Category Archives: Environment

…And There Was (Efficient) Light

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Some of our house projects aim to make our 1983 house more green. Energy efficiency wasn’t a huge concern among homebuilders or homeowners back then. Now that we are in charge, we are making some changes both to save money and to conserve our resources. I’ve already talked about our new insulation and radiant barrier, which will save a lot of money but also cost a lot upfront. Our next green project was much cheaper and was easy to do ourselves: replacing our inefficient light bulbs.

In your house or apartment, most of your light bulbs are probably the traditional type, known as incandescent. They run electricity through a wire in the middle that resists the flow and glows. This resistance produces a lot of heat and a little bit of light, which is what makes them so wasteful. A newish type of bulb called a compact flourescent blub (CFL) uses electricity to make trapped gases glow instead, producing lots of light and a little bit of heat. For the same light output, they might use a quarter of the electricity of an incandescent bulb. They also last 4-5 times as long, 8000+ hours or more versus 1500-2000 hours. You’ve probably seen them before; they’re swirly white tubes.

CFLs entered the market several years ago. At first they were very expensive and had some quality issues. Today’s CFLs have dropped in price significantly with better quality. At Sam’s Club you can pick up an 8-pack of 60w-equivalent bulbs for less than $1.50 per bulb, not much more than you’d pay for an old-style bulb. In return, you save money in electricity, add much less heat to your home, saving on cooling costs, and won’t have to replace them for a long, long time.

We counted over 60 light bulbs in our new house and are replacing almost all of them with CFLs. There is also a new type of efficient light bulb called an LED bulb, which is much more efficient but also much more expensive and only available for certain applications. I encourage you to check out your lighting options and look for opportunities to green up!

Saving Energy with Fluffy White Stuff

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One of the house projects that excited me most was improving the energy efficiency of our new house. Built in 1983, it only had 6-8 inches of insulation in the attic. That amount was probably the minimum required by building code back then since energy was so cheap and people didn’t think much about energy efficiency. To bring our house up to the recommended amount, we needed an extra foot or more of blown-in insulation, which would keep our home cooler in summer and warmer in winter. I was also interested in a radiant barrier, which is a special type of aluminum foil that’s attached to the underside of the roof to reflect heat and keep the attic cooler.

I got very similar bids from two different companies and gave the job to KMD Comfort Zone in Fort Worth. Their three-man crew arrived early Wednesday morning and immediately got to work. By lunchtime they were done. Our attic now looks like the inside of a Jiffy-Pop bag – shiny foil on the top, fluffy white insulation on the floor with all the ceiling joists buried. They also installed an attic tent, which is a zippered covering to prevent air from leaking through the pull-down stairs. I wish I’d taken before and after pictures. I might take an after picture when I have a chance. The crew worked really hard and did a great job. Unless your home is only a couple years old, it could probably use more insulation, and a radiant barrier would be helpful for the summertime if you live in a hot climate like Texas. I highly recommend giving KMD Comfort Zone a call.

In the News

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I thought I might comment on a few interesting items from the news this week:

  1. A-Rod. I quit following baseball closely soon after Nolan Ryan retired in 1993 but still have some interest in it. Pitchers intrigue me most with their arsenal of different deliveries, spins, speeds, and locations. If I played, I would want to be a pitcher, a strikeout king. How great it must feel to be able to fool a batter so badly that he gets called out at the plate.
    Anyway, back to A-Rod. As you’ve probably seen, this week he admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs in the early 2000s, some of his best years. I became a skeptic of baseball players years ago once steroid spectulation started hovering around home-run master Mark McGuire. Since then many players have either been accused or admitted to doping. A-Rod is obviously one of the biggest. Although I’m disappointed that he cheated, I have to admire him for admitting his mistakes and apologizing. He could have followed the lead of many of his predecessors and denied it until the end. I’m also disappointed in the players’ union, who Bud Selig says fought all his efforts to introduce mandatory drug testing for years. I get drug tested for my job. So do many other people. Why can’t they?
  2. Anti-Smoking Bill. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Texas state lawmakers are working on a bill to ban smoking statewide in public buildings, including “restaurants, bars, shopping malls, and sports arenas”, according to the article. I fully support this bill. It would make Texas a healthier and more pleasant place for us non-smokers and would give the smokers another reason to quit. I would also love to see Congress double or triple the cigarette tax and use the money for anti-smoking campaigns and lung cancer research.
  3. Movin’ 107.5 is Gone. When 107.5 first switched from playing smooth jazz to 80s/90s party music, I was devastated. I LOVED The Oasis and thought it offered music that no other radio station in DFW really offered. Movin’ played much of the same music I could find on other stations like 106.1 plus some songs from my junior high and high school days. After mourning a bit, I started listening to Movin’ when the mood hit. Tuesday afternoon, Movin’ abruptly switched to a Spanish-language station to address the large Spanish-speaking market in DFW. All the music people at Movin’ were fired, which angers me and makes me glad I don’t work in the radio business. It would be like Southwest suddenly deciding it was grounding all its 737s, flying A320s instead, and replacing all of us with new dispatchers trained on the A320. In the middle of the day.

