Global Warming and Related Stuff
I thought this was a very interesting document. Even back in 1996, the the energy industry believed that global warming had a human cause, but decided to protect profits instead.
On a related note, we've been working on ways to make our new home more environmentally friendly, but there's a ways to go.
There are a lot of little things you can do to reduce your impact, and we've been working down the list, with mixed success.
Lighting
We've done a lot of thinking about lighting. We're okay with CFL bulbs -- I've found the spectrum the high-end bulbs give off is generally as good as the "true color" incandescents, and you can drop the frequency a good deal by adding a good light shade to it so that it looks like a redder incandescent bulb if you want. That said, they're kinda problematic with the mercury and all, and we'd been looking into even more energy-efficient LED bulbs. Sadly, we can't afford the significant outlay for those yet, so we're going the CFL route.
We're running into some trouble, however. You can get decent CFL bulbs in a 4- or 5-pack... assuming you're going for the standard-sized bulbs. This is fine for most apartments and all of our college lighting, but the house is full of medium-to-high-end fixtures that take strange sizes. The chandelier in the dining room takes standard medium-size bulbs, which is great, but all of the upstairs fixtures have intermediate sockets. I'd never even seen one before, and they don't make CFL bulbs in that size. We'll have to shell out $20-$30 in socket reducers in order to use those double-priced candelabra CFL bulbs. (We could get a socket expander, but this makes the bulb stick out of the shade.)
We'll probably slowly -- very slowly -- switch over to LED bulbs as they become available. Right now the only trustworthy vendor we can find for them is freaking Thinkgeek. Great shop, but not where I expected to by my mundane necessities from.
Water
We have wonderfully strong water pressure here, but there's a limit to how good that is for you. Trying to run water on your toothbrush in the upstairs sink resulted in the toothpaste being blown off of your brushing utensil by the ridiculous forces at work. Upon further inspection, the sink was running at an absurd 2.2 gallons per minute (gpm), and the kitchen sink is higher than that. Typically you want 1 gpm in the bathroom and 1.5 in the kitchen (or maybe 2). We were really interested in ultra-low-flow faucet aerators that use pressure to provide a fairly strong flow while reducing faucet flow to .3, .5, or .7 gpm. We found a few very expensive ones online from not-very-reputable sellers, so we went and visited Lowe's and Home Depot. To our great disappointment, our local Home Depot didn't sell anything below 1.5 gpm, while Lowe's had a replacement aerator insert at 1.0 gpm. We ended up using that for the bathroom, which I'm not thrilled with, but at least it was cheap. It should probably pay us back in saved water bills over the course of the year. Not to mention costs due to loss of toothpaste! We haven't yet done anything with the kitchen sink.
We seem to have a water-efficient toilet. Shannon tried the "add a plastic bottle to the tank" trick to reduce outflow, and the toilet promptly clogged a few days later. I'm of the very firm opinion that one should buy nice things that don't break so you don't have to bother with them -- in this case, I'm a fan of eventually replacing the existing toilet with something a little more "high-tech" -- I hate cleaning toilets! -- but we'll see how this does, first.
We're sticking with our nice showerhead for now. I don't know what the GPM on that is.
Water Heaters
Somewhere between water and energy is the water heater. While there are energy star tank water heaters, none of them beat the requirements by enough to be eligible for Obama's 30% energy efficiency rebate. Shannon's a big fan of solar water heaters, so that was the first thing we examined. While they seem to work well enough in Pittsburgh, they seem to cost 10x more base, and you have to have your whole house replumbed in order to get them to work. Maybe when I'm, ah, making significantly more money I'll be able to afford that.
At the same time, we're a little worried about getting a tankless heater that's too small for the home. When we had the house inspected, one of the inspectors mentioned that he had had a very expensive one installed and he never had hot water. Worrying!
The way a tankless water heater seems to work is that it will raise the temperature of your incoming cold water by a certain number of degrees based on the outgoing volume of water. So for example a tankless heater might raise 9.3 gpm of water 45° F. If you live in an area, like Pittsburgh, where you might have 40-50° water incoming, you can see that you might need two of these for the winter. An additional complicating factor is that if you have hard water, the highly localized heat tends to precipitate solids out of the water, coating the inside of the water heater and reducing its effectiveness. You can periodically clean it out (which sounds like a mess) or you can hook up a water softener to the hot water line.
The house comes with a 14-year-old tank heater that seems to be on its last legs. When it dies, we might end up replacing it with a pair of tankless heaters hooked up to a water softener, if we can afford it. Of course this'll be damned expensive -- probably 4-6 times the cost of a tank heater. I'm not sure if that's worth it.
One intriguing possibility is a temperature-transferring plumbing device you can install in your plumbing system just below the bathtub. It runs graywater from the bathtub drain along a thin metal plate, on the other side of which is your cold water line. This heats up your cold water and should reduce your need for hot water while showering. It's pretty cheap, but only if you're already ripping out your plumbing. Probably not an option for us. Wish I could find the link, though!
