Going Green Part 1

Since we've been concentrating alot on this topic at our house I thought I'd highlight some of our more interesting efforts. I won't even pretend that we are doing all we can. We still drive our gas guzzling cars and are a bit wasteful with our trash (although we do recycle some). Some of our efforts are more driven by money savings but I think it's good to make an effort no matter what the reasoning. Oh, and Mike has a little bit of that self-sufficient apocalyptic think going on lately...

First off we have our well and water pump. This 30 foot deep well serves our sprinkler system. We run the sprinklers for 30 minutes daily with no city water. We also have a couple of faucets that run off of it. The pump turns on when you ask it to only (so it does use electricity but not much). In most areas of the country this may not be an option but it's perfect here where our water table is high. (Have I mentioned our house in 5 ft above sea level.)

Next we have our rain barrel. This is a recent purchase prompted by our plants and other landscaping needs that aren't hooked up to the well. We bought this from Gardener's Supply for less than $200. It is attached to a piece of raingutter that drains about 1/4 of our roof. With the Miami rain it fills up in one good rainstorm. I've been using it constantly to water strawberry beds, herbs, peppers, rinsing outside messes and washing the dogs. Now that we know how effective it is we are planning to get a couple more for prime spots in the yard.

Our inside the house water saver is our tankless hot water heater. We love this thing... We obtained this about 2 years ago and have been enjoying it since. It cost $850 to have installed which included removing our hot water heater tank. There are several reasons to get one of these. They save space (that box in the middle is about the size of a sheet of paper). They are healthier because no bacteria is living in them, when not in use it's empty. You don't have to shut it off when you leave town because it only uses energy when you are running hot water. Also, there is an endless supply of hot water. And of course it saves on your electric bill. We have been saving about $40-45 each month.

Soon I'll do posts on our other toys and efforts but they were too long for just one post :)