Reef nutrition

Getting obsessed with saving the planet.

stubbsz

stubbsz

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I sometimes think I take it too far. I am starting to annoy myself.

I have a solar system.

I keep a bucket in my shower so I can catch the gallons of water I waste waiting for hot water and I use that water for the cold in the kids bath and to top up the toilets cisterns after flushing. I try and collect as much waster from the RO as I can and use that too for the garden.

I drive the kids to school but then park and take VTA to work. I've cut down on the amount of meat I eat and try to eat locally grown produce. It's getting to be a pain in the Ar@# but it's hard not to keep worrying about this stuff.

I feel bad that I bought a 4wd Audi that only averages me around 19.5 mpg (I guess it would get better if I drove far enough to hit the freeways.

I'm always turning lights off and trying to stop the kids running too much water when they do their teeth... I think I'm driving them nuts. Pretty hypocritical when I'm running 500w (well actually 630 watts according to the kilo-watt) of light all day on the reef-tank.

Should I get help?

-Adrian
 
Hi Adrian, welcome to our 12 step program. ;D

You just described my lifestyle. You didn't mention composting ... between recyling and the compost bin, our trash is about 3/4 kitchen bag a week. I don't go that far with water, though.

Reefing makes for a big carbon footprint, unfortunately.

Hey, if you ever get rid of your tank, try building a plug-in electric car. It will take care of some excess power generation that you'll potentially donate to PG&E. Here's the Electric Auto Assn website: http://www.eaaev.org/

Jim
 
Adrian,
Do you feel the solar panels were worth the money? I realize there are two issues.
The first is financial. How long is the payback and all that. The second is feeling good about producing your own clean energy and helping to save the planet. To me, the second point may be the most important
 
It might be a long read, but in the "off topic" forums I did a write up on solar panels, they can pay themselves off very quickly or not as quickly, the more power you use, the higher energy tiers you go (i.e. you pay more per kWh) the quicker they will pay themselves off. How much DIY you do could very easily affect how much it ends up costing you too, although I've read some really bad horror stories about needing all sorts of permits to put them up on your house? I mean come on! Electrician needed to make sure all your wiring is correct/final hookup, but a permit? Man San Francisco is getting too damn money grubbing for their own good.
 
Mike, that was a good writeup you did on the other thread.

The contractor that installed my system, RealGoodsdotcom, gave me a payback estimate of ~11 years using data in late 2002. From a financial standpoint, not a bad investment, considering that it also added approximately $30,000 to the "selling price" of the house if I were to sell it back then. The payback translates to just under 7% a year compounded for a risk free investment. Not bad, eh? Anyone can blow $12,000 in any number of home improvement projects, e.g. paved driveway, concrete patio, deck, etc. It's a small price to pay for a power generator with an assured market (PG&E) for your product, and that's mandated by law! I'm at a loss to explain why not more people have solar systems installed.

I wouldn't recommend DIY. My inverter was DOA, the vendor just picked up the phone and had another one delivered from Concord; if I were doing it myself, I would have been stuck with a warranty hassle on a $2,000+ inverter. Issue was resolved in <4 hours. I was there every step of the way, and thanked my lucky stars I didn't go with DIY (which I seriously considered.) They did some hairy stuff up on the roof I never could have done myself.

Jim
 
Thanks for the compliment Jim.

Yeah the DIY route can be tricky, especially if you don't know what you're doing (it's not like putting up shingles), also in my case with a flat rubber coated roof, it would also mean I'd need to redo my roof, another reason why I hesitated at forking over for a ton of panels. And yeah the payback is simply amazing on these systems, I mean the #1 reason I was thinking about finally doing the plunge is I looked at how much money I had in a checking account (without getting specific roughly a good sized system worth of cash), was thinking of tossing that into a money market account or something that was hitting close to 5% return, then wammo, foreclosures, all sorts of other crap, fed lowered interest rate, interest rate on account dropped to less than 3%.

Now granted not everyone has $20k-$40k sitting around but those that do, man it seems almost silly not to do it. Now why I haven't started ripping up my roof yet? Well, financially I want a little more backup before starting the project for "unexpected" costs that might pop up, amongst other reasons like getting hit really hard with this whole budget deal considering I work for the state through the college system, I'll be able to put food on the table but throwing down for a "major upgrade" I'd like to have a tad of rainy day money.

BTW Jim how big was your setup? 3kW?
 
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=3747.msg43544#msg43544 date=1211160903]
BTW Jim how big was your setup? 3kW?
[/quote]

Only 2.1kw. House is nestled next to a hill, I kinda maxed out on available roof space. It's gonna be interesting this month with the start of "peak season". I've never been without an aquarium since the panel installation. We've got central A/C, but we use it sparingly. I also have a solar powered attic fan that blows out 1200 cfm during full sun. LIke you, Mike, I've also got a Kill-a-Watt. It told me that the front loading LG washing machine is a true power miser.
 
