing to teach a class in energy conservation through People’s University (a city program where anyone can offer a class for their fellow citizens) and we’re also planning to publish an e-book for people who want to try it at home on their own. The class will meet two hours a week for four weeks and have homework assignments in between – like tracking daily electrical usage at the meter and measuring the most commonly used appliances with a Kill-A-Watt. Our biggest goal will be teaching people how to study their own electrical usage and figure out the best way to cut back, since it’s different for everyone. Sure, we can all do a better job turning off the lights when we leave the house and making sure our houses are well-insulated but there are a lot of other small changes to be made and we want to help people understand which will work best for them.
If the Energy Showdown participants in Bloomington were able to reduce energy usage by 11 megaWatt-hours in a year, just think of what it could look like if we all made an effort! And you don’t have to turn off your water heater or your air conditioning, we promise.
I’ve been in Niger for almost a week and I’m starting to adapt.
From there, it was all dirt roads or total cross-country travels.
Our first group was about four female giraffes and three juveniles around 5 months old.
Giraffes eat something like 80 different kinds of trees, most of which have thorns.
Our second encounter was with a mother and her calf, who the guide thought was less than 10 days old.
After a long period of gawking, we headed back to the front gate to drop off our guide.
Niger is going to see some major changes in the next few decades as the population matures.
Fellow blogger 
Today is the 
On Monday, Will got a new toy in the mail. It’s an infrared thermometer and it looks a lot like a price scanner or a space age neuron gun. You point it at an object, pull the trigger, and it tells you what temperature it is. Will has had hours of fun testing the temperature of various surfaces around our home. I’m not quite as entertained but I do appreciate that it will help us identify heat leaks in our ductwork, walls, windows, and attic access panels (Will measured a 20 degree difference between the ceiling in the main room and the access panel to the attic - pretty alarming).
Yesterday we sold our little playhouse shed, which meant we got to watch a guy come and load it on a special kind of tow truck to take it away. I still feel slightly guilty for not figuring out a way to put it to use but it had been sitting empty for two years so it was time to let go. The dog is still a little confused as to what happened but we figure she’ll lose interest now that there are no longer mice and skunks and other critters hiding out underneath. (We thought she had excavated some major tunnels under the shed and were expecting a sort of underground labyrinth to be revealed but apparently she only dug out the minimum needed to squeeze her body under the boards.)
Okay, our solar furnace is actually installed! Now if only it were cool enough to want to use it… Still, that will come in time and for now we’re excited to show it off. Here are some basic pictures of the final product; we’ll post pictures of the actual construction further down the road when we have caught up with ourselves (ha!).
One thermostat is mounted on the wall and lets us decide how hot we want our house to be (it cranks up to 90!). The other is located inside the panel and makes sure the panel is hot enough to heat up air as it passes through. We had it on for an afternoon right after it was installed and it gets amazingly hot. We could totally set up a sauna in our living room if we wanted.
Guess what?!? We were chosen to have a solar air heater installed on our house as a demonstration project sponsored by the 
Every year I say “This is the year I will seriously garden” and then I get distracted. However, every year I get a little better. This year I had a nice spring crop of peas and lettuce and kale, transplanted out a healthy batch of tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries, and then planted a nice selection of melons, beans, corn, and basil.
But it doesn’t look very pretty. Happily, I have very tolerant neighbors who don’t seem to mind as long as it doesn’t get into their yards. (I suspect a few of them are secretly pleased that the deer have been enjoying the unfenced areas of my garden rather than theirs.) I’m hoping to clean it up a bit over the next few weeks and start some fall crops. Now is the time to sow spinach, peas, kale, radishes, beets, and cold-season lettuce to harvest in the fall.
Will and I spent a pleasant hour in the hammock a few weeks ago talking about project ideas for the house. He’s been especially focused on energy savings and was very excited about the idea of building a solar shower. I have many fond memories of outdoor solar showers but the ones I have used in the past involve solar water panels, plumbing, welding, privacy screens, and several other features that would challenge my handywoman skills. Ever practical, Will suggested that rather than plunging into a new construction project, we should pick up a simple camp shower and try it out so we could go ahead and turn off our hot water heater.
After that first shower, I cut the tube into a short piece so now I can stand under it comfortably (Will has to duck a little). We put a piece of indoor/outdoor carpet under the shower so it doesn’t get too muddy. It’s still a bit of a pain to fill, heat, and hang the bag but it’s doable. Actually, the biggest challenge is keeping the water comfortable instead of scalding hot. The solar shower heats up too well some days and we have to add cold water.
