A182: Appliance Purge

A great deal of what's in your fridge absolutely does NOT need to be there. If you're interested in trying this, just start by taking all these things out of your fridge, and putting them in a pantry type situation:

butter/margarine - shelf life about 2 weeks
eggs -shelf life at least a week
cheese - keep covered, shelf life variable- taste when unrefrigerated hugely better
ketchup/mustard - shelf life - forever
honey - shelf life - forever
onions/garlic - shelf life - 2 weeks
tomatoes - shelf life - 4 days
cabbage - shelf life - 1 week
cooking oil - shelf life - months
peanut butter - shelf life - months

Ok, long enough list for now, though of course there's more. Some of you are saying "he's crazy, I never keep cooking oil in the fridge!" True, I'm sure; but I know plenty of people who do; just to "be safe". And every time they take it out to cook dinner- the bottle warms up, the door is opened twice, and somewhere, some coal is burned to re-cool it when it goes back in.

I read that last year at Little Blog in the Big Woods and decided I would make giving up my refrigerator a part of my sustainable living challenge. I was attracted to this because living without a refrigerator represents a startling concept. I’d first read about unplugging the refrigerator from Colin, No Impact Man almost exactly a year ago. Later Vanessa at Green as a Thistle unplugged her refrigerator. Mostly though, any person I might meet would say this is an impossible way to live. I believe it is as foreign a concept to American lifestyles as no toilet paper. If I had to live off the grid or in primitive surroundings, I can rest assured I know how to survive. This self-awareness of my own patterns of behavior, my adaptability is an indication of my growing flexibility. This alone empowers me and makes a sustainability challenge worthwhile.

In January I took my first step at the beginning of this challenge by taking appliances out of my home and putting them in my shed. I began by saying I wouldn’t actually get rid of my hand held hair dryer because of needing it to remove decals on my truck. I have since decided I needn’t hold on to it. Here was the list from the first of the year: waffle iron, iron, toaster, hand mixer, curling iron and a popcorn popper. All but the first of these were given to me or I found for free or at a thrift store. If you are counting, there are now half a dozen small appliances I won’t be living with this year.

Now, at this halfway point of the year I have decided to get rid of all of these appliances. In fact I have written about this appliance purge in my neighborhood newsletter and invited all of the tenants of this mobile home park to join me in the giant appliance purge.

Next is the list in that original appliance purge make-a-(green) plan post where I had qualifiers. I have noted the changes I have made since January.

This leaves the following appliances in my home, and I may re-think my use of these as well.

1. Microwave – I believe this is non-negotiable as I use it frequently and I’d argue for its effectiveness.
2. Induction Cook Plate – I love, love, love this technology that cooks with magnetic waves. This is my primary cooking method and I’ve found that it cooks faster than any other method I’ve used before. (Note, sadly this great appliance died in February and I replaced it with a cheap electric hot plate. I don’t have the money to replace it now).
3. Toaster Oven – This isn’t used much when I eat healthy. When I am eating crap I use it a lot. (Update: I’m not going to use it anymore because it uses so much electricity. Out to the shed!)
4. Coffee Maker – I found my coffee maker at the Community Thrift for $2. I brew and put in a carafe to be conscientious. So, this is no real biggie.
5. Food Processor – As I mentioned yesterday with my Arugula Pesto recipe, I make hummus most weeks. I am not ready to mash, chop and blend by hand. It could happen.
6. Space Heater – From December to March I use this about an hour or two a day to keep my daytime air temperature 62 degrees and nighttime 50 degrees.
7. Fan – I usually have a fan going non-stop all summer. Sometimes I am not sure if it is the air movement or the white noise I am addicted to here.

Note: I failed to mention my crock pot and I will keep this as a viable alternative to solar oven (on grey days), hot plate (if it craps out) or microwave (not a great way to cook much). I also didn’t include my countertop ice machine in this small appliance category where it belongs. I am keeping this as a kind of substitute for the refrigerator running 24/7. I can make some ice in a half hour to throw in a cooler if I must keep something cold.

Whoops. I think I buried the lede. Good thing I am not a paid journalist. (On second thought, that wouldn’t even be noticed in the corporate press these days. It is done all the time.) Aaaanyway . . . I DID IT! I freed myself from my television set and my refrigerator, my two major appliances. For me, this is HUGE!

I am excited to see what kind of energy savings comes from this big step. One commenter in that original post from Greenpa made this point about energy use.

Well, I did some digging and calculations (maybe I'll post those links here later), and determined that the fridge costs us about $3/month to run.

