- Cooper-Young
- Evergreen
Cooper-Young Residents Go Green With Gusto
The Smallest User Blog received the following testimonial from three of Cooper-Young’s most energy-saving savvy residents. Check out their story below to find out a few new ways you can go green and help C-Y become The Smallest User.
by Chad Ahren, Beth Tidball & Avery Ahren
We’ve been contributing in every way we know how to help Cooper-Young meet its obligation to the Earth. Where to start?
Back in the day we used to keep our thermostat at 72 in the summer. This was partially because we were used to it, but also because other places we lived had less efficient windows, so we needed the air on more often to compensate. Now we have programmable thermostats, and the AC doesn’t come on at all when we’re away at work and school. And our windows are efficient enough that 77 or 76 is plenty cool for us. We paid just $200 to keep 2500 square feet cool during the scorching hot month of June.
We drive a Prius, which is a really accessible option for anyone now. It costs the same as any other new-ish car, but at 40-50 mpg, gas costs when we aren’t traveling out of town are close to nil. Of course, one of the key advantages of living in Cooper-Young is that you can walk anywhere and do plenty without ever even getting in the car.
We know we have to keep our plants alive, but we’re being very careful aboutwater usage. One way to keep trees hydrated without wasting water is to get a tree gator – it drips 15 gallons into the root system over eight hours instead of sprinkling 150 gallons over an hour, most of which runs off into other areas.
Nothing stays plugged in unless it’s totally impractical to unplug (cable box and TV plugs are behind very heavy furniture). But all chargers and small appliances get unplugged to minimize the small amount of juice they suck even when not turned on.
We were also very fortunate to have been chosen to receive a smart meter for MLGW’s pilot program. Can’t wait to further tweak our power usage once we have a better idea of our patterns with that exciting piece of equipment.
Thanks,
Chad, Beth & Avery
If you have any comments or questions for Chad, e-mail Ashley and she will pass them along. Thanks so much to these super-involved Cooper-Young residents for sharing their story with The Smallest User blog!
“Turn that bloody light off!” One English Evergreener turns childhood tradition into energy savings
Leave it to the Evergreeners to find the unturned stone of rotary drying to submit to The Smallest User blog! Many thanks to Alasdair & Bettina for this great energy (and money) saving tip as well as the healthy dose of humor.
September 28, 2010
by Alasdair & Bettina
With our almost-100-years-old Evergreen house, we know the windows are the biggest wasters, but we have been trying to save money and energy for several years in other ways. The main thing I wanted to share was the joys of ROTARY DRYING… No, not that thing you just rode at the Delta Fair and threw up in, and this has nothing to do with tying your undies to a helicopter. I’m talking about the foldable clothesline that I remember from my English childhood.
In England, everyone had (and still has) them. And for $39 we got one from Wal-Mart (purchased online and shipped to the store so that we had to spend as little time in there as possible!) and put it in the back yard. You are supposed to create a cement block and put the base inside it, but I’ll be honest: I just dug a hole, dropped the base in and stomped the dirt back down. And it has given us faithful service for over a year now. We keep it in the garage and put it out at the weekend when we do laundry.
For a family of 4 it has helped a lot, and we rarely use the dryer at all during the summer – even bath towels and sheets are dry by lunch if you put them out in the morning in the 100 degree heat! Luckily our back yard is fenced, so the neighbors don’t have to look at my leopard-skin thongs flapping in the breeze, thus removing the “eyesore” effect. I recommend this one to you. We also have a nice dry basement where we have folding clothes racks as well, and between all these, the dryer remains dormant from April till November. You can imagine how much THAT saves!
Additionally, we have always just opened our dishwasher once it is finished and let the dishes dry by themselves; they are usually so hot that they are dry within the hour. Weusually do our dishes in the evening then leave it open overnight. In fact, I can’t remember ever having the drying element on in all of the 7 years we have had it!
Other ways we save are: having the thermostat off during the day and keeping the air at 78 (fans on) or the heat at 68 in the winter; changing air filters every 3 months; weather-stripping the old door frames; keeping blinds closed; unplugging “stuff” when not needed; and of course – every parent’s favorite – “Turn that bloody light off!” I also proudly keep my grass a nice shade of “Parchment” in order to save water and save me from cutting it so often (at least that is my excuse), so we are not wasting water on having green grass.
If you have any comments or questions for Alasdair & Bettina, e-mail Ashley and she will pass them along. Thanks so much to these super-involved Evergreen residents for sharing their story!
Evergreeners take Attic Insulation and Energy Saving to the Next Level
by Jim Brooks
OK so there is saving money, and then there is the fun of beating the CooperYoung Neighborhood… But it is really about the planet and being an adult and doing what is right, even if it isn’t fun and doesn’t save you money.
So I don’t remember if we woke up thinking “We ought to beat those Cooper Young people who have an absolutely fabulous festival and the cute railroad underpass,” or if we were going to “save the planet.” But we decided that with just one more password and user ID we could have our own MLGW online account. Now this is more fun than the bathroom scales! You just go online and they compare your energy consumption to your use last year and to other people with similar-sized homes. We took one peek at this and made an appointment for the energy guy to come tell us how to lose weight… I mean reduce energy consumption.
The MLGW energy guy goes to the attic and says, “You don’t have a thermal barrier. You have air infiltration. You need to put a layer of insulation on top of the attic floor.” I guess he didn’t think much of my insulation under the attic floor. Furthermore, I was surprised he could actually see an attic floor under the 30+ years of accumulation!
My wife’s first thought was just to move the boxes with the grade school workof our thirty-year-old son a little closer to the box with 1988 -1993 canceled checks and that would cut down the air filtration… Then she went online to find the R-value of a U-haul box full of school work, but sadly even Google could not provide a number that would reverse our fate! We were going to have to find the attic floor. At that point, not insulating would mean guilt with every cool breeze and every Cooper Young festival.
If you’ve ever studied logic and Venn diagrams, you would not expect there to be an overlap of the people who went to high school and the people who self-insulated their attic in June…in Memphis…in 2010. But I did go to high school, and we got the attic insulated. So let the payback begin, let the planet be saved, and let the people without a festival win!
Thanks to Jim Brooks for his contribution to The Smallest User blog. If you have any questions or comments for Jim, e-mail Ashley and she’ll pass them along.