Homestead mailing list

[Jocelyn Clarke <jclarke AT pei.sympatico.ca>]

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