Heating/Cooling
The house came with energy-star forced-air heating, and central air conditioning, and our windows are all brand-new. Yay! That said, we haven't been in the attic yet (there's no existing access, boo). We may have to add some insulation there, and we have a few doors to replace as well.
Energy (Other)
We're trying to stick with all energy-star appliances. Shannon had an electric line run for the stove and dryer -- it means in the short-term, we'll be using a lot more power, although it should eventually be green energy. (Or so we hope!) Not to mention Shannon likes electric stoves, for looks I guess. The fridge is energy star, although it's a french-doors model (yay scratch'n'dent!) so not quite as energy-efficient as a top-fridge model. We're also looking into high-efficiency washers and dryers, although we don't have our rebate money yet, so it's sort of a pipe dream at the moment.
We're being good so far with our computers, using laptops for lower power requirements, although I can't promise anything with respect to how long that'll last. We've got innumerable game systems that have "always on" features that will eat up power over time, and I have servers that, at some point, will stay on for the duration as well.
We've looked into DIY renewable energy, but at this point it's totally, entirely unfeasible. Solar panels would cost 1/4-1/3 the total cost of the house, and most wind energy can't be installed in the City of Pittsburgh due to zoning regulations. That said, we'll have our eyes on solar shingles to see if they're ever realistic.
Roofing
Our roof will need to be replaced in a year or two. We're hoping the rebate stands! Supposedly energy-efficient roof shingles are not much different from regular ones. We'll keep dreaming, anyway.
Recycling
We don't generate a lot of waste. Pittsburgh has a pretty good recycling program (it's even single-stream!) although finding a decent-sized recycling bin around here is a pain in the ass. For now we're going with a conventionally-sized 13 gallon recycling bin that is a little too small for how much we recycle. We tend to create about one bag of garbage a week, although we don't have a garbage disposal yet, so we might not be quite that good at the moment.
And hey, it's an improvement over Kamin! Our old landlords told us not to recycle, which is actually illegal. But they still have our deposit so I haven't complained. Yet.
Shannon's considering composting, but we haven't really done any research.
Vehicles
I'm still driving a car that gets 13-14 miles per gallon, which is sort of a disaster. I hope to improve on that soon, but... cars are expensive. I still need to bug my ex-roommate about my bike.
It wasn't a big deal prior to the move -- it got about 2,000 miles on it per year. Now, it might be significantly more. At least it's biking season!
Overall...
...we're doing pretty well, although I'm unhappy about trashing food waste, the car is a terrible thing, and we're kind of power hungry. Eventually, we solve everything but high-demand for electricity. Doesn't seem half-bad to me!
On a related note, we've been working on ways to make our new home more environmentally friendly, but there's a ways to go.
There are a lot of little things you can do to reduce your impact, and we've been working down the list, with mixed success.
Lighting
We've done a lot of thinking about lighting. We're okay with CFL bulbs -- I've found the spectrum the high-end bulbs give off is generally as good as the "true color" incandescents, and you can drop the frequency a good deal by adding a good light shade to it so that it looks like a redder incandescent bulb if you want. That said, they're kinda problematic with the mercury and all, and we'd been looking into even more energy-efficient LED bulbs. Sadly, we can't afford the significant outlay for those yet, so we're going the CFL route.
We're running into some trouble, however. You can get decent CFL bulbs in a 4- or 5-pack... assuming you're going for the standard-sized bulbs. This is fine for most apartments and all of our college lighting, but the house is full of medium-to-high-end fixtures that take strange sizes. The chandelier in the dining room takes standard medium-size bulbs, which is great, but all of the upstairs fixtures have intermediate sockets. I'd never even seen one before, and they don't make CFL bulbs in that size. We'll have to shell out $20-$30 in socket reducers in order to use those double-priced candelabra CFL bulbs. (We could get a socket expander, but this makes the bulb stick out of the shade.)
We'll probably slowly -- very slowly -- switch over to LED bulbs as they become available. Right now the only trustworthy vendor we can find for them is freaking Thinkgeek. Great shop, but not where I expected to by my mundane necessities from.
Water
We have wonderfully strong water pressure here, but there's a limit to how good that is for you. Trying to run water on your toothbrush in the upstairs sink resulted in the toothpaste being blown off of your brushing utensil by the ridiculous forces at work. Upon further inspection, the sink was running at an absurd 2.2 gallons per minute (gpm), and the kitchen sink is higher than that. Typically you want 1 gpm in the bathroom and 1.5 in the kitchen (or maybe 2). We were really interested in ultra-low-flow faucet aerators that use pressure to provide a fairly strong flow while reducing faucet flow to .3, .5, or .7 gpm. We found a few very expensive ones online from not-very-reputable sellers, so we went and visited Lowe's and Home Depot. To our great disappointment, our local Home Depot didn't sell anything below 1.5 gpm, while Lowe's had a replacement aerator insert at 1.0 gpm. We ended up using that for the bathroom, which I'm not thrilled with, but at least it was cheap. It should probably pay us back in saved water bills over the course of the year. Not to mention costs due to loss of toothpaste! We haven't yet done anything with the kitchen sink.
