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On July 18, 2007, our home solar system of nine 170-watt solar panels and a Sunny Boy inverter was fired up.

About one year later, the system has generated a total of 2,130 kilowatt-hours of electricity. Taking away 10 days because of a power outage this winter, that translates to an average of 5.96 kilowatt-hours every day.

We’re very happy with the performance of the system, as it’s generating about 90 percent of our power. We might add more panels in the future to get us to the 100 percent mark, but we’ll probably first take steps to reduce our power consumption more, including adding insulation to our attic. It’s already insulated up there, but it probably could use more.

Since climate control is our big power-sucker, especially in the summertime, it only makes sense to cocoon the house from the outside elements.

Recently, something happened that we’d always dreamed of when we first installed our solar-power system in July 2007 — we generated more power than we used.

I had a hunch it might happen in April or May. Those were the days in which we saw a lot of intense sun but mild temperatures — perfect conditions for solar-power generation. In fact, one day in early May, we generated an all-time high of 10.02 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and there were several other days of 9 KWH and higher.

According to our AEP-PSO bill, the meter reading on April 25 was 89377. On May 27, the meter reading was 89354. (Remember, this is the utility doing the reading, not us.) That meant the solar array was generating so much juice that month that the meter turned backwards to the tune of 23 KWH.

I always wondered what that would do to utility bill. The residential service total was $13.95, but the actual amount due was $12.64. AEP-PSO credited us $1.31 for the power the power we provided to them.

After seeing their KWH totals go lower instead of higher, it wouldn’t surprise me if AEP-PSO repairmen come out for a third time to replace the meter. It’s not like that hasn’t happened before.

Spring has arrived, and with it is a significant jump in our solar array’s production.

From Feb. 19 to March 19, our solar panels produced 158.3 kilowatt hours of electricity. So that means in 29 days (remember, February is a short month), the solar-power system produced an average of 5.46 KWH per day.

It’s apparent to me that some of the best production days are not in the summer, but in the spring and fall when temperatures are mild but the sunshine is intense. Hot temperatures depress solar panels’ efficiency 5-15 percent. But in the milder months, it’s not uncommon to see days of 8 KWH or higher. Just yesterday, I saw the inverter read 8.12 KWH with several hours of sunshine remaining.

This morning, I was working in my office when I heard a scraping sound on the side of the house. I went outside, and there was an AEP-PSO repairman, taking the cover off my electrical meter box.

“Hi,” he said. “We got word that there must be something wrong with the meter … that it’s going backwards.”

Not again, I thought.

“Well, the meter is going backwards, and I’ll show you why,” I said. “Take a look on the roof.”

He stepped back a few feet and saw the solar panels.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said.

He turned out to be a nice guy. He peppered me with questions about the system … how much it cost, how much power I was getting from it, etc. He thought it was cool that we were getting so much power from it.
He shook his head a bit.

“I think we need some training on this,” he said sheepishly. “We just don’t see hardly any systems like this. There’s one other one I know about, and he has the same problem — the power company’s always checking to see why the meter’s running backwards.

That sounds familiar, I thought.

He started to walk down the driveway. “Well, sorry to bother you. I’ll try to explain to them what’s going on so we don’t keep coming out here,” he said.

****

On a semi-related note, the system generated 134 kilowatt-hours of electricity from Jan. 20 to Feb. 20. That’s an average of 4.32 per day.

We’re really starting to generate juice now. The cool temperatures, combined with lengthening daylight, and we’re seeing days of 7 KWH and higher.

I’m a bit behind on my usual reports, but I did collect the data.

From Dec. 19 to Jan. 20, we collected 4.53 kilowatt hours per day. With our current electric bill from PSO, we used just 10 KWH of power from the utility during the entire month. So we were getting well over 90 percent of our power from the solar array.

In the six month since the solar-power system was placed online, it has generated 971 KWH of electricity. Divided by 175 days (I took off seven days because of the ice-storm power outage), that’s 5.54 KWH per day.

The past month has been a strange one at the House of the Lifted Lorax.

I usually check the solar array’s performance of a 31- or 32-day intervals. But in early December, Oklahoma was ravaged by a historic ice storm that downed trees and power lines all over the place. At one point, more than 600,000 customers were without power in the Sooner State. More than 10 days after the storm, there are still tens of thousands in the state without power.

Even though we get much of our power from the sun, the solar array is a grid-tie system. So we were in the dark along with thousands of other Tulsans. Our house had no power for a total of eight days. We did fine in the meantime — we had heat from a wood stove, hot showers from our gas water heater, and a number of LED lights to read and see by at night.

From Nov. 19 to Dec. 19, the solar array generated 70.1 kilowatt-hours of electricity. I lopped off eight days for the power outage, the average was 3.04 KWH per day. Given the fact these are the among the shortest days of the year, along with a long spate of cloudy days, the solar array did quite well.

In the meantime, I’ve been collecting downed tree limbs to become next year’s firewood. We probably already have enough wood for next winter.

A few weeks ago, I said “nearly 90 percent” of the power we consumed came from our solar panels.

