May 18, 2011

Out with the Old EcoHouse, in With the New

Friday evening I checked out of the EcoHouse and moved in to my summer home, where I'll be living with two other Macalester students and my boyfriend. It was bitter sweet, saying goodbye to everyone. But I know that this is going to be a fantastic summer, and next semester will be a fantastic experience. I'll be studying abroad in Paris, France, interning with the Ministère d'Ecologie, Energie, et Development Durable. Essentially, this is the department of Ecology, Energy, and Sustainable Development. I'm incredibly excited for this opportunity.

When we left the house, we left it spotlessly clean (thank you very much Julia). Everything put away, everything empty of our things, I realized that the EcoHouse is just a house. It's the people inside of it that make it special, that make the experience unique. We are the ones who make the house sustainable, not just the bits of plaster and steel that hold the house together.

I'm very excited for next year's house. I believe that they will continue to add to this house and give back even more than we did.

Mar 19, 2011

Spring Break

EcoHouse officially has its group for next year! 
Camille Erickson (full year)
Stephen Peyton (Fall)
Kyle Gename (Fall)
Eleanor Trenary (Fall)
Nick Matzke (Spring)
Lisa Goese (Spring)
Leah Plummer (Spring)


Congratulations guys, I'm sure you will do a wonderful job!!


So for Spring Break I went back to Cleveland. I drove, which is cheaper and I think somewhat better for the environment than flying but I'm feeling guilty for the carbon all the same. I love avoiding Chicago by driving through the heart of Illinois because there are fewer tolls and it is so much prettier! There are a lot of wind farms. For about 20 minutes along 1-39, turbines dominate the landscape. I took lots of pictures and will post them to this blog once Mickey returns and I can borrow his camera cord.



Things have changed slightly since I last wrote about being sustainable at home. Not to say that my parents have had a huge change of heart and are now doing everything I do. I wouldn't expect that at all. While they're still not composting, they have decided to sell my mother's minivan in exchange for a new Prius. While hybrids are only a bandaid on the sustainability issue of cars, they are still preferable to traditional automobiles. I am very proud of my parents for that decision. It's also a big deal that they're selling the minivan. My mother had been considering getting a prius and keeping the minivan for when she needed to haul something or make a trip to college, but my argument that it is cheaper to simply rent a minivan for the few times she needs it took hold. My parents will continue to be a two car family!! Also, I was suprised to find one morning that my dad hadn't left for work, his car was still in the garage. After searching the house for him and finding that he was, in fact, gone, I texted to ask where he was. He'd taken the train to work.

!!


My heart soars like a hawk. My father is now one of the few people in Shaker Heights actually using the rapid in the way that the original developers of the city intended. It's cheaper than continually filling the car with gas and paying for speeding tickets (which apparently accompany owning a 6 gear manual Acura TL S-style that drives like a dream).


Cleveland itself is also a lot more sustainable than I'd previously given it credit. Over the summer I learned that the city was in the process of setting up an urban farm, and this break I learned that they have a Carshare program very similar to the Twin Cities' Hour Car. Check it out: http://www.mycitywheels.com/ Programs like this are great for people who can't afford a car, but need to use one occasionally when public transportation isn't enough. 


Who knows, with so much sustainable development occurring in Cleveland, I may end up returning there after college! Well. Maybe.

Mar 11, 2011

Majora Carter

Yesterday I had the amazing opportunity to go hear Majora Carter speak at the U of M campus. If you aren't familiar with who she is, she is a grass roots activist working to revitalize the South Bronx. She works with (who she calls) "America's most expensive citizens," those who are on welfare, who are repeatedly in and out of prison, and who are highly dependent on government aid. She is working to create "green collar jobs." She has built beautiful parks, is building a green way, bringing green roofs to the Bronx, and helping it to recover from the decades of waste and abuse it has received from the state of New York. She believes very strongly that you don't need to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one, and helps people to make that possible. If you would like to know more about her efforts, visit www.majoracartergroup.com

Mar 10, 2011

Us

Last Friday was Founder's Day, and as such, all of us got dressed up for the dance. Mickey and I had to sing and were heading out when we realized that it was a photo opportunity. So here it is for all of you who actually follow this blog! The 2010 - 2011 EcoHouse!!