Pretty cheap, yeah? Especially out of a $30 bill. Not going to subsidize a whole lot of fresh vegetable purchases. But the generation and transmission related components of the bill (those are the ones actually having to do with the amount of electricity used) add up to only $9. Yup, on average about 1/3 of the electricity in that apartment goes to the fridge. The electricity is artificially cheap, but the energy consumption is really substantial.

I am not following this logic at all, but will pay close attention to next month’s electrical bill.

Besides the simple elimination of unnecessary ‘stuff’ and the reduction in electricity consumption, why do I want to purge my appliances? For myself and for others, I want to experience life without these things. I absolutely agree with Sharon of Casaubon's Book in the passage below. The hysterical myth that loss of electricity means certain chaos and deprivation needs to be debunked.

electricity is not the defining characteristic of our beings, merely of our economy
[ . . .]
The part of this that I find most troubling is the offensive notion that living without all the above-listed goodies makes life completely untenable. Because that implies that the lives of our great-grandparents, and the billions of lives that don’t have electricity are an unmitigated hell, a place we wouldn’t even be willing to visit, that all that is “civilized” about our lives began in 19-freakin’-30. If our past, and the lives of the world’s ordinary poor are utter doom, we are doomed. But what if they aren’t? Let us acknowledge a vast and difficult transition, and a great deal of potential and probably real trouble and misery a’coming. But let us not start with the assumption that “modern industrial civilization” is equivalent to “civilization” itself. And let us not separate ourselves from everything that came before us and everyone now who lacks what we have as though some barrier keeps us from reaching out to them.

Amen

Design observation. The aesthetics of my place have really changed since January 3rd. Now I have ‘visual’ space freed up with no refrigerator, no television and no toaster oven. The footprint for the refrigerator and the television on a cart is exactly the same, but removing the television and opening up the kitchen corner appears to removed much more. The cart now holds what appliances remain (on a power strip). I have made food rather than machines the primary aesthetic by removed appliances from the eye level shelves. The photo makes it still look jammed up. This is because I have a full pantry of fresh food, so it is overflowing.

The unplugged refrigerator now serves as the bar height base to my marble table top in my living room. Not shown is how wide open the center of my space is now that the table has been moved to this corner. That will be an image for another day. I plan to make a table cloth out of my ubiquitous beige fabric ($15 bolt bought a decade ago), but for now it has a length of that fabric and another cloth to cover it. This table by my front window offers a place to read, to dine – away from my computer. Imagine that.

Another huge advantage to the refrigerator being gone is how quiet it is. This restaurant style under counter refrigerator had a commercial motor and was noisy. Hey, I live adjacent to railroad tracks with 50 trains a day and I'm next to a frontage road and state highway. Noisy is relative. But, it is amazingly still in the night without the refrigerator. I first noticed this quieter world when I stopped listening to talk radio during the day and with breaking my all night television habit this spring. Silence is scary at first, but adaptation and flexibility are my criteria for moving out of the comfort zone.

Check me the fuck out. I am living lightly.

M87: My Garden Plans

If I hadn't titled this post as I did, I don't believe readers would ever be able to figure out the graphic above. I am the first to admit that my methods are unorthodox. My garden is a true urban garden. My containers are made up of all free materials and are in keeping with the design aesthetic I like to call, "Yes, it is a a rusty ole' thing and it is beautiful." or somesuch . . . Admittedly, there are many people (family and friends included) who don't see beauty where I see beauty. Part of the problem is that my vision holds all of the lush edible vegetation covering every rusty object in my domain. Until I get the green growing the place does just look like a junk heap. The goal will be year round food, blooms and living green air cleaning machines.
Today I am preparing the initial plans for my garden. These plans will then become the template to add all of my ideas for what I want to plant and when I want to plant. I could do elevations too if I really wanted to create layouts in the oil drums that allows for great height at the center, bushy plants surrounding and trailing plants at the edges.

Last year I had good luck with the tomato plant and the pea pods climbing the wire mesh and rebar I'd secured to the side of my house.

I have lots of room on this drive I painted like a dance floor to plant this raised bed (made from a demo'ed pergola) and oil barrels and any other handy container I might find.

K66: Kitchen Daydreams, table edition

I daydream . . . a lot. I believe it is a critically important part of living. I am thrilled when I solve problems through daydreams. During my years in university study I once jokingly wrote a syllabus for a class I imagined in Daydreams 101.

