going greener - any energy saving or other eco friendly advice?

[bossykate]

hello everyone

i would be very grateful if anyone can help me with energy saving tips or other tips to save costs and help the environment at the same time.

thanks in advance for your help

Bossykate how do you dry your washing?

Yes I know that sounds like a silly question and loads of people don't have tumble dryers and how did people manage in the past etc. But I find myself putting the heating on extra to dry the washing which then seems to defeat the object of not using the dryer.

my main green bit is to take all our old boxes, carton etc to dd's nursery where they use them 'creatively' - puts a smile on their faces too

Bozza - unless you keep your home quite cool, you shouldn't need to turn the heating up to dry things, they just take a little longer on a rack near a radiator (12-18 hrs tends to do it in our home even for heavy cottons, overnight is fine for synthetics), and perhaps some "finishing off" in the boiler cupboard (if you have one).

I hardly ever use the tumbler in the summer (I'm lucky enough to have a wee garden to put the rack in) but must confess to using the drier for nappies on wet winter days.

At the moment there's only three of us, and so not too much washing (2 nappy washes, 1 babs clothes, 2 our clothes, 1 linen & towels)- may do things differently if there's ever 4 or more.

Thats actaully what I aim for too Janeway. I have a reasonable garden and dry everything outside in the summer. I have installed a rack that pulls out from the wall in my utility room and dry things on that quite satisfactorily. And DH has promised to install an extra shelf/rack in the airing cupboard this weekend which will improve things. But I struggle with towels. If I put them on the rack the air doesn't circulate and they end up smelly and cardboard-like so I use the dryer for them 2/3 times a week.

Bozza, I do what Janeway does, even for towels - every load gets 12-18 hrs on the rack near the radiator and just finished off in the dryer. (The rack is a Minky one with loads of bars and I drape each towel over 2 bars so the air can circulate.) With 6 of us - 5 during term-time - I can usually manage to do everything that way in the winter - trousers straddle the banister on the landing. Have to keep the cycle going though, if I miss a day I start getting swamped! (I once didn't have a dryer for a couple of weeks while waiting for a part, we don't have an airing cupboard - combi boiler, no hot water tank, and the boiler cupboard is full of washing machine and dryer - and everything ended up with musty bits, especially seams, nothing ever got quite dry in time!)

Lil, I get one pint a day from the milkman as a gesture of solidarity but my main reason for getting supermarket milk is that it's much easier to fit 2-3 2 pint bottles in the fridge than 4-6 short fat glass ones! (And the glass ones don't have a date on either, if the kids put it away it goes at the front and we end up with cheese at the back.)

If you've got reasonable high ceilings then the good old fashioned airers work well. We have a rayburn so its great and everything just dries overnight. I used to worry about kitchen smells but its never been a problem. If you don't have such a heat source then I'm sure putting it near a radiator would work as well. Heat rises anyway. Or am I being OTT here? At the end of the day its great to be green but its also hard enough to cope anyway. I don't think we should feel guilty for the odd non-green action if it makes life that much easier.

janh - glass milk bottles do have a date - it's just the day of the month stamped on the foil top (so today's pints should say 1 or 2).

I've always wanted to get my milk delivered. But in Brighton we livd in a rough area where they said they didn't deliver (everyone else's milk got pinched) and now we're in Spain where no-one does.

I do the over the banister thing for sheets and duvet covers. I hate having washing draped everywhere but I find if I put them there before I go to bed they are dry by the time I get up.

Sounds like I'm not much different to the rest of you really. I know the thing about missing a day JanH and I find myself holding back the washing waiting for the drying.

hi bozza, we do the same as other people have posted. as much as possible during the year, the washing is hung outside, in winter when the heating is on anyway, we use drying racks. i also find the banisters excellent for bedlinen! there are of course those in between periods in spring and autumn when the heating isn't on but it's not quite warm/dry enough to hang outside. we still use the racks then, things just take a bit longer to dry, but nothing has ever gone musty and dank, yuk! we also have a hanging rail to act as an inside clothesline - we just put the wet things onto hangers and bob's your uncle. i also loathe having washing hanging up everywhere. for the moment, we can use the spare room for most of it, but if and when another baby appears that will be out.

tbh - i don't get on all that well with tumble dryers anyway. find it really difficult to time just right - things always coming out a bit dampish or utterly baked. pretty useless for sheets and towels where you think they would help most. and i would never put anything nylon into it!

ps - i notice i have said "we" all the time when describing the fascinating laundry practices in our house. that should of course read "i", lol! that said, dh is at this moment cooking dinner and will also clear up, bless him!

bossykate, am noticing your increasing references to another baby - is there anything we should know yet?

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www, it's just increasing broodiness, we're not trying yet!

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I have drying washing all over the house in winter and I hate it - no room for a tumble dryer as yet. Does anyone else worry about the amoount of water vapour given off from the washing, or is this actually a good thing in our centrally heated (and perhaps overdry) houses?

Hi I'm a newbie so thought I'd just add my thoughts. I class myself as fairly green but not OTT, although I do belong to Friends of the Earth, BMA & the NCT so that probably tells you a lot about me LOL.

