With that huge bill still in my hand, I quickly scribbled a list of ways to cut back. Some are good habits we’ve been bad at keeping, and others are just common sense. There are plenty of energy conservation lists online (here, here, and here), but I wanted to share the things we are doing in our little world. Here’s the five did right away:

• Hand wash more dishes
• Turn off the entertainment center power strip
• Turn off iMac, even though it likes to be on
• Power down PC, turn off monitor and speakers
• Turn off lights! Turn off lights! Turn off lights!

Here’s the rest of that quick list…

• Line dry more this Spring
• Unplug baby monitor wall wart when not in use
• Keep thermostat colder/hotter to save
• Get LED lights
• Install solar hot water heater (we can dream, right?)
• Unplug the TV
• Unplug the kid’s jambox
• Turn off ceiling fans (might make A/C less efficient)
• Turn off the kids glowing egg (dont’ ask)

So, what are you doing? Let us know below…

Energy efficient mortgages sound interesting, as they help bundle in sustainable add-ons to the home during the loan process. This allows home buyers to quality for larger loans, which means better, more efficient homes.  If you want to learn more, head down to Yo Burrito on Wednesday, February 11th at 6:30 p.m. for Charleston’s Green Happy Hour™.

Having voluntarily made the switch, I was able to enlist my old lights in an energy savings experiment. I put the same number of regular and LED lights outside on the bushes, and inside on the tree. Then I used my Kill A Watt usage monitor to get some data on exactly how much energy and money each set of 480 bulbs would burn every 24 hours.

The bottom line: My LED lights used 85% less energy than the traditional lights, and cost only 5¢ per day to operate. This saved me $10.75 over the 5-week period (LEDs cost $1.95; Incadescent cost $12.70) Not bad! 

This experiment proved to me that LED lights truly are more efficient, and got me excited about the future. A big chunk of U.S. energy is used on lighting, and if we could systematically reduce that by 85%-95% the impacts are clear. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more LED technology in the near future – even the tree in Francis Marian Park had LED lights this year!

So if you want to green up your holidays, definitely check out LED lights…I’m happy I did! If you want to check your own energy usage, you can pick up a Kill A Watt EZ at Amazon.com, or do the calculations yourself. You can also purchase LED lights online, and definitely check the local big box stores for deals this time of year.

This should be an interesting venue for our local green businesses, but I don’t think it’s going to be like the Sustainability Institute’s GreenHouse though. Still, it should be a positive event for the local green scene. Tracking…

One of the biggest uses of stuff is driving! The cars, gas, parts, emissions, roads, parking lots, accessories – it’s a nightmare of consumerism, and a giant resource hog. Driving less is one of the top 5 things you can do to reduce your impact on the planet, but one of the hardest concepts to approach. Help has arrived…

Charleston resident Nikki Seibert has set up The Road Less Traveled, a blog capturing her experiment with car-free living. Many of the posts are about her bicycle-based adventures, but she also touches on carpooling, riding the bus, and alternative travel facts.

When I decided to sell my car and start riding my bike and taking the bus, I got a wide range of responses, many of which wanted to know how I was planning on doing it (or why, for that matter). This blog is going to help you understand what it really means to be car-free, why everyone should consider it, and how it can realistically be done.

Be sure to check out The Road Less Traveled. Cheers to Nikki for sharing her life with the rest of us!

Don’t get me wrong…I LOVED using the trimmer. That dirty little engine had some power, and it made easy work of fuzzy garden edges and unlucky volunteer plants. But I knew if I experimented a bit, I could find a solution using simple, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly tools. After fine tuning the process all Summer, I’m getting great results with only a slight increase in work and time. It’s also a solution that is quiet, sustainable, and low impact.

Here’s how I did it…

The Human Powered Lawn has always been an interest of mine, probably stemming from my Amish roots. Or, it might be the annoying gas-powered cacophony of leaf blowers, edgers, mowers, and trimmers I hear every weekend on my otherwise quiet street. When did we become so dependent on these machines for basic yard work? How lazy are we?

So, I’ve set out to eliminate all four of these machines from my landscaping process. I’ve never used a leaf-blower (my broom works just fine) or an edger (I’ve always used a flat shovel + a trimmer), so I was already halfway there at the start of the Summer. I decided to eliminate my trimmer next, a tool I have been using since the dawn of my Junior High lawn mowing business days.

After a few months of practicing and refining, I have the replacement tools down to three: 1) A flat shovel, 2) flat hand held garden shears, and 3) that weed removal poker thing. That’s it. These simple tools replaced a gas-powered, factory-assembled, carbon-emitting non-necessity. Nice!

Here are some tips on using these tools around your yard:

• Edging driveways and other straight lines – Use the flat shovel to cut away an inch of soil and grass along each edge, and the weed removal poker thing to pop it out. This creates a nice, deep edge that will last all summer. Then, for edge maintenance, use the flat shears like scissors to cut back the grass. Just cut along the line you made with the shovel.
• Trees, poles, and fences – The shears work fine for all of these things, and only adds a little time. Switch hands to avoid fatigue, and do it before you mow so you can mulch in the trimmings.
• Weeds in beds – Sometimes I would use the trimmer in our large pine straw bed to remove weeds and volunteer trees. I now use the flat shovel for this, and just walk along forcing the blade into the crown of each plant. This pops them right out.
• Garden bed edges – Use the flat shovel to carve out a trench between your mulched garden and your yard. This will give you a nice border, and prevent grass from crawling into the bed (and make it easier to remove once it does).