A critical component was the importance of balancing practical restraints with blue sky thinking. Clearly I am not the only person who does this. One of my favorite pastimes is checking the web for innovative design. Designers are constantly turning flights of fancy into functional products, tools and processes. And it doesn’t have to look like Popular Mechanics.

In this way I feel my daydreams are grounded. Here is the earth aspect of imagination. My post on my worms yesterday reminded me of one of my favorite pieces of furniture, the ‘Digestive Table.' I find this captivating. The designer, Amy Youngs has considered every detail for the process of our eating, viewing, composting as well as the comfort of the worms. She even specifies that the Oak used is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) cerified with a stain made from beets and worm tea. The website even features a video of the table in use by this Mr. Regular Guy (her spouse?) as the model.
I would like to clarify that I am interested in stealing these ideas and using them in my own DIY way. I haven't the income to even consider buying. That is a sad admission because I believe these designers (like authors, musicians, artists, etc.) should be compensated for what they do. But, that is a post for another time if not another blogger.

I will dedicate this post to my BFF who emailed me that the last post on worms grossed her out so much she had to quickly scroll past the images. I suspect she wouldn't be interested in the Digestion Table's screen to watch the worms and bugs eating the garbage. That camera feature is something I will definatly eliminate if I were ever to make my own model. I have a vivid enough imagination, so I don't need the surveillance camera thankyouverymuch.

I am chuckling as I type this. The miserably gross task is over for now, I have cleaned up my blog today.

H53: Hippy Hobbit House

I am smitten. I am so in love with this Welsh Home and the plans to form a community of these in Whales, I could just wet myself. She who is a non-consumer, who doesn’t feel she lacks for much of anything . . . Well she wants big time. If I could have a bit of a hillside and materials I would dedicate my life to building this humble home. What a hippie.

All credit goes to Misty at Shakesville for pointing me to this website.

F40: Flatpack and other miracles

I find this Treehugger design item so incredibly appealing. Go to Treehugger for links to the Designers.

Casulo, a new concept for mobile living originated in June 2007 as a part of the dissertation of Marcel Krings and Sebastian Mühlhäuser at the Köln International School of Design in Cologne.


The concept is the best part. I believe this could be a template for handmade versions, a solution to homeless populations, mobile populations, refugees, disaster situations or college dorms.



If you can’t get enough, check out this kitchen. I would eliminate all of the excess of appliances which might be replaced with composting systems or solor cooking with a skylight above.
I like the symbolism of a food preparation area being the pivotal center of the living space. I have not shown the image with curved doors to close off the whole unit. For temporary housing or a transient population, it could be wheeled into place with only the basic hook-ups.



And how about the hidden bathroom? I would say this is beautiful, efficient design to maximize space. Back to back installations make storage, plumbing, graywater and/or composting systems centralized.

Not necessarily only for the homeless, this concept could be used for a mobile population to transport essentials. I guess I am thinking to a time in the future wherein populations in crisis might have some minimal dignity and control over each one's fundamental items, one's critical 'stuff' while in transit or transition.


My point in sharing these is primarily to share what I think is real innovation, re-thinking of how we use space and our built environment. The minimalism appeals to me and is in keeping with living lightly. And to go for the cliché - out of the box thinking.

B9: Bigger Is Not Better

Welcome Shakers . . .
I have this re-occurring thought about all the McMansions and what might be done with them post oil and post mortgage bust. When people start realizing the excessive acquisition of constructed square footage is indefensible, how will these buildings be repurposed?

Okay, I admit I don’t have an answer. Maybe I will try to get my hands on an AutoCAD file of one of these homes and start studying this.

In the meantime, I found these graphics when I followed a link to a Margot Adler piece for NPR.

The average American house size has more than doubled since the 1950s; it now stands at 2,349 square feet. Whether it's a McMansion in a wealthy neighborhood, or a bigger, cheaper house in the exurbs, the move toward ever large homes has been accelerating for years.

I am critical of much of the rationalization within this NPR piece, with sources justifying large homes. There is even a guy (ex-media journalist, ahem) defending his 11,000 square foot home as fantasy fulfillment. And this,

“You know, we are very tenuous," says local architect Ann Surchin. "No one knows when the next 9/11 will happen. And these houses represent safety -- and the bigger the house, the bigger the fortress.”

Oh, please. How nutty is that? I tried to follow this thought to provide examples, but it is just too silly to spell out and I lost interest.

Another critic is John Halsey, president of the Peconic Land Trust, an organization that tries to protect open spaces and agricultural land. For Halsey, the "Big House" is all about the American lifestyle: how we live, what we drive, and how we fail to appreciate the finite nature of land and energy resources.