737 Burns Biofuel

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A Continental 737 successfully tested a 50-50 mix of Jet-A (standard jet fuel) and biofuel made from algae in one of its engines. The Houston Chronicle has the story. This development excites and encourages me. As much as I love being able to fly all over the world, I also know that airlines burn huge amounts of fuel, which is refined from oil. A 1-hour flight on a 737 burns nearly 750 gallons of fuel. If we can make some of that fuel from biological sources such as algae, the environmental impact would be huge.

Phone Book Opt-Out

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This might not be as effective as the National Do Not Call list, but it’s a start. A new organization called YellowPagesGoesGreen.org gives you an easy way to tell your local phone book publishers to quit sending you phone books that you never requested, don’t want, and never use. We get at least 2-3 phone books a year and immediately dump each one into the recycling bin or the trash. I think they are a ridiculous waste of paper in the Information Age. Sign up today via the link above and let me know if it works!

Also, vote in my phone book poll on the right. Thanks!

Carbon Footprint

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As you probably saw, my latest poll addresses your level of concern over your “carbon footprint”, which is a measure of how much CO2 and other greenhouse gases you pump into the atmosphere through driving, flying, eating, using electricity, and other life activities. The poll results indicate a wide range of concern, from high concern to no concern to unfamiliarity with the concept. Why should you care? First, I am now confident that the majority of scientists are correct that a) the world is getting warmer, which over time will dramatically impact our world, mostly in negative ways, and b) man’s activities are at least partially responsible. Second, in many cases, reducing your carbon footprint can save you money. Who doesn’t need to save money right now?

I found a great site, aptly named CarbonFootprint.com, that lets you calculate your footprint and find ways to reduce and/or offset it. The Box family’s footprint is about 17 tons/year. To offset our carbon output (by pulling an equivalent amount of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere or help in some other way), we would need to plant 17 trees each year. Each tree can suck about 1 ton of greenhouse gas from the air and replace it with oxygen and other products.

The site lists dozens of tips for shrinking your footprint. Here are a few:

  • Quit buying bottled water. Instead, drink tap water or filter it at home. Transporting bottled water burns gas, and manufacturing the bottles use oil.
  • Drive less through combining trips, carpooling, eliminating trips, or even moving closer to where you spend your time.
  • Switch to cleanly produced electricity such as Green Mountain.
  • Buy produce in season from local growers where possible. Out of season produce travels long distances from other areas or countries, burning lots of fossil fuels during the journey.
  • Eat less red meat. Not only does beef production waste huge amounts of energy, cows also, um, “release” methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times worse than CO2. Eat more chicken and fish, or go vegetarian for even more impact.
  • Run full loads of laundry and dishes instead of partial loads.
  • Turn your water heater down to 120 degrees. Heating water uses a huge amount of electricity.
  • Turn off lights when you don’t need them. For all appliances, including your computer, either unplug them when not in use or use a power strip to turn them off. Otherwise they continue to use power even though they are “turned out”.

Obviously some of these are harder than others, and we don’t do all of them perfectly ourselves. But every one will reduce your harm to the environment, and almost every one will save you money. Sound good?