The Greening of Gavin

Free ATA Webinar – Energy Efficiency

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On the 4th April at 11am, I have been invited to be one of the presenters during the next free Alternative Technology Association Webinar.  A webinar is a bit like a seminar however it is the online version.  Think of it as a teleconference with pictures.

The subject of this webinar is “Retrofitting Your Home for Energy Efficiency“, and it should be very informative.  Clicking on the link takes you to the ATA site where you can sign up to participate in the live event.

The great thing is that I can present from home, and do not have to travel!  I am looking forward to it, as it is the first time I have presented in this manner.  Hopefully I will be able to answer the questions thrown my way and not get my words twisted too much.

See you there!

New Layout

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Yesterday, my old PC died.  The main hard drive and one of the memory modules gave up the ghost, and unfortunately I could not find spares for my old clunker.  It was 5.5 years old, so I thought it had a good run.

There are a few parts that I can harvest for spares, and I will be sending the old one to e-waste, once I find somewhere that accepts it.  So thankfully it will not be going into landfill and getting recycled.

My new PC has just about green everything, including a Solid State Drive with no moving parts as the boot drive, and a green 1TB drive that uses only a few watts of electricity.  The rest of the PC draws very little energy, and the monitor is LED backlit which only uses about 20 watts as well.  It doesn’t contain Brominated flame retardant which can be absorbed into the body.

The crux of it is that if I want to continue to write this blog, I need a PC that I could process the video and podcasts on, so an old clunker would not have cut the mustard.  At least I made the choice of a custom built machine with as many green parts as I could instead of a thumping games machine.  BTW, I am not a fan of laptops so I didn’t take that option either.

Anyway, to celebrate my new device, I thought a revamped look for the blog would also go down a treat.  I have changed the template for about 3 years, so the look was getting a little stale.

What do you think of the blogs new hair do?

Ditching the Clothes Dryer

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I have a confession to make.  We had an electric clothes dryer!  The shame.  It used to use to be rated at 1800 watts on the warm setting and 2200 watts on the hot setting.  Such a guzzler of electricity, and it was the cause of some very high winter electricity bills.

The good news is that it broke over a year ago when the element burnt out, and I only took it off the wall a few weeks ago and took it to the metal recyclers.

The even better news is that we did not replace it with another electric clothes dryer, even though our clothes drying needs have not changed.  We still need to dry clothes when it is raining, or cold in winter, or humid in summer.

The best news of all is that we have learnt a few tricks and tips that we can now share with you, now that we have managed to go dryer free for over a year.  Here they are.

  1. Don’t replace the broken dryer.  Billions of people on the planet survive without this energy wasting device.  You will save a stack of money by avoiding the purchase, have lower electricity bills, and a much lower carbon footprint.  Even if you use GreenPower, you are still saving loads of money.
  2. Look for a good airer/clothes rack/horse that holds at least one load of washing.  We bought two for those big washing days.
  3. Use solar passive in winter to dry your clothes indoors.  We put the airers into the front room which we close off and it gets nice and toasty in there.  It drys the clothes in a day or so and you don’t have to brave the elements to hang them out. 
  4. If you use a heater of some sort in the winter evenings, then place the clothes airer a safe distance away from the heat source.  Your clothes will be dry by morning.
  5. Plan ahead.  If you know the kids need their school uniforms for Monday, then do a quick load on eco-mode (don’t forget the soap nuts) and load up the airer on Friday night.  They will be dry by Sunday.
  6. String up some cord beneath an under cover outdoors area, preferably one that gets a good breeze.  Your laundry will be dry in a day, even when it is wet outside.   If it is sunny, then use the hills hoist if you have one.
  7. Install a retractable clothes line in your laundry using the space that used to be taken up by the dryer!
  8. Celebrate your successful transition from clothes dryer addict to green, clean, laundry machine.

Here are some pictures of our laundry drying techniques.  Simple yet effective.

    Clothes Airer
    Undercover clothes line

    Retractable indoor clothes line (in)

    Retractable indoor clothes line (out)

    I give most of the credit to Kim, who could have just told me to go and buy a new one when our old dryer broke, but it was her idea to try life without the electric dryer, so I did not suggest otherwise.  Well done to her for going against the grain of the normal societal trend.

    Dry clothes the natural way.  It is the only way to go.  Our electricity bill has never been so low in winter, and our clothes last longer and don’t have that static cling you get from using a dryer. 

    Nice one Kim!  Have any of you ditched the dryer?