“Who needs 15,000-square-foot houses?" Halsey says. "I worry about the future of a culture and a society that has this extent of excess in it. I think there is a disconnect, and we are in a bubble. Somehow, we are just not experiencing the realities that the rest of the world is.

Ya think? I’ll own up to my snarkiness. I just find the justifications a real stretch. My first notions of home when I was a little kid were shaped by my Grandma’s
home. I found out as an adult that the familial bungalow was bought by her husband from a Sears Catalog. At the time I thought it sounded like a joke. But it’s not according to Wikipedia.

Sears Catalog Homes (sold as Sears Modern Homes) were ready-to-assemble houses sold through mail order by Sears Roebuck and Company, an American retailer. Over 70,000 of these were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940. Shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included all the materials needed to build an exceptionally sturdy and well designed house. Many were assembled by the new homeowner and friends, relatives, and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families. [snip]


Aladdin Homes (of Bay City) was the first to offer kit homes (in 1906), and Sears joined the fray in 1908. However, Sears mail-order catalogs were already in millions of homes, enabling large numbers of potential homeowners simply to open a catalog, select and visualize their new home, dream, save, and then purchase it. Sears offered financing, assembly instructions, and guarantees. Early mortgage loans were typically for 5–15 years at 6%- 7% interest. [snip]

Sears expanded production, shipping and sales offices to regional sites all across the United States, hitting its all-time peak in 1929, just before the Great Depression. By then, the least expensive model was still under US$1,000; the highest priced was under US$4,400 ($10,300 and $45,300 in 2003 dollars respectively).

I am just tickled to death to place Grandma’s home beside the Sears plan from which it was built, sans fireplace and arched front door. The roof looks like it has a minor profile modification too. I am writing my 84 year old mom this week with these images and many more of her childhood and mine at this home. This collage really pleases me. Part of the make-a-(green) plan is to honor our connections, our community. Cooperation and working together is the alternative to individual dreams of palatial riches.

Isn’t it ironic that Sears now funds “The Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and the opulent over-built mansions featured on that program. The country is upside down.

I close with a great example of my favorite theme of small homes. This video is a hoot. This guy lives in the 96 square foot home he designed. That is 1/10 the size of even the standard from fifty years ago and 1/100 the size of the Sears Home Makeover buildings.

Tumbleweed

Step Two – the footprint . . .

For make-a-(green) plan I want to address my home footprint. I am proud of the little home I created within the last 3 years. I am an advocate for reducing square footage in our homes. This is a popular movement with many some great resources.

My background is interior design – with commercial facility planning being my focus for 20 years. Suffice it to say, I often think graphically. I may include space planning descriptions, floor plans and other graphic elements to discuss my environment. And, since this is my professional background I want to stress how important I believe our built environment is to our life satisfaction.

The above floor plan shows the +/- 278 square feet where I live. This is an old mobile home with one side opened up to an "add-on" built many years ago. At the most basic level, I am most interested in the following aspects of the built environment.

• Green materials
• Found objects
• Vertical Space
• Multi-function
• Anti-clutter
• Light & Air
• Heating & Cooling
• Safety & Code
  

My home needs to provide me a place to handle basic life functions. None of these basic life functions require a lot of room. (When I had little kids and pets I needed more room.) Outside my door are oil barrels I intend to convert to planters, a harlequin-painted driveway to park my truck , a raised vegetable garden bed and, a wormery in a mirror lined walkway, a mailbox and a shed.

It is a humble footprint. But what about my carbon footprint?
Quiz Results

• Food = 4 acres
• Mobility = 1 acre
• Shelter = 2.2 acres
• Goods/Services = 2.2 acres

Total Footprint - 9 acres
In comparison, the average ecological footprint in your country is 24 acres per person.
Worldwide there exists 4.5 biologically productive acres per person.
If everyone lived like you, we would need 2.1 planets.

Wow, that just sucks. The real test for me will be to stop driving and to really pay attention to food being local, unprocessed and vegetarian. These are the biggest areas for change in my opinion. Coming in a close third is my energy use, though this quick quiz didn't really touch this area. I have television and the internet on around the clock.

So my physical footprint is very small, but my carbon footprint remains way too large. I know that it is much smaller than the average American, but still too large. I suspect this kind of relative measure will come up a lot in this upcoming year's challenge. I intend to aim for a humanitarian, international measure over the American standard as often as I can remember.