Of yeah? Couldn't wrap my mind around why the front loading washers were more efficient.

That being said, I can use my RO waste water to fill my washing machine, so HA! ;)

But 2.1kW, if you have a full southern view should be plenty without a tank.
 
well, front loading washers can use less water. takes less energy to move less water compared to sloshing around 10g+ in a conventional toploader.
 
[quote author=Gomer link=topic=3747.msg43558#msg43558 date=1211173316]
well, front loading washers can use less water. takes less energy to move less water compared to sloshing around 10g+ in a conventional toploader.
[/quote]

Yep. I use a frontloader.

I think my Fridge-freezer should be changed... It must be 10 years old now... must be much more energy efficient now.

FYI, they do leasing of Solar now at SolarCity if you don't like the initial crazy dollar outlay. BTW, I don't work for them.
 
one thing to consider when swapping to a new energy efficient appliance, is the net change. While your energy foot print shrinks, what of the appliance? Does the old one go to a new home? Does it go to a land fill? Does it get recycled? What of the energy required to make your new appliance? Suddenly, it gets more complicated :p
 
Instead of letting your water run to get hot water, you should consider putting a recirculating pump on your water heater. It would not only save you the water, but save some gas also. They even have timers on the pump so the pump doesn't run all night or day when instant hot water is not needed
 
[quote author=kurplunk link=topic=3747.msg43649#msg43649 date=1211341770]
Instead of letting your water run to get hot water, you should consider putting a recirculating pump on your water heater. It would not only save you the water, but save some gas also. They even have timers on the pump so the pump doesn't run all night or day when instant hot water is not needed
[/quote]

Yep. I've considered that. Pretty cheap and I think I may even be able to install it myself. What concerns me, the biggest problem I have is the shower, I collect like 4 gallons before it goes hot. If I run the water in my sink (next to the shower and the usual place to piece of the recirculating system that puts the not-yet-hot-water back into the cold) until it gets hot, my shower still wastes a bunch of water to get hot.
 
[quote author=Gomer link=topic=3747.msg43629#msg43629 date=1211325303]
one thing to consider when swapping to a new energy efficient appliance, is the net change. While your energy foot print shrinks, what of the appliance? Does the old one go to a new home? Does it go to a land fill? Does it get recycled? What of the energy required to make your new appliance? Suddenly, it gets more complicated :p
[/quote]
Yes, I've considered that too. Despite not knowing the numbers on that, it's probably the main reason apart from laziness that I haven't replaced it.
 
Recirculating pump on water heater? Man you guys have too much skimmer mods on the brain :D

But how would you work something like that? Simply tee off the out & In, and run a pump inbetween? What triggers it going off, I can't imagine constantly moving the water would actually be beneficial though as it hits copper pipes outside of the insulated tank heat would be seeped away
 
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=3747.msg43688#msg43688 date=1211388170]
Recirculating pump on water heater? Man you guys have too much skimmer mods on the brain :D

But how would you work something like that? Simply tee off the out & In, and run a pump inbetween? What triggers it going off, I can't imagine constantly moving the water would actually be beneficial though as it hits copper pipes outside of the insulated tank heat would be seeped away
[/quote]
I think the amount you save on Water is supposed to offset by a large margin, the amount you lose to wasting energy, reheating the cooled water in the pipe, and recirculating it.

I guess you could set it up to just press a button to recirc it for 30 seconds before you start your shower, so it would only run as needed... sure, you have a 30 second wait, but at least you dont watch 5 gallons of water run down the drain.

It normally works on a timer.

http://www.wattspremier.com/watts/showprod.cfm?&DID=15&CATID=1&ObjectGroup_ID=22
 
There is a pump you can buy specifically for this application. You can purchase it at any major plumbing store or maybe even Lowes or Home Depot. You set the timer for let's say 5am till 9am when you take a shower in the morning. Then again for 5pm till 8pm for any needs after work in such. It's almost like adding more capacity to your water heater. It keeps the water in the pipe at temperature. I think helping the enviroment is fine. But sometimes a little common sense goes a long way.
 
Ok that timer, or a switch would work best IMO, otherwise there's got to be a huge energy loss keeping hot water in exposed copper pipes. I mean energy used to heat water vs wasting water waiting for it to get warm, I dunno I would opt for 'wasted" water over energy.

That being said, and hearing about how the water that treatment plants deal with is "consumable clean" in quality, it seems like a waste that (at least here in SF) that they simply dump it into the ocean where it actually does get wasted, as opposed to in some lake somewhere.
 
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