Mart Gnosis

When the seasons are changing, and cold air is beginning to enter your comfort zone of warmth; you know it is time to prepare your home for the winter, including those drafts coming through windows and under doors.

You realize that it is time to add new weather stripping and change the filter on your 50-year-old furnace to try and save some money on your heating bill. Yet no matter what you do, as you go about doubling up your sweaters and long sleeve shirts, and no matter how many heavy blankets you pile on the bed at night to feel cozy without having to spend extra money to be warm, it is going to happen anyway. You are going to be bombarded with high heating bills for about 4-5 months, or how ever long cold weather sticks around where you live.

Your utility company has already warned you, letting you know what to expect and when it is going to happen. I guess it is their way of easing into winter and adding high fuel costs to your kilowatt usage, before you even start to regulate your thermostat. They might have made this big announcement to prepare you way back in August.

Even if you sleep in front of your stove without turning your furnace on, or if you sleep in front of your living room log fireplace, if you have one, this will not keep you from seeing a higher gas bill this winter, as it is already regulated, already estimated, already predicted, and already in the making that consumers, rich or poor, homeowners and business owners alike, are going to be reaching deeper into their pockets to meet the elevated cost of heating.

This is happening because consumers are caught up in this maze of economic dependency on their local utility company’s power grid, which brings gas and electricity to their homes and businesses, instead of relying on solar energy, which is cheap and affordable. In fact, most often solar energy is free! So why are you paying extra to heat or cool your homes when you don’t have to? This is something you should be pondering; especially since there is a way to draw energy for heat from a solar device.
Solar geothermal systems can bring heat into your home.

It can sometimes be difficult to visualize the importance and direct effect that simple conservation efforts can have when we are bombarded with negative information regularly. Lets take a look at what a few changes in the activities around the kitchen sink can do.

Rather than running the tap when cleaning vegetables, use a bowl of water. Later, reuse it to water outdoor plants. Reusing water from rinsing out the coffeepot for outdoor plants, the compost or lawn is something we do all the time. Rich in nitrogen as well as some trace minerals, coffeepots should be diluted with water before using. Choose a different group of plants every day and you may find you no longer have to water or fertilize them very often at all. Cooking water (pasta, steamed vegetables, boiled potatoes etc.) can be used in the same way - just let it cool first. All of these water sources contain extra nutrients that will aid your gardens immensely. Very hot cooking water can be used to kill weeds - simply pour it directly on the weed and around its roots.

After meals, scrape your dishes into the compost bucket before rinsing. While rinsing, place other soiled dishes, jars and utensils underneath while you work; it will begin the presoaking process - reducing labor and water use. Anything caught in the sink basket can be contributed to the compost, too.

Save about 5 gallons of water per washing by doing dishes in a few inches of hot soapy water. It may seem funny to do this - but by turning the hot water tap on to rinse the dishes into the sink the level will slowly increase and will maintain a hot temperature. This way, another sink full of water solely for rinsing is no longer necessary. We sometimes use rinse water to pre-soak stuck on dishes as well.

In the winter, the water from washing or soaking dishes should be left to cool. This way it releases its valuable heat into the home, rather than the sewer. Dishwashers, that are not built-in, allow reuse of the water for pre-rinsing heavily soiled dishes because they drain into the sink. The water can be trapped in the sink, or a soiled pot, where the heat is slowly released into the home, saving energy costs in the winter. Of course, the opposite applies in the summer, when extra heat is not desirable.

Very hot water is not always necessary for all washing and rinsing needs. Usually, by the time we are finished washing our hands, the water is just beginning to warm up - so really, all we have done is heat up our pipes. We can conserve water easily by turning off the tap while lathering hands. The running water is really only necessary for initial wetting, then rinsing - so running water in between is really a waste.

Now, if you measured the amount of water saved each day by those simple methods we just described - there would be dozens of gallons of pure, drinkable water left untouched in the reservoir. By reducing hot water consumption, our energy bills are a little bit smaller. All this, just from the kitchen sink!

– Written by Dave and Lillian Brummet based on the concept of their book, Trash Talk. The book offers useful solutions for the individual to reduce waste and better manage resources. A guide for anyone concerned about their impact on the environment. (www.sunshinecable.com/~drumit)