Pacticallity, what have you done lately?

Well, I don't know if this is what you had in mind, but.... In our house we have gas heat and that is the only thing we use gas for. As the weather started warming up I would turn the heater off. During the day it was quite warm outside and heating was not needed. Of course at night it would get a little chilly and it was nice to be able to turn the heater on and knock the chill off of the house in the morning. The problem was that after I would leave the house for work each morning my daughter in law would turn the heater on and run it all day. Then when I got home it would be 80 or 90 degrees in the house and I would have to turn on the AC. So.... I finally went down to the gas company and had them shut the gas off, completely. Of course it was a little inconvenient on those chilly mornings but I am saving a ton on the utilities payments now.

The only change i had guts and time for is solar heating. And now it's freaking winter. What a great help that was. TATA.

Wasn't too long ago .. that I switched out the old bulbs for florescent. It's suppose to become mandatory here soon. Lately I have been scouring the classifieds for a telecommute job. Joy

I'm using both flourescent lamps and bulbs at home.. haha =D BUt those bulbs i'm using belongs to those energy saving ones, and thus electricity saving too.. hehe ^_^ Other than that, it will be the usage of my air-con at home.. I will only be switching it on when i'm about to sleep, which is around 2am, and switching it off at 6-7am, when i wake up.. haha =D After which, i will use the fan instead, and that will be more than enough to cool the whole room.. hehe

Hi basqui!! What I've done? Sleep and get more sleep. I haven't slept the last couple of weeks. That's why I'm just chillaxing for now.

I usually just walk when where I'm going is not that far. It saves money, a great exercise, help the environment by minimizing pollution from vehicles, etc.

hi basque well today I have done nothing but mylot but yesterday I tackled the new state of the art atm machines in Bank of America and wow just wow,it tells you every step to deposit a check, deposit money or take money out, and so easy to do too. no envelopes no standing in long lines, I am now brought into the 21st century and everything my son Robbie told me about the atms was true, it took me maybe five minutes as I had to wrestle with my handbag, but the actual transactions only took two minutes. Hurray for progress.It is much more practical as it is done electronically no people to put down the wrong amounts and make human errors. good deal loved using the new ATM machines.

Well...I haven’t done it yet but it is on my shopping list for tomorrow when I will go to the grocery store. I’m going to buy new batteries for the smoke detectors in my house. They are still working but they should be changed at least once a year and they are overdue...Can you imagine not waking up to a fire because you forgot to change the detector’s batteries?

Well, once I started reading this discussion, I realized that I was a little bit chilly so I turned up the thermostat a few degrees. But I don't really think that is what you are talking about. A couple of the other things that we have done in our house to help save energy are we have added extra insulation into our upper attic (made a great difference during the winter, it is yet to be seen for the summer). We are running almost all fluorescent lights in our house and we are using these things that seal our doors better so we have less heat/cool loss during the extremes of the seasons.

I've been making energy (money) saving changes for years and I'm almost changed out. When I built my home in 2005, I built with insulated concrete form, rather than wood, which gives me an r value of 52 in the walls. I put energy efficient windows and doors in and bought all energy-saving appliances/lights. I even have automatic faucets to save water and use a water treatment system that captures and treats all the wastewater (black and grey) that I create and then I use that treated water to irrigate my native-plant (mostly rock) landscape. Since building my house, I've also retired, so I drive in to town, now, only about once or twice a week, instead of everyday. Every year, I re-weatherize everything, just because... I keep the thermastat set up in the summer (because I can with the insulation in this house) and the thermastat set down in the winter. My electric and propane bills are nothing compared to people with homes my size and smaller. Oh, I also use solar heat to warm the water in the water heater before the electricy kicks in. And recently, besides saving aluminum...I've started a compost pile to reduce my solid waste stream.