Just hanging out

I haven't minded hanging my laundry inside all winter. In fact, it added much-needed moisture to the dry indoor air. But I was still happy to start hanging my laundry outside again yesterday. It's so nice to be outside, and our laundry again has that sunny fragrance no fabric softener can duplicate.

I expect I won't be drying clothes inside again until October now. Not every day will be nice enough (since we've had snow even in May!) but generally I can wait a few days before we get desperate.

25 Ways to Green the World #10-11

#10: Stop Dirty Energy

Besides signing online petitions, calling Congress etc. about coal, we haven't yet done very much. One idea in the Green American "25 Ways" article I'm using for this list is to shift our energy use to the evening hours to reduce peak demand. From now on, we'll do our laundry and run the dishwasher in the evening or early in the morning. (In the summer, I have to do the laundry in the morning in order to hang the clothes outdoors.)

#11: Rethink Your Transportation

We've always used our cars less than average since we're basically home bodies. We've always grouped errands, since it saves times as well as gas. Beyond that, though, we've made a conscious effort to reduce our car use. For the last few years before retirement, John bicycled to work even in the winter unless it was below 25 degrees or actively snowing; in those cases, he took the bus. In the winter, when it was too dark to ride a bike home, he used the handy bike carrier on the front of the bus.

Lately, instead of doing our exercise walking around the neighborhood, we've discovered we can walk to Wegmans, each with a backpack, in the same amount of time. So instead of frequent trips in a car (since the grocery store was one trip I never could seem to cut back on) we get small amounts of groceries about 4-5 times a week. We've done the same with the library in the other direction (complete with some challenging hills to climb).

And when we do drive, we use our Prius.

25 Ways to Green the World #8-9

#8: Put Efficiency First

We're doing pretty well with this one. Except for a few mistakes, we've chosen energy-efficient appliances (refrigerator, front-loading washer, CFLs, etc.), and when we have a choice, we use them as little as possible. For example, we're pretty good at turning off lights when we're not in the room. One mistake is that we chose a small (5 cu. ft.) freezer that wasn't Energy Star-qualified. Since the store where we bought it had no small Energy Star freezers, we thought that perhaps there weren't any in this size category.

We've also tested our appliances with the Kill-A-Watt meter to see how much energy they use.

One of the most important ways we've saved energy is by not using our electric clothes dryer. We hang clothes up outdoors in the summer, and indoors in the winter. This has the bonus of humidifying our chronically dry air in the winter. We're lucky to have found a very convenient clothes rack that folds up easily, then expands to hold a whole load of laundry. It has metal rods, so I can use my regular clothes pins. Once you get used to it, hanging laundry really doesn't take much longer to do since you're essentially straightening out the clothes when you're hanging them up as opposed to straightening them out when you take them out of the dryer.

An interesting website: Project Laundry List.

#9: Advance Green Energy

We've purchased 100% wind energy for almost seven years now. We were one of the first customers when this option became available.

We looked into solar panels - and even paid for the $300 evaluation for its suitability - but it just doesn't work for our location. Partly, it's a problem with the orientation of the roof, though that's not insurmountable. The main issue is trees. We would have had to cut down the tree on the south side of the house that shades our house in the summer. And even that wasn't insurmountable. I would have done it, though I would have been sad. The real problem is that we would have to ask neighbors never to plant a large tree (which would have made our solar installation worthless). This would be a lot to ask of people, and for that matter, we would have had to ask neighbors to sign a solar easement, adding to the cost and complication of the project. All in all, we decided that there would have to be other ways for us to advance green energy. Maybe some day, there will be improvements in PV panels that would make this feasible.

We also checked out solar hot water heating, but given the pipes in our house this would have been prohibitively expensive.