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  • From: Jocelyn Clarke <jclarke AT pei.sympatico.ca>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Oil demand â?~rising faster tha n expe ctedâ?T
  • Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 08:06:28 -0300

I am a newbie here, so I like to see tips on how to save energy. There are lots of options and folks can just choose the ones that work for them.
We have wood heat, and while we buy wood now, due to age and time considerations, it is still much cheaper than oil. It costs us about 4 cords to heat the house.
We got this way by replacing one window at a time with an energy efficient (energy star) window as each one got too rotten to be still good. We put insulation on the shingles before putting on the siding, and had to do one side of the house at a time, as we could afford it. Some times a bit of advance planning helps, like taking the 15 percent discount by buying all the siding at once, even though we didn't have the time and money to do more than one side of the house per year. We had storage in the barn loft for the siding waiting to be used.

We also have gone to compact florescent bulbs, except for brooding chicks where the heat of an incandescent is needed.

Our septic tile bed is upslope of our fruit trees, and even in a dry year, we don't need to irrigate. Our nut trees are upslope of the tile bed, as they don't like wet feet, especially C. dentata. (sweet chestnut)

I'm looking into a reel type lawnmower, for around the fruit trees, as opposed to gas powered. My hubby will still use the ride on for the bulk of the mowing. Reel types have come a long way lately, and as the wheels are outside the cutting area, there is much less chance of " bizt, oops!" when mowing around tiny one year whips (new trees)

There are all degrees of saving energy, so don't feel if you can't do it perfectly, you can't try. Just do what suits you.
Even hanging the closes out to dry will save 1500 watts times the hours a week you'd normally run the dryer. This might be very useful to someone in the city in a stifling apartment who needs to run a fan or air conditioner. The grid is interconnected.

Jocelyn, Canada






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