Sustainability: energy saving products in the home?

[Lizzie]

Hello everyone,

I have noticed we have quite a lot of hosts here in the CC who are interested in eco related topics, especially when it comes to your home. I'm a bit of a fan too! I’ve been following the news, and there has been a lot about the developments in electric cars and most recently the development with solar powered roof tiles.

I like this concept and so I wondered what you think the future of the energy saving/generating energy products in the home, any ideas on what you think could be next? Is this something that you would like to embrace in your home or do already?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Dev4]

@Laura2714 Yes, we do the same for all the units. LED lights and big bottles all the possible guest supplies that are refillable. 

@Lizzie Great topic! Are there any suggestions for people living in condos/apartments? We do not have the luxury of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. I have tried eco friendly thermostats - Nest and Ecobee. They help to control wastage of heating / cooling. 

[Adam645]

Yes please! I'm over the pond in Atlanta (south US) but I'm sure the same tips apply to us. Any writing on this topic would be amazing!

[Helen427]

@Jessica-and-Henry0, that's an amazing view & photo, I love the angles in it 🙂

[Michelle264]

We live in the South Island of New Zealand. We have an off-grid farmstay in Hokitika. We are not connected to any power grid at all. We generate all our own power from solar panels. We collect all our own rainwater for drinking, washing etc. We use a woodburner to heat our home.

We try to make a big deal about us being an "eco-farm" but we still occasionally get guests that are shocked  we are on solar power only. It is in our title and all over our listing but some haven't read a word.

Our farm produces beef, lamb, pork, eggs and fruit & vegetables. We are able to share the fruit and veg with guests but sadly it isn't legal for us to offer them any of our meat. We offer home baking, home made muesli + yogurt for breakfast along with fruit we have grown. We also have our own beehives so we can offer honey as well.

We aren't totally self sufficient and don't believe we ever will be. We still have to buy loads of consumables like oil, flour etc. The majority of guests love what we offer and enjoy the chance to stay here and experience staying in an off-grid home. Some are upset that we don't have a microwave or hairdryers but they tend to the ones who are usually upset about something all the time. 🙂

We have great, fast wifi which surprises some as they thought we would be quite "basic". Some think they won't be able to charge their phones or have electric lights. Of course it is all explained in our listing as clearly as possible - but we know guests don't read.

After we had 2 destructive cyclones in two weeks last year that totally smashed our pine plantation, we have begun to restore our forrest. We now put $10 from each guest's booking towards the planting of a native NZ tree. Guests can offset a bit of their carbon footprint from their travel here by planting a tree. Not all guests are interested or concerned about this at all but we have had some positive feedback.

We will keep trying to improve and offer our guests a great experience. It would be great if we are able to add something to our listing on Airbnb that indicates we are a "green" property. I don't know how it would work or what the criteria should be. I do know that it shouldn't ever be anything a guest can rate us on. They already have no idea how the ratings works for the most basic concepts of Location and Value . Many of our guests are utterly confused about what being "green" and eco-friendly means let alone understanding being off-grid and sustainable, but it is clear that they are interested in learning  more and seeking out properties like ours.

[Helen427]

@Michelle0

a little off topic

I hope you are Ok down your way with all the floods and loss of Waiho River bridge.

Thinking of you all, and how strong those who live in what are remaining rural areas of New Zealand are.

It was only around 50 years ago Auckland to was rural & had floods but we also had ditches/ drains  that we don;t have now, we just get different problems because of all the concrete & silly townplanning that's gone off the rails in commonsense!

[Ben551]

Hey @Michelle264 I hope you guys are hanging in there today. Some WILD weather hitting you again! I hope it doesn’t set restoration plans back further... 

Kia Kaha Hokitika!

[Sarah977]

Another thing about global mass consumerism and everything being imported and exported all around the world- it used to be, even 50 years ago when I was 19, that you could travel to a foreign country and see all these amazing handicrafts that you'd never seen before and  couldn't find anywhere else. You'd be able to buy some amazing woven rug, dyed with natural dyes, that was really unique back where you came from. Now, you could find a rug like that, from that country, in a shop in London, New York, Vancouver and lots of people might have one in their home. So there's less new and exciting things to see in a foreign country now- we've sort of been exposed to it all, without ever having to go anywhere. It's a bit sad to me.

[Ben551]

Wow... @Sarah977 ...when you put it that way... it’s downright bleak. Mass consumerism truly is the doom of humanity...

[Sarah977]

@Ben551  Nice post, I enjoyed it and agree. We can only do so much and hopefully inspire those around us to look at needless waste and consumerism. 

