Green means money. At least, that is what I thought. Now, green seems to be associated with somebody’s idea of saving something, water, electricity, or what not. Well, that’s cool. I like to save stuff, especially, green.
All of us at Mr. Fix It Plumbing use our own houses and buildings as plumbing laboratories. So, I bought a water saver toilet. You know, one that only uses 1.6 gpf (gallons per flush). So, I’m cool, I’m green.
I have to flush it about five or six times when I use it. I find that a little strange; that to be green uses so much water. Anyway, someone a lot smarter than me figured all this stuff out.
I bought a front loader, water saver, clothes washing machine. It uses almost no water, about nine gallons per load, compared to the standard top loader which uses about forty gallons per load. I’m really building green creed! It only cost me $1,836.00 and then wow; I got a rebate for being green. Well, I don’t recall ever getting a check but rebates are nice. I did have to go to the doctor about a skin rash. Something about the special laundry soap not fully washing out of the clothes.
I turned down the thermostat on my hot water heater. Good, that will save some energy. Besides, I wouldn’t want to get scalded. It could happen.
I bought a water saver shower head. I’m really hanging with the green crowd these days. My morning shower is all green now. Kind of a lukewarm, green mist really. I kind of miss the nice warm water but no matter. It is a little puzzling why I have to spend a half hour in the shower to get the soap off. Before I was a greenie, I was in and out of the shower pretty quickly.
Before I got clear on these matters, when I used to rock climb and was hanging out in a mountain range somewhere, I thought it was kind of cool to not leave any trash behind. Even recently, I told my wife that the 1978 orange van that we own is a green statement because think of all the metal and manufacturing byproducts that we are saving by continuing to drive this truck. She gave me some kind of a funny look. I guess I still don’t quite understand how to be green.
My nephew had a solar system set up to heat his swimming pool and supply hot water to the house. Being green is probably a genetic thing. He told me the numbers work out like this. He saves about $150 a month! Wow! Can you imagine such a fortune! And it only cost him about $51,000.00 to save all that money. When I divide $51,000.00 by $150.00 a month, I come out with a payback period of twenty eight years. I don’t know; I’m probably doing something wrong. I was never any good at math.
I’m a little embarrassed about it. You know, so I try to kind of hide it sometimes. I come up with some real funny numbers sometimes. Well, like now actually. I think it costs a lot of green to be green.