We have a two wheelie bin system in this part of Devon, bins are emptied fortnightly. Rubbish one week recyclable the following week. Although you have to take glass to a bottle bank, luckily we have one about 3 minutes from our house.

Have a sign on the front door saying No Junk Mail, or Free Newspapers, Please. It was amazing how much Cr## came through the letterbox each week.

Sons have pet rats, we used to buy expensive bedding for them, now I have bought a paper shredder and any letters bank info etc. gets shredded, don't shred newspapers they get recycled. Sons say it's easier to clean out the cages with shredded paper, than straw or hay less mess.

Have long life bulbs all over the house, apart from our bedroom which is a dimmer switch. If you put a long life bulb in a dimmer socket it blows the bulb, expensive mistake to make. Got our bulbs from our gas supplier on a good mail order deal.

I'm a meany and make the boys put a sweatshirt on if they are feeling cold. it's no good sitting there saying your cold in a T-shirt is it. If after half-an hour they are still cold they can turn the heating up.

I'm a Registered Childminder as is DH and we have used washable nappies on our minded children for 5+ years. Saves big time on the rubbish! Even started using washable wipes this year as well.

Bought myself some Lunapads washable menstrual pads, 18months-2 years ago, because I'd tried the keeper but it wasn't for me. I'm a funny shape because of stitches and it didn't fit! Anyway used Lunapads since and amazingly not had thrush since I've stopped using tampons, used to get it bad two or three times a year.

Pass on old magazines for mum to read who then passes them onto a friend who passes them on to another friend!

Just bought myself a classic old style (but new) ladies bike for Christmas, complete with wicker basket and skirt and chain guard so I can still wear my long skirts whilst cycling. Not been on a bike in 15 - 20 years, bit wobbly.

Invested in a vaporeto steam cleaner, cuts down on the amount of lotions and potions you buy in the cleaning section of sainsburys.

Must be others but can't think of them at the moment.

Copper, I think the water vapour is probably a good thing, esp if you have double glazing and/or cavity wall insulation (unless you find you get lots of condensation and/or mildew.) Some people buy humidifiers!!!

lucy123, I have looked at my milk bottle tops but semi-skim has a top striped in red and silver plus it says "semi-skimmed" all over it, if there is a number there I can't see it!

No numbers on our milk bottle lids either - I checked this morning!!

Actually, I'm really disappointed with milk delivery. I can't claim I started it out of a desire to be environmentally friendly (although it did play a part) but because ds was going through so much milk that it was a real pain getting enough from the supermarket each week.

We started off getting organic milk delivered but found that if you didn't drink it on the same day it was delivered that it would go off - a real pain when you need to make the Friday delivery last through to Sunday evening!

We changed to "normal" milk but our delivery person can't read simple notes. I'd have thought "One pint only today please" and "No milk today, thankyou" were relatively self-explanatory but apparently not. I'm awash with milk I don't need and it feels an awful waste tipping it down the sink (not to mention the money we're wasting - and it's not cheap the doorstep pint, is it?!)

Copper, Janh

I thought the vapour from drying washing too until my mum complained that it is detergent vapour too and that most rinse cycles are too short and there is always residual detergent on the stuff we dry.

Devonmum, very impressed, feel v ashamed of our lifestyles.

clucks, my washer spends longer rinsing than washing...! (I also have to do an extra rinse cycle anyway because our water pressure is so high it squirts the fabric rinse into the wash cycle if I put it in at the start - now please don't tell me fabric rinse residue is even worse! )

Anyway detergent residue must be less environmentally harmful than a 2 hour tumble dry?

GoerginaA, if you have lots of spare milk and it's not gone off yet, have you tried making rice pudding? It's nicer than Ambrosia! (But put in more milk than it says on the rice packet.)

or custard? (Banana custard - mmmmm.)

Good idea! ds loves rice pudding - he's never had ambrosia, always used the recipe in Annabel Karmel (assume that's a bog standard rice pudding recipe)

Or even better... put pink food colouring in the custard and tell him it's tubby custard

Anyone know the answer to this one? I've had my DH ask all his computer wizz workmates but none can tell me - You know how leaving a TV on stand-by uses 60% of normal power still so not green, well I was wondering about PCs. I have one of those screen things that switches itself off if unused for 5 minutes (not screensavers where you get the pictures but turns off) BUT is this the same as Stand-by in that it still uses power and should I be swtiching the monitor off properly? Anyone know?

DH told me, & I believe, Most PCs do exactly what you describe, K -- they go into a standby mode, even though they seem to be off.

We turn our PC off at the wall (socket) when not in use.

The biggest power draw on a PC is the monitor, though. Turn that off to make the biggest energy savings. Alternatively get a flat (LCD) screen. DH reckons the price on LCD screens is set to plumet. And all us gals with Broadband should really turn off our cable modems when not in use, too.

Anyone got a digital TV set-top box? Another device that sucks up energy even when the telly is off....

Darn it, I didn't say that right or straight enough: yes, TURN OFF the monitor to save lec'y.

Sheesh, my low IQ of 116 is showing thru, again...