Those are the basics – it’s not that complicated. Yes, this is slightly more labor intensive, but actually takes about the same amount of time when you get good at it. The results are similar too, with the only real difference being the edges around my driveway looking more natural, less manicured (but still clean and tidy).

I know the Human Powered Yard isn’t for everyone, and I’ve certainly had a couple of neighbors ask if I wanted to borrow their trimmer (they assumed mine must be broken), but I really think re-imagining how we do simple things can make a difference. I would rather be xeriscaping, and I know these tools are all made in a factory and shipped to Lowe’s, but replacing the machines with muscles has been a positive experience for me, and it might be for you too.

Overall, our driving habits haven’t changed this much since the 1970s, and I think it’s a good thing. Here are a few local ways you can change you own habits, and help out mother planet at the same time.

• Ride CARTA – Riding the bus whenever possible will keep you out of your car, and keep emissions out of the air. Lucky for us, CARTA has some great routes for getting around Charleston.
• Buy Biodiesel – Fill up your diesel vehicle with eco-friendly biodeisel from OM Fuels, located in the Fox Music parking lot on Montague Avenue.
• Participate in a rideshare program – If you don’t mind sharing a ride with relative strangers, you can find local carpoolers on Craigslist.
• Buy a local hybrid or smart car – We have local dealerships that sell the Prius, SmartCar, and Honda Hybrids. If it’s time to get a new car, this is a great opportunity to cut some emissions and vote with your dollar.

• Attend the Alternative Energy meetup – Fuel is often a topic at the monthly Charleston Alternative Energy Meetup, and you can learn a lot about how green up your vehicle (and other things) by attending.
• Use the bike paths – Keep your car in the driveway and pedal to work. Bike paths have popped up around town, and local interest is driving the creation of more.
• Move closer to where you work – Summerville to Downtown commutes just don’t make sense. That goes for James Island to East Cooper commutes too. Now, I know we can’t all just move, but factor this into the decision the next time you’re thinking about it.
• When you’re stuck on the Don Holt, turn off your car! – If you’re at a complete stop in bumper-to-bumper traffic, turning off your car can save a lot of gas and keep nasty stuff out of the air. It’s a myth that turning off and on your engine uses a ton of gas, so turn that key the next time your standing still (if you can bear the heat!)

Some thoughts…

• I averaged 43.8 and 46.8 mpg on the first two tanks. This is pretty good, but there’s room for improvement. If I had more interstate and fewer bridges between work and home, I could edge that up.

• I managed to get a huge load of lumber home from Lowe’s the other day. I’ve also had bags of mulch, pine straw, top soil, and a group of 5 people in it as well.
• I like talking to the other Prius owners as much as the Prius prospects – they’re a chatty crew.
• Cheers to my friend Ben for introducing the term “hybrid rage” to my lexicon. Having SUV’s get all up in my business when I’m rolling steady on battery makes me laugh.
• Sometimes I can’t find it in the parking lot because it is so small. See photo…

And yes, I’m still wondering how all the US auto makers failed to have Toyota’s vision. It just re-enforces that notion that as Americans, the only votes that count are the ones we make with our dollars.

Over the last few years, I’ve spoken with many Prius owners about the car, and a pattern emerged. There was very little talk about saving money on fuel, despite the seemingly unstoppable surge in gas prices we are seeing. Instead, people bought them because it was simply the right thing to do. Skeptics often say that the savings in gas will never pay for the car, but this isn’t an exercise in ROI; it’s a chance to make a good choice for the planet…and I’ll pay for that.

Yes, I’m happy about the lower emissions, but that’s certainly not the whole story. One of the most effective ways to create social change is to vote with your wallet, and buying a Prius does that in a big way. The hybrid system is so amazing, and I really don’t understand why Detroit can’t seem to figure this out. Sure, they are “trying”, but a $50,000 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid that only gets 14/20 mpg is both laughable and embarrassing. Clearly they aren’t trying hard enough.

Along with doing the right thing comes setting an example, and that was certainly part of my motivation. I agree with Mary Gatch, who was quoted in this Treehugger.com post (you go girl!) describing the satisfaction of having people ask her about Prius. I like this as well, but not as much as I like having my two boys ask me about it. Influencing them means a lot to me, and I’m already imagining them telling their college friends about all the kooky green stuff we made them do growing up. But you know what, that stuff will stick, and their generation will see things differently…and that should be reason enough for all of us all to get hybrids.

So, if you have a chance to get a Prius, jump! And if enough of us jump, mother nature will certainly notice (and maybe Detroit will too).

That’s where our newly acquired Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor is coming in handy. I can plug in almost any device, set the cost per kWh (SCE&G is charging me $0.094), and it will estimate the total cost per year/month/week/day (though, I recommend also buying a power strip liberator). Here are the first three things I measured:

• Simple lamp with CFL: $3.29 per year
• Entertainment Center (TV/DVD/Stereo/etc.): $95.51 per year
• Phone & Answering Machine: $4.95

This will give me a good roadmap for other devices in the house that should either be used in moderation, or turned off when not in use, helping us reduce our carbon footprint AND save a few bucks. I’ll be sure to post back here with a full report.