Weathering Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene 2011

When Hurricane Irene came storming her way up the east coast, I'm not sure we thought we'd actually be in the dark...or at least not for as long as we were.  We prepared as best we could; we bought gallons of drinking water, froze Ziplock bags full of water, stowed all the outdoor chairs, tables, soccer nets, etc.  Hubby filled the second propane tank for the grill, and bought some canned goods and non-fridge food.  I did extra loads of laundry ahead of schedule, filled up the dishwasher and ran it, and gathered every candle and match book in the house.  We charged the electronics and cell phones, gathered the flashlights and batteries, and filled the bathtub with water.  We were prepared for the worst, and hoped for the best.  And then at 10:50 am on Sunday, we lost power.

I'm proud to say we weathered Hurricane Irene and the loss of power for 82 hours with as much green grace as we could muster.  We lost several trees, and large branches, and a section of fence was knocked down, and ultimately had to toss several pounds of meat, but luckily there was no damage to the house, and we still had running water.  For the first few hours, it felt like we were on an adventure, "Survivor Irene", but when the hot water ran out, the electronics ran out of charge, and the kids got bored playing board games, the forced "green" adventure turned the adventurers a bit grouchy.  Personally, I'd never experienced a power outage for 82 hours, and it really made me appreciate all the everyday things that we all typically take for granted in a developed country. 

We made due with less.  No electricity.  No hot water.  No microwave.  None of the modern conveniences we are accustomed to, switching on the lights, running the dishwasher, toasting a bagel, boiling water, reheating food, cooking, making coffee, throwing in a load of laundry, watching TV to name a few.  Keeping food cold in the cooler, washing dishes in cold water, and drying them in the sunlight, and later reading and functioning by candlelight made us feel like we'd stepped back into the 1800's.  At 6am on Monday morning, hubby began searching for more ice for the coolers.  He drove all over to find it, (none of the surrounding stores were open or had ice, so he drove further to a town we knew still had power), and to look for a generator at Home Depot or Lowes.  Of course they were sold out, but he put us on a waiting list to rent a generator to keep the food in the main fridge/freezer from spoiling.  28 hours into the outage he was able to rent one, and we were able to plug in the fridge, and a second extension cord to recharged cell phones, iPad, and iPods. 

As time went on, we developed a great appreciation for the power and appliances that we usually take for granted.  On the fourth day without electricity, we decided to try to boost morale (we were all quite grouchy by the time evening rolled around), and used the second generator plug to watch one of my favorite chick flicks,  Sweet Home Alabama.  We'd just about finished the movie, when the lights and fans came on!  The kids whooped and hollered, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief that we'd weathered Hurricane Irene.  Let's hope that the predictions from NOAA, for a higher than usual incidence of hurricanes and tropical storms, misses the mark, and we can pick and choose green choices a la carte instead of "a la Hurricane". 

H is for Home Improvements

Of course I mean green home improvements!  Over the last few months we've been doing some green home improvement projects that are helping us reduce our carbon footprint and save money in the process. One of our favorites comes in the form of a fluuuuuuusshhhh :) 

As Ed Begley, Jr. likes to say, we've been "picking the low lying fruit" and doing simple things that don't cost a lot of money, but in the end are better for the planet and our pocketbook.  Since we began our green journey, we've taken the following home improvement babysteps.  We started with:

• outlet insulation gaskets http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/02/outlet-small-changes-big-results-day-11.html and kept on going, 
• replacing our old showerheads with low flow heads http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/03/water-water-everywhere-day-26.html, 
• replacing bulbs that burn out with either CFLs (please recycle them back to Home Depot or Lowes when they are spent) http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/03/cfls-day-15.html or LEDs, which are more expensive, but result in huge savings in the long run, then, 
• Hubby figured out how to rewire and replaced an electric eye on our front entry lights instead of buying new lights and adding to the landfill http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/04/picking-low-lying-fruit.htm and saving us money by only having the lights on when it is dark.
• Back in the spring, we made "lemonade out of lemons" when our basement rec room was flooded after New England was deluged with rain and we suffered our first flood; when we redid the room we used biodegradable paint trays http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/04/who-wouldve-guess.html, 
• chose carpet made from 100% recycled PET from plastic bottles and chose an eco-pad to go underneath it  http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/04/lemonade-from-lemons.html  
• When it was time to replace the gross matt in the mud room, I was excited to find a green mat...I mean we are talking babysteps here, so each time we step into the house I smile at that green choice, http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/05/ecstatic-over-ecomat.html  
• One of my favorite home improvement projects this year has been the installation of the clothesline.  Not only are we saving energy, but it is kinda therapeutic hanging out the laundry listening to the birds and the crickets...I do have the kids helping me to hang, and take down the laundry, and while they don't like how the towels turn out ("they are crunchy mom!"), they have done a good job of helping with it, and believe it or not, it's good exercise reaching and pulling on the line to move the clothes along!  http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/06/c-is-for.html  We've also saved quite a bit of energy with this home improvement, and I hope I can continue to dry clothes outside well into the fall http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/07/e-is-for-electricity-and-energy.html.  