 From left to right: Maars, Julia, Meg (Me!), and Mickey

Feb 19, 2011

Another Semester

Falling back into EcoHouse life is like falling back into a chair cushion I haven't sat upon in a while. It feels right and it's comfortable, yet some of the familiarity is lost. There is a moment of trying to remember all of the things I do differently here than I do with my parents. I know where things are, yet I'm looking for things that are from my other home. The light hits the house differently, and rooms are dimmer and strange times. New objects and items have found their way into EcoHouse since I left. There is a piano where there once was a chair, and that chair where there once was a different chair, now in a place where there once was no chair at all. Posters have been changed and lamps have been moved. There is a rug spread on the floor, with flowers and swirls of different colors, reminding me of the hippies from the 60's who once attempted our same lifestyle. Mickey made thermally insulated curtains that now hang keeping the cold out from our giant leaky window.

Suddenly I stand upon the precipice of the last half of my year in the EcoHouse. In March new students will apply and be accepted and it will be our turn to decide what we leave behind and move on. And that's the thing about sustainability. The house must go on, and it will go on without us. The future iterations of this house will build upon what we leave behind. 

Over winter break a statistics student did a survey comparing the energy usage of the Japan house to the EcoHouse. Not surprisingly, this house uses about half the energy. What was incredibly surprising was that our iteration of the EcoHouse has used about twice as much energy as any house before us. SHOCK!! We thought we'd been doing so well! 

Well, we were. Sort of. Our habits are strong, and we're good about minimizing our energy usage, but we (I) made one crucial mistake. We turned on the dehumidifier. I had read online that if you dry clothes in the basement you should have a dehumidifier running. Apparently this is only really true in the summer, and still should only be done while the clothes are drying. Fairly new dehumidifiers are moisture sensing and will turn on when needed, but the old (energy sucking) one in the EcoHouse basement was not quite so fancy. And BOY did it use energy. Since we turned it off, our neutral (mid day, refrigerator fan off, nothing running) energy usage is about .25 - .30 kW (according to our TED). With it on, our average was about .70 - .90 kW. Needless to say, it's off now. 


I'm sure after a comparison of next semester's data our house will be redeemed.

Jan 12, 2011

Being green at home

The EcoHouse itself is not particularly exciting, if you look at is as merely a house. It was built in the 50s (most likely on an empty lot that was sold off from a neighboring house). When the project was started, they added insulation, fixed up the kitchen, painted, replaced the roof, added fluorescent light bulbs, replaced a few mirrors, put in a new toilet, and added a pre-warmer to the water heater that is powered by sunlight. On the surface, it could almost be seen as a basic remodel. Of course it is the culture of the students inhabiting it that makes the house special. 

Before Julia, Maars, Mickey, and I all moved in together, we didn't do many of the things we do now. I think I can safely say that none of us composted in our dorms. We couldn't really cook that often if at all because of the limited kitchen space and lack of a freezer or large fridge. So we couldn't put into practice many of our energy saving techniques through our current food consumption practices. None of us had cars on campus, so we were taking the bus, biking, and walking like we do now. I'm sure we all turned off lights, but did we take shorter showers? We weren't recording every bit of energy we were using. We weren't really in control of how warm our rooms were, but if my house-mates old dorm rooms were anything like mine, they were WAY too hot. 

Coming together in this house, we were able to start over. We could form entirely new habits in this house that was ours. We've figured out how to live with each others different cleanliness requirements. We've been good about casually reminding each other to turn off lights, to unplug appliances when we're done, to bring the reusable bags to the grocery store. We have weekly house meetings to talk about our highs and lows, positive observations and negative observations. We've became a true community, and I truly feel like we're finding away of life that is better, cleaner, and healthier than other options. 

So about those other options. 

I could beat myself up for all of the bad habits I've slipped back into being away from EcoHouse, but I'd like to look at this as more of a learning experience than a relapse. The first thing I did wrong is I flew home. Now driving wouldn't have been better, I believe it's about the same amount of fuel used. I could have taken a train, but that was going to take me a whole day and be MORE expensive than taking a plane. So, I made the economic, efficient choice, and took the plane. If it had been cheaper, I absolutely would have taken the train, time commitment and all. It was a promise I made myself. But the average American definitely wouldn't. 