We seem to have a water-efficient toilet. Shannon tried the "add a plastic bottle to the tank" trick to reduce outflow, and the toilet promptly clogged a few days later. I'm of the very firm opinion that one should buy nice things that don't break so you don't have to bother with them -- in this case, I'm a fan of eventually replacing the existing toilet with something a little more "high-tech" -- I hate cleaning toilets! -- but we'll see how this does, first.
We're sticking with our nice showerhead for now. I don't know what the GPM on that is.
Water Heaters
Somewhere between water and energy is the water heater. While there are energy star tank water heaters, none of them beat the requirements by enough to be eligible for Obama's 30% energy efficiency rebate. Shannon's a big fan of solar water heaters, so that was the first thing we examined. While they seem to work well enough in Pittsburgh, they seem to cost 10x more base, and you have to have your whole house replumbed in order to get them to work. Maybe when I'm, ah, making significantly more money I'll be able to afford that.
At the same time, we're a little worried about getting a tankless heater that's too small for the home. When we had the house inspected, one of the inspectors mentioned that he had had a very expensive one installed and he never had hot water. Worrying!
The way a tankless water heater seems to work is that it will raise the temperature of your incoming cold water by a certain number of degrees based on the outgoing volume of water. So for example a tankless heater might raise 9.3 gpm of water 45° F. If you live in an area, like Pittsburgh, where you might have 40-50° water incoming, you can see that you might need two of these for the winter. An additional complicating factor is that if you have hard water, the highly localized heat tends to precipitate solids out of the water, coating the inside of the water heater and reducing its effectiveness. You can periodically clean it out (which sounds like a mess) or you can hook up a water softener to the hot water line.
The house comes with a 14-year-old tank heater that seems to be on its last legs. When it dies, we might end up replacing it with a pair of tankless heaters hooked up to a water softener, if we can afford it. Of course this'll be damned expensive -- probably 4-6 times the cost of a tank heater. I'm not sure if that's worth it.
One intriguing possibility is a temperature-transferring plumbing device you can install in your plumbing system just below the bathtub. It runs graywater from the bathtub drain along a thin metal plate, on the other side of which is your cold water line. This heats up your cold water and should reduce your need for hot water while showering. It's pretty cheap, but only if you're already ripping out your plumbing. Probably not an option for us. Wish I could find the link, though!
Heating/Cooling
The house came with energy-star forced-air heating, and central air conditioning, and our windows are all brand-new. Yay! That said, we haven't been in the attic yet (there's no existing access, boo). We may have to add some insulation there, and we have a few doors to replace as well.
Energy (Other)
We're trying to stick with all energy-star appliances. Shannon had an electric line run for the stove and dryer -- it means in the short-term, we'll be using a lot more power, although it should eventually be green energy. (Or so we hope!) Not to mention Shannon likes electric stoves, for looks I guess. The fridge is energy star, although it's a french-doors model (yay scratch'n'dent!) so not quite as energy-efficient as a top-fridge model. We're also looking into high-efficiency washers and dryers, although we don't have our rebate money yet, so it's sort of a pipe dream at the moment.
We're being good so far with our computers, using laptops for lower power requirements, although I can't promise anything with respect to how long that'll last. We've got innumerable game systems that have "always on" features that will eat up power over time, and I have servers that, at some point, will stay on for the duration as well.
We've looked into DIY renewable energy, but at this point it's totally, entirely unfeasible. Solar panels would cost 1/4-1/3 the total cost of the house, and most wind energy can't be installed in the City of Pittsburgh due to zoning regulations. That said, we'll have our eyes on solar shingles to see if they're ever realistic.
Roofing
Our roof will need to be replaced in a year or two. We're hoping the rebate stands! Supposedly energy-efficient roof shingles are not much different from regular ones. We'll keep dreaming, anyway.
Recycling
We don't generate a lot of waste. Pittsburgh has a pretty good recycling program (it's even single-stream!) although finding a decent-sized recycling bin around here is a pain in the ass. For now we're going with a conventionally-sized 13 gallon recycling bin that is a little too small for how much we recycle. We tend to create about one bag of garbage a week, although we don't have a garbage disposal yet, so we might not be quite that good at the moment.
And hey, it's an improvement over Kamin! Our old landlords told us not to recycle, which is actually illegal. But they still have our deposit so I haven't complained. Yet.
Shannon's considering composting, but we haven't really done any research.
Vehicles
I'm still driving a car that gets 13-14 miles per gallon, which is sort of a disaster. I hope to improve on that soon, but... cars are expensive. I still need to bug my ex-roommate about my bike.
It wasn't a big deal prior to the move -- it got about 2,000 miles on it per year. Now, it might be significantly more. At least it's biking season!
Overall...
...we're doing pretty well, although I'm unhappy about trashing food waste, the car is a terrible thing, and we're kind of power hungry. Eventually, we solve everything but high-demand for electricity. Doesn't seem half-bad to me!