Our most recent home improvement project that hubby embraced, researched, and installed (I'm soooo lucky to have such a wonderful, handy, guy who is supportive of the green babysteps we've been taking), is a dual-flush system for the toilet!  When he first tried to find it locally he couldn't and when we were on the road recently he found it at Home Depot in NJ (they told him they'd just started carrying it).  It's called HydroRight Smarter Flush Technology by MJSI, Inc.  This system replaces the regular flusher mechanism inside the tank and the outside flusher as well.  The upper button is to "flush liquids and paper with less water", errr or #1, and the lower button is to "flush with more power", err or for #2.  The HydroRight claims it will saves up to 15,000 gallons after one year ("the equivalent of stacking water bottles 45 miles high"....yikes they used disposable water bottles as their example...heaven forbid!) and result in savings of about $100 in water/sewer costs each year.   At $24.98 per dual-flusher, we plan to install two more for even more savings, because with a family of 6 our septic gets a workout and we'd love to trim our water bill even more.   http://www.gomjsi.com/dual-flush-hydroright/?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=us&utm_term=hydroright%2Bdual%20flush%20converter&utm_campaign=hydrorightdualflush&gclid=CIvU4rXOsaMCFRafnAodkDLuVA

Stay tuned to find out what our next green home improvement project will be! 

E is for Electricity and Energy

So officially we are using the energy from the sun to dry our clothes!  

It's been a sultry July, and we've been sweating it out around here, NOT using our window ACs to cool the house, even at night.  To the chagrin of the family, I've opted to deal with a little bit of humidity and pull the cooler air in by window fans because the thought of our electric bill doubling due to ACs has not been appealing!  During the cooler morning, we suck cool air in, use the window shades to keep out the heat, but,  I now will feel less guilty about using the ACs if the mercury rises because we are not sucking power for the dyer....and in this house of 6 we do more loads per week than the average household (that is a discussion for another time!).   

On a side note, I do need to invest in a dryer rack as well because the ladies of the house (excluding myself) are in an UPROAR that their unmentionables might be seen.  Mind you our backyard is as private as can be this time of year, we can't see any of our neighbors houses because of the gloriously green trees!  

I couldn't resist a quick tally of the watts used by the 5 window units: including  4 window units in the bedrooms and one larger unit that cools the downstairs...those ACs use up a grand total of 4026 watts!!! 

And then I had to compare the wattage of the overworked and underpaid dryer - that baby sucks up a whopping 4400 watts and gets a workout weekly, and often daily all year long!!!

I'm hoping that using the sun to dry the clothes will offset the times that we use the AC, and that in the long run we will save electricity and energy since we can use the clothesline even when we don't need the AC :)  

Can't help but smile about summer!

Picking Low Lying Fruit

Low Lying Fruit

To quote my favorite green guru, Ed Begley Jr., we picked some "low lying fruit"!  No, not the edible kind, but the kind that will save energy AND money.  Our low lying fruit was the front door lights.   

Every time I'd notice the front lights were ON during the day, I'd cringe.  I knew we were wasting energy and money....ggrrrrr.  The dawn to dusk feature on the motion sensitive front lights was not working, and we ended up leaving the lights on to ensure no one got hurt walking up to the door in the dark.  But, then we'd forget to turn them off, they'd end up being on all night, and many, many times they would not get turned off at all since we don't typically go out that door. 

The electric eye had been broken for some time, and we'd attempted adding a new photo-electric eye, but that didn't work, probably because of the special wiring involved with the motion sensitive part as well as the integrated electric-eye.  We felt so frustrated and confused when the new eye didn't work that we decide to sleep on it before taking any more steps.  But out of sight, IS out of mind and time marched on, and it didn't get fixed. 

I think it was a trip to Lowes that jogged my memory about the lights, and we discussed replacing the fixture completely, and even bought one light figuring we could just replace the one, and move another from around back.  Turns out the one out back also had a busted electic eye!  Hmmm now we began to think that the integrated electric eye was doomed to break, and re-thought our original plan.  We ultimately decided that throwing the lights into the landfill and spending money on two new lamps wasn't the best option either.  

Luckily hubby, being the genius he is, was able to re-wire the existing lights to enable the new electric eye to work!  So we picked the "low lying fruit", and in this situation with a broken fixture, were able to use the two new electric eyes that we thought weren't going to work in our lights, saved the two light fixtures from the landfill, and best of all, are saving electricity DAILY!  I'm so lucky that hubby is such a handyman!!!!

Earth Hour - Saturday, March 27th, 8:30-9:30pm

Mark your calendar for this Saturday, March 27th, 2010, from 8:30-9:30 pm, it's Earth Hour!

Earth Hour began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes and businesses turning off their lights for one hour as a “vote” FOR the earth, and a “vote” AGAINST global warming. By 2009, even more people, hundreds of millions joined in to "vote". The Sydney Opera House, Rome’s Colosseum, The Eiffel Tower in Paris, The Parthenon in Greece, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the Las Vegas Strip and New York City’s Times Square participated.

Earth Hour is organized by WWF; their mission is to "stop the degradation of the Earth's natural environment and build a future where people live in harmony with nature."

Let's hope that even more people from all around the world will switch off their lights, and other items that use electricity. No matter where you live, no matter your political views, regardless of what religion you are, we all depend on our planet for life.

It's a perfect time to turn off the lights, discuss global warming and the importance of “being green” as a family, and consider taking actions to assure that we aren’t polluting our earth and overusing resources in our everyday lives. Unplug, celebrate together time, play a game, and reconnect by the light of candles. Enjoy!

Check out to www.earthhour.org