One Thing

I have recently started reading the good human and once a week he writes about doing one thing every week to improve the environment and live a greener lifestyle.  I like that. It breaks things down into manageable chunks and makes any task less overwhelming.

Although I've always been a recycler, I compost, grow my own vegetables and try to do things as environmentally consciously as possible, we realized as we continued to remodel the house that we could take that further and try to green things up there as well.

So here is my one thing: the laundry. 

When we rebuilt the laundry room we bought a new energy-star front loading washer.  Yes, it was pricey at the onset but front-loading washers use 40-75% less water and 30-85% less energy than typical top-loaders (15 gallons vs. up to 40 gallons, and 120-560 kWh/yr. vs 800 kWh/yr.). 

Front loaders are also:

•  gentler to your clothes, causing them to last longer (savings)
• the capacity is larger because there is no central agitator so you do less loads (a time and energy saver)
• they clean better and enable you to use cold water instead of heating your water (a whopping 95% of the energy used by a washing machine could be going just to heat the water!) 
• they spin at faster rpm's so the clothes dry faster if you dry them in a dryer (savings)

And speaking of drying, since I live in beautiful, sunny and low-humidity New Mexico I have gone to line drying everything that I can.  Honestly, it dries much faster on the line than it did in my old dryer anyway.

 

Notice the cute clothespin hanger?  My Grandma used to have one like it, and I remember hanging laundry with her on the lines in that big yard in Bruce, Wisconsin so many years ago.  I found it at this cool Etsy shop .  I also have a retractable clothes line (you can see it mounted on the tree) so the line is up and strung between my trees on laundry days and hidden from sight the rest of the time.  

I use my dryer for perhaps an 45 minutes a week, for towels that I really prefer to be fluffed up. It's an awesome system that works for me.  Our utility bill has gone down 34% last month which was when I implemented the "all line drying all the time" system.  Some of that may be from our furnace being off , so I can't ignore that variable but that's a pretty  sizable drop and I'm very pleased.

Now if we could only afford that solar system for our electricity we would be sitting pretty!

Comments

[Amanda Hensley]

I love hearing about things each of us can do to lessen our "eco-footprint". And most of the time it saves $$ too. Can't beat it.

[Mom]

cloths drying in the wind, the wonderful smell of sunshine and mother earth noticed when taking them down always made me happy. I long for a clothesline again! Love mom

[Paula]

I was looking at your clothespin holder ( I grew up calling it clothespeg), I want one. Even if I never hag anything out to dry, it would just remind me of home. Although I do remember how fresh clothes smelt after they were hung outside to dre. I just got red frontloader washer and driers a few months ago, I love them. Can't believe Hannah will be starting kindergarden this year, time flies.