Coming home to a house that was also built in the 50s on a spare lot at a glance seems like it would be the same. Shaker Heights is a street car neighborhood, like Mac Groveland, though a little more recent. Actually, my house is a short walk away from a rapid stop (the train in Cleveland), about 75 yards. I could easily take public transit into the city and get around. Our house is bigger though, a 5 bedroom house with 3 baths and two half baths, a full finished basement, large expansive rooms, little to no insulation. Having little insulation is not that uncommon for a house like this, except that my parents recently spent a whole lot of money remodeling this house. We moved here last May, after selling off my old childhood home. They were downsizing (a sustainable choice) but standing in my closet will tell you how much money they're losing to their heating bill because they didn't add insulation as their first step.

My parents added quite a few energy star rated appliances to their kitchen but they have electric ovens instead of gas ovens, which are less energy efficient than the later. They have a front load washer and a dryer with an energy setting and moisture sensing, two purchases that I recommended in the sustainable energy guide I made for Frogtown Neighborhood Association. Our cabinets were even made locally (by Amish people!). Of course, there were no materials used in remodeling this house that were reused, unlike the EcoHouse. They haven't redone the roof, it wasn't necessary, but I bet my parents won't put in a steel roof, even with the stone covering. It won't stop me from making a strong argument for it, however. 

None of this really has anything to do with me. I didn't have any input in the remodeling decisions we made (otherwise we'd have paperstone counters instead of granite). As it is, the house is gorgeous. I'm not going to pretend I'm disappointed in them, even if they didn't make the most sustainable choices. The fact is it's a challenge to modify someone else's lifestyle. Actually I wouldn't recommend it, environmental mission or not. So trying to put my new habits into my old routine was like trying to shove a slightly warped peg into a hole that had always fit perfectly before. 

Take my shopping routine for instance. I'd never really thought twice about where I buy my food until this break when I tried to bring a little EcoHouse to Shaker. My side of Cleveland seems not to have any CO-OPs like Mississippi Market. My dad believes there's one on the West Side, but the distance I would have to drive to just pick up groceries makes it not worth it. My family eats way more eat than I do at school and we eat all kinds. Regardless of whether it's a CAFO product or not. 

I mentioned starting a compost pile to my parents and they said they wouldn't ever keep it up or use the finished product (Mom likes Miracle Grow just fine for her flowers). The same amount of people live in this house as the one at school, but we have a much larger refrigerator and a second one downstairs. I tried making vegetable stock for my parents. I saved all the vegetable scraps for a week and used the broth to make a few soups. My mom mentioned she might do it again, but didn't seem too excited about regularly saving all of her scraps. They take up a lot of room in the freezer. 

So what is a girl to do? Find simple ways to help my parents stay in their same routine but make more sustainable choices. For instance, when our sunroom roof started leaking in the middle of the night, we agreed that if ice-dams were forming in the gutters, it was time to insulate the house. Dad even took my advice on adding weatherstripping and plastic covering to the windows. When it's an argument like that, it's hard to find a flaw. Other things are trickier. Such as convincing my parents that even though small appliances don't use THAT much energy when plugged in, unplugging all of them when not in use makes a pretty big difference. It's hard to prove that, so I can't get them to change.

I'm not going to bash my head against the wall and stubbornly keep pushing my parents in a different direction. They're still good people. They recycle almost everything they can, and they don't even throw batteries in the trash. They dispose of them properly. Mom's always been a lover of the farmers' market, and insistent that we turn lights off. Unless I find a good rebate for them, they aren't likely to install a solar panel on their roof, but then again, I can't blame them. Without the rebate, PV solar panels aren't likely to pay themselves back before needing to be replaced, and Cleveland probably doesn't get enough sun anyway. Each step they take is a step, and it's good, even if it is slow movement. There is no such thing as being too eco friendly, but there is such thing as being over zealous. My parents will never live the way I intend to, but they don't live the way their parents did either.

When I move out of the EcoHouse, I'm not concerned that my habits will slip. I know it will be harder to maintain them, if only because the EcoHouse can serve as training wheels to those learning how to live sustainably. But starting over makes it easier to implement an entirely different routine. Sure I'll have to make my own worm bin, I'll probably have to weatherproof my own windows, and I'll certainly need to pay even more attention to how much electricity and gas I use (utilities are pricey!) but I'll still be living deliberately. As long as I'm making my own decisions, I know I'll be able to make good choices.