First Steps: A rough draft of our zero fossil fuel plan

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Sandy

When we first moved into this house, aside from the scary-ass grey shag carpet and the popcorn on the ceiling, we noticed that (a) there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of insulation in the crawl spaces (attic & underfloor) and (b) the cool-man 1977-vintage aluminum windows pretty much had, without exception, blown their seals. As a result, air infiltration was problematic at best, vicious at worst. Since then, we’ve

  • Added (some) insulation under the house
  • Replaced all the windows with CDI double-pane models
  • Replaced the sliding glass doors with CDI double-pane models
  • Replaced the front door with a solid-wood door and new weather stripping
  • Replaced the inefficient, leaky gas water heater with a high-efficiency Marathon electric heater
  • Replaced many light bulbs with compact fluorescents (not all, but a lot – I’m looking forward to LED light bulbs as the CFs take a while to warm up and I can sometimes hear them cycling at 60Hz 
  • Added a 10kW NG generator (not an energy saver, but after 5+ days without power, including three in a hotel room with small kids, a marriage-saver
  • Replaced the scary-ass shag carpet, and removed the popcorn – these don’t make the house more energy efficient, but they were nasty…and not in a good way

    • There is a lot more to do, but we need to start small, simple and cheap before we tackle the large projects:

    • Improving efficiency by adding insulation
    • Adding cellular shades in the kitchen & family room
    • Replacing remaining incandescent lights with CFLs as they die
    • Teaching the kids to turn off lights when they leave a room
    • Installing a clothesline
    • Turning down the thermostat (this will be a hard one for Sandy – she dislikes the cold)

    Once we’ve done all this work, we’ll have a better baseline and can move on to calculating our energy needs.  I’m hoping we can tackle the solar water heater before the end of the year so we can take advantage of the $2,000 tax credit from the Federal Government which expires on December 31, 2008, but it’ll be a few years before we indulge in PV panels.  Maybe by then they’ll be cheaper and more efficient (and hopefully the next president and congress will re-up the tax credits.

    Excelsior!

    -Derek

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    The Basics: Learning about our energy usage

    Posted on July 20, 2008 by Sandy

    I automate all my payments.  Everything flows into and out of my accounts digitally, automatically, and that means aside from seeing the amounts when I review my spending, I usually do not see the details behind the payments for my bills.  This goes for my utility bills as well.  As I start this challenge, I actually do not know how much energy my family uses. I know generally how much I spend per month, but not what this translates into in terms of actual energy consumption. So, here is my electric bill.  I’ll hold off on gas usage for the time being, because I have a lot of questions about natural gas and think it would make a good topic to explore in the next few weeks.

    Now I have some basic knowledge.  In June, we used 880 KWH.  This was down from 960 KWH the previous June.  We made two changes to how we use electricity in the last year: 1.  We changed all our bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs, and 2. We replaced our water heater, which was previously gas.  Logically, you think we would be using more electricity. Could the compact fluorescent bulbs have that much impact?  I have no idea.  Is 880 KWH good or bad? Again, no idea. So this is my next step, to really understand our typical energy usage and how it is being used.

    Sandy

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    Game On! Al Gore, we accept your challenge

    Posted on July 18, 2008 by Sandy

    Welcome to The Zero Fossil Fuel 10 Year Challenge. This site was created in response to Al Gore’s challenge to America to get to zero fossil fuel-based energy usage within 10 years. I am a mom in a so-called typical American family. My husband and I have two children (ages 4 and 2), two full-time jobs, and a suburban lifestyle. We have a comfortable life and little material incentive to change. Gas prices are annoying, but not (at this point) affecting our standard of living (although I am highly aware this is not the case for millions of other American families). So even though we don’t have to, I believe in my heart that we are at a critical point in our history and that we must rise to the challenge now to make significant changes, even if this changes our lifestyle over time.

    To Al Gore I say, “I’m in.” To reach this goal, we will need to make changes on many levels, national, state, local and individual.  I am committing to changes at the individual and family level to get to this goal within 10 years. Since I am not a trained environmentalist, I (along with my family), will have much to learn. I hope others will be able to leverage these learnings along with us. A couple of early thoughts about how we will approach this:

    1. I see this as a long-term lifestyle evolution and do not plan to make immediate radical changes. My husband and I will map out long-term approach to getting to this goal. And we’ll work on this in an incremental, step-by-step way.
    2. Our plan, as it evolves, will be based on the idea that it should be realistically do-able. As such, we will likely set an annual budget for making these changes, probably something in the range of a monthly car payment for a typical mid-sized car.
    3. I will look at this as a great opportunity to connect more with family and my local community.

    Learn more from Mr. Gore himself:

    Sandy

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