Blog for 5/5/08

May 5, 2008

Good morning! Here in Houston we are enjoying some soft showers that are quite welcome as the last month or so have been very dry. Even better is the fact that my wife and I spent our weekend putting in all of the plants and flowers for the summer and just as we completed the job God gives us what we could never give ourselves. Praise His Name!

Today I am going to weigh in on the energy issue. We live in Houston, Texas, and as a consequence, we live and breathe petroleum (and in some parts of the city I mean this literally!). Our business here produces products for the industry to the tune of 90% of our volume. G & H opened a new facility in Indianapolis for the sole purpose of diluting the energy content of the company (OK, maybe to make a dollar or two in the process). In any case we Houstonians are probably more opinionated about the energy business, as a group, than any other people outside of the Middle East. Given this assumption, I hereby claim the right to offer these suggestions.

1. MOVE! I don’t care if you move your home closer to work or your work closer to home. The idea is to eliminate the 20 to 90 minutes you spend driving each way, each day of each work week. Why do we do this? This was an idea hatched in the 50’s and 60’s when gasoline was at $.35 per gallon. Then driving was a luxury and a pleasure. I mean people were paid to put gasoline into your tank for you and you became quite miffed when that same guy didn’t wash the windshield. For heaven’s sake he’s just standing there with the nozzle in his hand! No, these times are gone for good. The model is outdated, obsolete, and it is draining this country of vast amounts of resources. We build billion dollar freeways – sorry – toll ways, to transport ourselves from one congested place to another. It is not a mystery that if you take your average 9-hour workday, 8 hours of sleep, 2 hours of total commute (includes stopping for gas every 4 days), the 1 hour of showering, shaving and sitting on the pot (men only), the remaining quality time is a grand total of 4 hours or about 17% of your day. Now you and I both know even the dog won’t come around us for the first hour after we get home, so now you are left with 3 hours of blissful time with family or friends. Let’s give the points:

* Living within 10-15 minutes from work will increase those blissful hours by an astounding 50%! Better still the 1½ hours you have eliminated from the toll way are probably some of the most stressful of the day so now the dog and the kids will come around much sooner and you gain another 30 minutes of the good stuff.

* You can have that Tahoe SUV now because you aren’t driving the hell out of it! You are helping the American auto industry stay alive and hitting Big Oil in the gut.

* Since you are not buying nearly as much gas, the oil speculators have to unwind their positions and the price will fall at least to the inflation adjusted historical level. Don’t let anyone kid you - America still consumes something like 35% of the oil produced. Small changes will produce big changes.

* The cost for driving on Texas toll ways runs approximately $2.00 for every 20 minutes of drive time. For a 30 minute one-way commute, this will total $6.00 per day or $1500 per year. This is a tax like any other and it is not deductible for your average salary person. Don’t do it!

2. MOVE/ADD WATER HEATERS. Heating water uses a lot of energy, but in our homes we don’t think much about it. We don’t care that the builder put the single 50 gallon water heater in the garage even though the master bath is 65 feet away. I certainly don’t mind waiting the average of three minutes for my hot water to arrive in the shower. Most days I just jump right into the cold water because it feels so good when the hot finally comes on and I certainly don’t mind taking the time to wait for warm water after going to the bathroom to wash my hands. Doesn’t everyone feel the same way?

Winter! They have that season in most of the country and that only makes things more interesting. How about when you visit friends and after five minutes you have to ask if they even have hot water only to be told to just get back in bed for five more minutes. This is the season that you have to have 12 inches of water in the tub instead of the usual 8 in the summer because the first 4 inches are freezing.

Copper pipes. They use copper because it doesn’t rust and rarely leaks. Unfortunately it holds heat in like a screen door. So now we have 65 feet of tubing with hot water only to let the heat radiate into the attic. This is done over and over each day and in virtually every bath and kitchen in America. What is the cost? I don’t really have a clue, but I know there are millions of slightly irritated people spending countless minutes waiting to get into their showers; staring at the water and betting the next drops are warm; quickly putting their hand or foot into the stream only to be greeted with that cold splash that takes the “slightly” out of the irritation.

When you remodel or build tell the contractor you want a small 20-30 gallon heater for the kitchen, master bath, and especially, for the full guest bath. Yes, it will cost more than the garage heater, but your house guests will remark to you what a lovely shower they had and only you will know why.

3. FIG IVY. This diminutive, evergreen ivy is fast growing and, if kept trimmed, really looks nice on brick. It freezes so that limits its range, but for the coast it is great. What it is is very good exterior insulation for your home. My last house had a west-facing brick wall with a patio and pool that reflected the sun towards the wall. During sunny days, even in the spring or fall, this wall would get so warm it was hard to keep a hand on it. During the summer it was difficult to stand within 3 feet of the thing. I planted ivy in a bed some 8 feet away and this little leafed, fast growing plant covered that wall in one year. Immediately the dining room inside the house had cool walls and was noticeably more comfortable. Cost: $12.00 for three plants and several months to have an effect.

Thanks for visiting and please post any comments!