I admit I haven't gotten my shopping habits down to your meager purchases. But I do grow my own veggies, and haven't bought anything other than potatoes and onions (which I'm not growing) in months, since my garden started producing. People used to eat what was in season where they lived, canned, dried and froze the surplus to eat during the non-growing season- now we're used to being able to buy bananas and oranges when we live in Canada or other places those things don't grow. All this shipping of food, not done to feed starving people, but simply so we can all eat whatever we want, anytime we want, certainly increases the carbon footprint. 

I've always been amazed at how much garbage people produce. Even when I had 3 kids to raise, our entire household produced one small plastic shopping bag's worth of garbage a week. Plastic, glass, metal, paper and cardboard all went to the recycling depot, food scraps got composted. Yet my neighbor, 1 guy living alone, had 2 big garbage cans full every week.

I had a friend who was working check-out at a bakery. She found that if she asked people "Do you want a bag?" they always said yes. If she asked "Do you need a bag?", they considered for a moment and would most often say, "No, I don't, thanks." So-one small effort by one person can make at least the start of a difference.

You would be horrified by the amount of plastic garbage strewn everywhere in Mexico.

[Ben551]

@Sarah977  oh that's awesome 🙂  I think you get 400 points just by having an increased awareness!! I utterly agree about the shipping of food.  I was guilty of eating the same things all year around for much of my life.  Awareness of these things is so important.

You know they say a person who makes no other conscious change, but weighs themselves every day and writes down their weight on wall chart... will lose weight.  They say it's because just having an increased "awareness" improves our choices actively, in an unconscious way, whether we intend it or not.  I think the same is true about the environmental conversation.  I think the more people chat about it.. in a healthy and inclusive way... influences people's choices in their day to day life.

Please hug your friend for me next time you see her 🙂

[Ben551]

Gods @Jessica-and-Henry0  that must really be a struggle to live and watch.  Rest assured, there are many people like you who think the same way and are just as frustrated.  The power comes when you all join together and make consumer driven choices that influence the market.  I also believe in living each day to your own values and your own standards. 

@Sarah977  thanks for the feedback, that sounds like good advice. We'll get it all setup in the Airbnb then take a picture of it there and annotate the listing properly for it.  I think it should be ok.  I completely agree, a real fireplace would be a total fire hazard.  There is no way I'd trust guests to build a fire themselves... disaster waiting to happen.

I was thinking about green choices in general this afternoon and wanted to share some.... thoughts? Ramblings?  Keyboard splat probably...

Most folks know I'm hugely keen on making environmental choices.  That said, I tend to work on my own choices rather than lecturing others.  I guess I try to lead by example and it seems to work!  When I meander to the check-out at the supermarket without a single plastic packaged product, then proceed to spend less than 1/4 of what everyone else spends each week... believe me, people notice.  Even the checkout operators have started to ask questions about how little I buy.  Do I shop somewhere else?  Is it just a top up shop?  I get surprised reactions when I answer "no, this is my entire weekly shop". 

All I have in the basket is:

1. Glass bottled wine
2. Glass jar of coconut yoghurt
3. A paper bag of rolled oats (sometimes)
4. 5 litre tin of Olive oil (sometimes)
5. Cardboard box of frozen fish with no plastic (somtimes)
6. Bakery bread in my own bag
7. Jar of something (varies)

Elsewhere I buy bulk, using my own containers for everything from flour, to cleaning products, to shampoo and conditioner.  Even the toilet paper is plastic free, made of bamboo and costs 1/4 of the price.  My wife makes her own makeup in the kitchen, along with my shaving foam (though I'd rather not shave at all 🙂  My entire weekly grocery shop tracks at around $30 per week, for two people ($15 each).  I also use things like an Alum Stone instead of deodorant, which lasts around 10 years... these are things everyone should know exists, but we've lost this knowledge because of brightly coloured packaging that deludes us into thinking the old methods "can't possibly be as good".

I could write a book on all this.  I bloody should.  The way I see it is: life will never be perfect.  Your choices will never be perfect. Someone will always come along and tell you there are better decisions than the ones you are making.  But the way I see it is, talking to people that way stops folks taking any action at all.  We need to stop this type of talk and get people to get on with making some progress, and recognising how far people have come.  If all someone has done is buy reusable grocery bags, we should be congratulating them for it.  Not looking inside their reusable bags and pointing out all the shopping choices they should improve on.

Too often people preach about environmental change in the wrong way.  They describe a colossal mountain peak and tell everyone to "hurry up and get up it!" when people are nervous and feel unprepared for the journey ahead.  What we all need to do is recognise and celebrate the small steps each climber has made up that mountain, regardless of how high they have climbed, and whether or not they have the stamina to reach the top... if there even is a top.  The incline and debris on the way up, is not the same for every person...

If we want more people to get on board with environmental change, it's time to lift the conversation.

