Mendolonium

A few weeks ago I covered our current and past year gasoline usage. Today I am going to summarize our natural gas usage. In the U.S., the average household uses 1000 therms of natural gas per year. In our house we use natural gas for cooking, drying clothes, and heating.

In 2007 we used 517 therms or 52% of the national average. The table above shows that through the first six months of this year we have used 227 therms or 23 % of the national average of natural gas. If we are to keep consuming at the same rate, we will use 46% of the national average by the end of the year.

What factors go into our usage?

• My sister lived with us from July of 2007 through mid-March 2008. This resulted in somewhat higher usage than we would have otherwise had. She still does her laundry at our house – resulting in approximately 2 additional loads through the clothes dryer each week.
• Our numbers are somewhat increased over what might be typical because I dry 2 – 3 loads of cloth diapers per week using the dryer.
• Our numbers are slightly reduced because I dry one load of laundry per week on a indoor clothesline (set up over the bathtub).
• I use the stove - a lot. I bake virtually all of our own bread and cook nearly all of our meals. It is not unusual for the oven to be running continuously for several hours on one of my non working days.
• Our stove is a big, old fabulous 1948 Wedgewood behemoth. Even when I am not cooking there are 4 pilot lights on burning 24/7.
• Our house is primarily heated with a one gas powered floor furnace in the center of our hallway. We believe it was installed in the 60s. I doubt that it is very efficient. Due it’s location we usually have it cranked up in the winter which results in a very hot hallway and marginally warmer areas elsewhere in the house.
• This past winter I turned off the furnace (pilot light included) in late January because it was doing such a poor job of heating the house. We instead relied on electric heaters, blankets, and Southern California weather.

How can we do better?

• Do less laundry: I have been trying to reduce our laundry burden by reusing towels, pajamas, and other clothes (if not truly dirty). This also has the added benefits of reducing our electric and water usage as well.
• Install an additional indoor clothesline: We purchased a second clothesline (actually a shower rod) to place above the bathtub; now we “just” have to install it.
• Install an outdoor clothesline: as soon as the backyard is done we plan to install a large retractable clothesline over the driveway. I hope that this will significantly reduce our clothes dryer usage.
• My stove has two ovens and four burners. I most often use the left oven and left side burners. I am considering turning off the pilot lights (2) to the right side of the stove and lighting it as needed.
• Build or purchase a solar oven and/or a wood burning oven for outdoor use. I have grand plans to someday build an outdoor masonry or earth oven for baking bread and pizza.
• Keep the furnace off next winter and use warm clothing, sunlight, and sporadic heating with wood (in the fireplace) and electric space heaters to keep warm. We have begun collecting firewood (from downed street trees, etc.) for winter heating.

Besides the environmental benefits, what are some additional benefits of reducing our consumption of natural gas?

• Less laundry = more time for fun things for Jeff and I. I am the washer and dryer of the clothes, he is the folder. Neither of us think that doing laundry is even remotely fun.
• Exercise. Using a clothes line to dry clothes will result in little more exercise for me each day.
• A cooler kitchen. Turing off the pilot lights and doing more cooking outdoors will certainly help keep our kitchen cooler. Our kitchen is on the west side of our house and when baking in the summer the combination of the heat from the oven and the heat from the afternoon sun can make the kitchen uninhabitable.
• Better tasting food. There is nothing like pizza or bread baked in a wood fired oven.

We have a significant way to go until our natural gas usage is at only 10% of the national average. One of our first challenges will be to determine exactly where our natural gas usage is going now; for example is the stove the greatest user or is it the laundry? We plan to do some experimentation to determine where our greatest usage is so that we can tailor our conservation effectively.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 12:34 pm and is filed under A Life Sustainable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.