September 2018
What do you do that’s energy efficient?
John Rowe
The car we travel in is a two-wheel drive and gets about 38mpg. My old pickup is small and doesn't get great gas mileage, but I a budget it for 300-350 miles a month. We don't go to Salida or Alamosa often and buy everything we can locally. We have efficient, in-floor radiant heat in the house and keep it turned down to 63. We have a fire in the morning and at night and burn very little propane. I'm a big fan of wood heat and passive solar. It REALLY lowers utility bills! We buy whole, fresh foods; not canned or packaged foods. It breaks my heart to dig into a package and find more little packages in there. We recycle clothes by buying used ones. I think you can get a lot of nice stuff and it saves energy. I feel like the Free Box is more for people who need it, so I take stuff there, but I don't pick stuff up. These things don't sound like much, but you can cut your gasoline consumption in half by not driving a big Ford Expedition everywhere. So I think Lori, really, unless I'm going to start lying to ya, that's what I do!
Paul Shippee
When we explore the big picture we can learn the ultimate and immediate energy conservation strategy is to replace the burning of fossil fuels with the direct use of the sun’s energy - for heating homes, buildings, hot water and making electricity. We also know fossil fuel burning is intimately tied to the cause of climate change and global warming. That’s really huge! I’ve made a career out of energy conservation and solar applications, focusing on passive solar homes and active solar systems for hot water. I’ve designed and built several kinds of high performance passive solar homes that are very close to 100% solar heated. I’d lost interest in my first career in civil engineering and in 1972 became excited about sustainable energy. As a self-taught solar design engineer I experimented by heating up hot water in containers inside boxes made of glass and wood. I happily built my first passive solar home in Larimer County in 1972, then began teaching on alternative sources of energy and the human environment at CSU and Naropa. Then I put my money where my mouth was by designing and building passive solar homes in Boulder County. I moved to Crestone in 2001 and built my own 100% solar heated home. It uses three wheelbarrows of wood in the coldest winters. You can learn these magical energy conservation strategies too: sign up for a 3-day workshop at CrestoneSolarSchool.com.
Donovan Spitzman
What do I do to be energy efficient other than building my house out of garbage? My house is like 80 percent reclaimed materials, which I'm super proud of. What I'm working on now is, the POA board has requested I start the revisions on the energy efficiency guidelines for our Design Guidelines document, which was taken out a few years back due to its antiquated nature and difficulty of implementation. We're striving to update that into the next generation of green building guidelines for remote living. Our most recent guidelines that got removed for revision basically were congruent with what most urban/suburban communities are implementing today. Back in the early-mid 90s when those were implemented, no one was doing it. So now becomes the question of taking those original documents we've had for four decades and updating them into what might potentially be an appropriate sustainable living model for 50 years from now in the Baca. First, it’s tackling all the subjects of infrastructure. Obviously with the grants being off grid, we don't have a whole lot of issues with electricity and water there. The critical issue becomes what happens to our other infrastructure, primarily our wastewater treatment, if the grid goes down or if Mother Nature places our infrastructure in such a position where it needs to be replaced, which is going to be financially unviable for us to do. So things are coming in our near future that we must address in a decentralized manner that helps keep us together.
Chi Chi Chu
We live in a passive solar home with solar panels and a wind generator. I cook some food in a solar oven. I use magnets in my washing machine which decreases the amount of water and electricity it uses by only using the rinse cycle. Living in a solar house, we realize we're using energy we don’t actually need, so we have power bars to turn off all the phantom energy from toasters, the washing machine, coffee maker, etc. I also consider it an energy savings that I don't use a lot of chemicals. For instance, I don't use Windex; I use a cloth that works better than Windex. For some laundry I do use a detergent without fillers, and the company sends me a bottle that I refill. I make everything from scratch. I know that's hard for most people, but I do that. We're starting to incorporate plasma energy, and we're going to be working with Edie Lee making a megrav which will supplement our energy. Hopefully we'll be doing classes here on how to make all these wonderful things. I have little energy things that I put in my dog Pica's bed, because she's 12, and it keeps her from having aches and pains.
Deb Schultz
I've driven a used Prius since 2010. She's a bit beat up now, but we use her for everything! It's practically our work truck, and uses less than half the fuel. It was a real step forward, but building an Earthship is the energy efficient undertaking of a lifetime. My carbon footprint may just be in the negative after this! Even in the temporarily built portion of our home it's performing very high: passive solar gain, propane on demand water heater, salvaged brick floor for thermal mass, and the DC refrigerator (our latest coup) runs just on solar energy. And with the solar panels outside soaking up sun rays, it's really a no-brainer. Eventually we'll also be capturing water, recycling it, and using it for food production in our home. What could be better? No need to run out for tomatoes! And WATER. Ever since I was a kid I've felt we should all be aware, like, "Hey, we're gonna run out…." I don't know why but it came from deep inside me. Now I'm so proud to have my own well. We put in some plumbing last fall, but before that we hauled in water and whew! Was THAT ever a chore! Now, we're almost ultra-conservative with all our resources, and I really KNOW we ALL can do with less, because I'm living it!
Annie Pace
Energy efficiency is a big subject and a big part of my life. Even my late guru would often ask, “Why wasting???” What I do could be described in three ways. First, on a gross level: What you see in front of you – solar electricity and heating, strawbale construction, adobe floors and utilization of other natural building materials; and an intentional design to meet but not exceed my needs. One of the most important homesteading decisions I made was location. Residing and working in short walking distance to the post office, credit union, and stores – not being vehicle dependent conserves immensely. Secondly, on a personal level of lifestyle choices: keeping it simple – no clothes dryer, TV, computer or other electronic gadgets (a virtually screen free environment), seasonally growing my own produce, minimizing lighting, conserving flushes, taking bucket baths, etc. You could say “Yogic-ly old school.” Lastly, on a subtle level: To have no separation of life, livelihood and lifestyle is incredibly efficient. Without compartmentalization, it all sort of mushes together and the talk is indeed walked! Maintaining my spiritual practices not only gives me more energy, it results in enhanced resiliency, capacity to serve others, and to step up in the face of adversity.