We need to encourage people to try, just a little bit here and there.  Just one small change to someone's lifestyle per week is all we need... in a year the impact is enormous.  I wish I could set a worldwide challenge, with a list of "easy choices" people could make, each week to work toward a global carbon reduction goal, so we could add up the numbers at the end and see how significant everyone's individual contribution is.  I'm thinking something along the lines of what the Global Corporate Challenge did with the global exercise movement. I found that hugely motivating and it was great to see all the millions of miles that everyone in the challenge "walked" together. 

A global challenge for the environment could have a points system, where everyone's changes are added up to a whopping "xxx million tonnes of carbon emmisions saved" over (say) 3 months.

I can imagine the choices people could make:

1. Orange Juice : this week buy oranges and squeeze them yourself [25 points]
2. Fruit and vegetables : this week buy all your fruit and vege without plastic packaging [25 points]
3. Breakfast cereal : this week, buy rolled oats in a paper bag and make porridge [20 points]
4. Bread : this week make bread yourself with [insert my recipe] with 15 mins work  [20 points]
5. Meat : this week visit a local butcher and buy unpackaged meat in your own container [30 points]
6. Meat : this week, try going without meat [80 points]

.... you get the idea...

Well there you have it folks, the Sunday ramblings of an English madman... I'm off to build furniture out of some interesting wood I found on the side of the road earlier today.. waste not want not... 100 points.

[Helen427]

@Ben551, do you have any fruit trees in your huge garden?

Or a vegetable plot?

Maybe you could start throwing the seeds & remins in an area of your garden & see what pops up, that will get the supermarket staff talking.

Our own local supermarket owner eats generally only organics & we were both at the supermarket at the same time the other evening, he walks his talk most of the time & was proud of his purchases!!

[Ben551]

Hey @Helen427 its one thing I really love about my NZ house, is the 1/2 acre out the back consisting of forest and my very productive food garden, with fruit trees.

I grew food in Scotland all year around, through a system of custom built raised beds, shelters and reflective sheeting... you should have seen it, we ate spinach, kale and collards for free all year around. Even so, it was a constant, daily battle against the conditions to ensure each plant did well. In NZ I literally can “throw seeds at the dirt” and things come up!

I recycled some large 20L plastic water bottles my neighbour had thrown out, cut the tops off and grew potatoes in them... I threw seeds at dirt and grew kohlrabi, radish, chard, kamokamo, butternut, tomatoes, and cucumber. Recently I even grew my own mushrooms!! That was a new one on me, I didn’t realise you could grown them so darn easily.

I was quite keen on this property because of the lemon, fig and plum trees. I also planted a bay leaf tree. I could plant more fruit trees, but the forest at the back is native so don’t want to chop any of those types of trees down.

I love my garden 🙂

[Sarah977]

@Ben551  That's a nice unit. I'm so impressed with New Zealand's committment to clean energy. (I'm also impressed with the quick response to the shootings by banning assault weapons- how long did that take- a few days, a week? Meanwhile there are mass murders all over the US on a seemingly daily basis, 2 year olds getting "accidentally shot" by a stray bullet, and they're still adamant about their "right to bear arms")

Well I guess since there seem to be guests who find a way to complain about anything, I suppose it could be misconstrued as to the "fireplace" amenity, but I wouldn't be too concerned about it. I'd just post it in your photo gallery, and do a line about it in your description. Sure beats clueless guests who've never built a fire in their lives smoking the place out or accidentally burning it down.

[Ben551]

We've done a whole raft of things to be energy saving at our place... from solar to wind (heheh... Windy Wellington is quite profitable...), but we are lucky in that New Zealand electricity is mostly 'green' anyway. 

According to Wikipedia "82% of energy for electricity generation is from renewable sources, making New Zealand one of the lowest carbon dioxide emitting countries in terms of electricity generation."  The majority (around 82%) of electricty here comes from Hydropower, Geothermal power and Wind energy. NZ is also nuclear free.  Even so, they want to get that 82% up to 100% and are dead serious about doing it.  Initatives all over the country to embrace new sustainable energy... folks here seem to want to be number one for clean energy on the planet, so there's an ongoing buzz each time a new method is discovered for generation and storage.  Being green is very, very trendy here 🙂

So progressively, in this old energy inefficient house we bought, we have been converting away from old "gas burners" for heating and cooking and replacing them with electric appliances.  Our old 1939 built house has fire places that, although beautiful, are centre of pollution for the planet.

We were keen to get away from carbon fuel fireplaces so our latest purchase was this:

It looks like a real flame fireplace, but it's LED low energy, super efficient... and stunning to watch!

I love it and we are now putting one into the Airbnb for guests to enjoy, since winter is coming (and the night is dark and full of... New Zealand spiders?).

