Before you give me a lecture about using a color as a verb, read the post... then flame away! (Just use low-carbon fuel when you do, okay?)
My wife has been talking to me about wanting to sell our house and build a green house from the plans up. She'd like it to be super-energy efficient, well insulated, off-grid, and as self-sufficient as possible. We can't do that just yet, and likely, few of you can either. There are things you can do, however, to lower your energy consumption (and thereby your recurring costs for electricity, gas (natural gas, propane, heating oil, etc.), water, and waste services.
We started simply, replacing our failed incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent's (CFL) where ever possible (we're still waiting for dimmable CFL's to become available in ceiling fan style enclosures), we've purchased some LED bulbs for specific task lighting, we added a timer to the room that the kids play in which will automatically turn the lights off after 10-60 minutes.
We bought a battery charger and rechargeable batteries, which we use in 80-90% of our battery operated "stuff."
We installed ceiling fans in our living spaces to move the air and reduce our heating/cooling costs.
We planted a garden. It started as a couple 4x4 foot raised boxes, which we've more than doubled. It's hard to use all the food that they produce, but we're going to start freezing and canning more this year as well. This will reduce our need to travel to the local grocery store to purchase items that had to be processed and shipped in from who-knows-where, also reducing our energy use and (in my opinion) increasing the quality and freshness of food that we'll be consuming.
We started a compost pile. That's easy! You just toss your non-meat/non-dairy kitchen scraps into a pile in your garden, turn it every once in a while, toss some soil on it every once in a while, and pretty soon you've got rich compost (and haven't had the city pick it up, truck it away, and bury it at the landfill).
We bought a hybrid car (yeah, that's a big expense and some would argue the "greenness" of it) and get 45 MPG around town and much much more on the highway). We traded in our old mini-van (which averaged 12 MPG for a newer model which has been getting over 20MPG).
We added a solar-powered attic fan to our top-most, South-facing gable vent to reduce the moisture and heat in our attic space.
Recently we had two of our windows broken (that kid's really got an arm... and likes to throw rocks). We had a local glass company replace the double panes (and fill the void with "special gas") on the panel that was removable, but, yeah, kid broke it again. So we replaced all of our lower-level windows (on the North side of the house) with brand-new Low-E windows. Thicker panes, inner membrane, more "special gas" and tighter seals. We can already feel the difference! And (if we can find our receipt and "special stickers") we can get a rebate from our power company (.pdf)!
Next, our dishwasher finally gave up, and rather than spending $280 plus parts to fix it, we got a new super-efficient model. It uses 3/4 less water and less electricity than our old model (yeah, I know!) and it qualifies for a rebate (.pdf), too!
Our other appliances are old, but they're still working well, so rather than getting rid of them (recycling or donating for re-use, of course) we're going to keep using them until we have a need to replace it, but when we do, there's a rebate for most of those, too! See http://www.homeenergysavings.net/utah/forms.html for forms and details.
This year we hope to build a chicken coop and raise 6-8 chickens for eggs (and fertilizer for our garden), plant a small grove of fruit trees in our backyard (to reduce the need to bring in fresh fruits, and we'll use natural pest control), buy and install a supplemental solar water-heater. We also plan to plant a small bamboo grove to provide us with building materials for trellises and other outdoor projects.
What have you done to green your home? Share your projects, thoughts, rebates, discounts, incentives, and ideas here!
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