The question I have is:  If we put an electric fireplace into our Airbnb listing, would it be misleading if we tick the "fireplace" amenity?  Would people expect to set fire to bits of carbon fuel or what? 

Tagging a few folk into this question: @Robin4 @Sarah977 @Lizzie @Jessica-and-Henry0 @Sudsrung0 

[Helen427]

@Ben551, what spiders???

@Lizzie @Charles224 @Robin4 @Michelle264@Jessica & Henry @Sudsrung0@Sarah 

Leave the fireplaces alone, they are a fine feature & welcoming in all homes.

People tend to overlook the fact we all used to have wool carpet, wallpaper & fireplaces in our homes which all are natural resources which are all far more enviromentally better for our health & the planet!

The ash from fires used to be trhown into gardens and help with the regeneration of our planet, sadly we have lost the way in the world & not considered the "consequences" of these decisionmakers actions..

[Ben551]

@Helen427 @Michelle264 To be fair any kind of energy or heating that sets fire to carbon won’t ever be as good as cleaner options, like wind, solar and hydro power... carbon fuel isn’t sustainable because of the emissions, even if you use that ash in the garden.

Do you remember what Auckland used to look like when everyone used wood burners? Have you seen the photos? You couldn’t see the city from the harbour bridge because of the soot haze. My wife has photos she showed me. It was pretty disgusting... 

Wind, hydro and solar are the way forward for energy generation. The technology is getting more and more efficient as time goes on too. It will soon outstrip anything setting fire to something can achieve... hence why the NZ government is backing it. It just makes sense.

PS: Helen my spider reference was a joke some folk on the forum will get. Refers to another thread of mine asking for advice.

[Michelle264]

I disagree. For us here out in a very rural area with high winds, burning our own wood is absolutely fine. Our area will never ever look like some smokey city. It is far more sustainable for us to grow and harvest our own firewood than to  generate a huge amount of power to heat our  large farmhouse with electricity. We use our wood stove to cook on and to heat the home. No solar panels or extra battery capacity required to do that. This is what works best is the most sustainable for us.

[Michelle264]

@Helen427 we throw all our wood ash on our fruit trees and vege garden. Amazing resource to have. Plants love it! We don't burn coal at all so it our ash is fine to use. We are on the West Coast so there is a lot of coal around but we don't use it. We collect our water from the roof so coal ash wouldn't taste so nice haha.

[Robin4]

@Ben551  I Think we are on a par with you Ben when it comes to the generation of green energy. For the first time on July 11th -13th 2013, South Australia became a nett exporter of renewable energy. As a state we not only met our own entire demand we were able to export our surplus green power to the eastern states. That was a big thing at the time and just happened to coincide with a particularly windy few days. But we now go for considerable stretches, sometimes weeks were our entire usage is catered for by wind and solar. At the moment a solar/thermal plant is being constructed in the the north of our state at Pt Augusta and when that comes on line more than 50% of the year we will not have to rely on any fossil fuel....and those days that we do, the requirement will be really minimal

The largest tomato producer in Australia is based at Pt Augusta and their entire operation is run via solar energy and desalination with a smaller scale solar themal plant.

 https://reneweconomy.com.au/world-first-solar-tower-powered-tomato-farm-opens-port-augusta-41643/

It's all very well to say you are 'green' but it comes at a cost. Reliable statistics are currently saying, in some low cost electricity areas the dollar value of electricity a commercail wind turbine will produce in its lifetime will never surpass the initial cost of construction and installation....it will never pay for itself!

Sunrise technology is a great concept but it is still in the development phase and is massively more expensive that other methods of generation.

But nevertheless, we feel good about it Ben, don't we!

Cheers......Rob

[Ben551]

Oh that’s awesome @Robin4 - actually exporting renewable energy! Fantastic. I think sun and air have a long way to go, but it seems to be improving now. The early wind turbines were heavy in setup costs, but the NZ designed ones by a crazy scientists in the South Island are looking very promising. Meanwhile the majority of NZ electricity is still hydro, same as it’s always been.

We also don’t mine or export oceanic uranium to any other country, and there has been a lot of kickback lately on coal mining and exports too. They used to do that here until a terrible accident.  Recently one political party tried to lobby to open a new coal mine, to export to China!! I couldn’t believe it! I mean... saying you don’t burn it yourself, then mining and exporting it to someone else... thankfully the country lobbied against it. Pile of greedy politicians if you ask me. It’s not like our economy needed the extra income or the jobs...

I’m quite inspired by the new compressed air energy storage technology invented a year ago. That’s a game changer. A completely zero waste means of storing energy, to release when it’s needed. Entire power plants can go green, never wasting a drop and there is no dissipation! Blew my mind. I think I hippie-geeked out for about 12 months on that one. Energy storage with NO BATTERY!!