I had a hunch it was higher, but wanted to be conservative in the estimates. The power meter fiasco a few weeks ago skewed the numbers, so getting a fix on what was being generated and consumed was difficult.

A few days ago, we received our AEP-PSO bill. According to the the utility’s actual meter reading, we used 12 kilowatt hours of electricity from Oct. 26 to Nov. 26.

No, that’s not a typo.

Twelve.

That’s barely one-third of a KWH per day.

I don’t have the solar-power numbers from that exact period, but they’re close enough — from Oct. 19 to Nov. 19. In that time, the solar array generated 158.5 kilowatt hours of electricity. And weather conditions between AEP-PSO’s billing period and the period that I track were similar.

So … 93 percent of all the power we used came from the sun.

Remarkable.

By far the biggest power drain we have is the air conditioner during summer. The solar array’s portion of electricity we use drops to as low as 50 percent during particularly sweltering months.

But the central A/C unit is well over a decade old; we plan to replace it during the spring for more energy savings. We’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

The days grow shorter, but in the past 31 days the solar array has generated 158.5 kilowatt hours of electricity. That’s 5.11 KWH per day, which is about equal to the previous month.

That’s all attributable to good weather. It’s been remarkably sunny and pleasant, with almost no rain at all. At one point, during a three-week period, we used just 24 KWH from the electric company. Nearly 90 percent of our electricity came from the sun.

And, yes, the new electric meter is still going backwards on clear days.

So I was surfing the Internet on a cloudy Friday morning when the doorbell rang.

It was a serviceman from American Electric Power-Public Service Company of Oklahoma, aka AEP-PSO.

“I’m here to replace your power meter,” he said. He warned me that if I had any computers running, I should shut them down and let him know when it was OK to begin his work.

The visit wasn’t unexpected. When we’d installed our solar panels in July, an AEP-PSO representative said it was likely that our power meter would be replaced with a digital model. When nothing happened for months, I figured it was simply the slowly turning wheels of AEP-PSO’s bureaucracy. No big deal — our solar array would work fine, new power meter or not.

After taking care of the computers, I went into the back yard to let him know he could proceed.

“So,” I said, “are you putting in a digital meter?”

“No,” he said, “we’re replacing it with the same model. We’ve been told your meter’s running backwards, and we’re putting one on that should work correctly.”

After a stunned pause, I said: “No, the meter’s fine. The reason it’s running backwards is because I have solar panels on the roof.”

The serviceman stepped back a few feet, gazed up at the roofline where the nine Sharp photovoltaic panels were lined in a row, and half-grinned. “Oh, that explains it.”

I realized what had happened. About three weeks ago, I’d received an AEP-PSO bill nearly triple of what it should have been. That’s because it was estimated, based on data from our home’s electricity usage since taking occupancy in 2004. (AEP-PSO conducts actual readings every other month.) But the estimate failed to consider our drastically decreased utility usage since the solar panels were installed in July.

I immediately checked the actual numbers on the meter and called AEP-PSO’s customer service line. I explained that we’d installed solar panels during the summer and that the estimated usage needed to be lowered. I briefly mentioned that the meter even ran backwards on sunny days. He seemed to understand, and said a revised bill would be mailed.

Weeks later, the revised bill had not arrived, and here was an AEP-PSO serviceman, thinking the meter was malfunctioning. The customer-service rep that I talked to obviously had filed an erroneous report.

The serviceman, even after seeing the solar array, was still determined to replace the meter. “It shouldn’t run backwards,” he said. “The solar panels should slow the turning, but it shouldn’t run backwards.”

I explained that this was a grid-tied system. When the sun was out and electrical use in our house was low, the meter would turn backwards. When the sun went down, the meter would resume its normal pace.

He nodded, but insisted the meter shouldn’t go backwards. I shrugged and let him swap out the device. It wasn’t like it was going to cost anything.

He also was startled when I told him that even before installing a solar array, our electric bill was as low as $32 a month.

Apparently AEP-PSO personnel have little experience with home-owned alternative energy.

He installed the meter and went on his way, convinced the problem was solved.

A few minutes later, I saw the sun peeking slightly through the clouds. I went outside to check the new meter.

It was running backwards.

So much for the so-called “repairs.”

… So the amount of power generated by our solar panel array is dropping.

However, in the past 33 days (with a lot of rainy periods), it has generated 173 kilowatt-hours of electricity. That’s a respectable 5.2 per day.

And because we’re using the air conditioner much less, the sun is still generating a big percentage of our total power consumption.

Emily and I are very happy with our solar power array. However, we’re always looking for ways to cut back on our consumption so that solar power provides a bigger percentage of our electricity.

We found one power-sucker that we decided to eliminate. Ever since we bought the house, there was a backyard light that automatically burned from sundown to sunrise. We figured that was a plenty of unnecessary consumption, especially when there was no switch to turn it off.

Second, it didn’t have a motion sensor. So its security value was OK, but not that good, either.  And the constant burning at night made it a party for insects.

So we took down the backyard light and installed a solar security light (above), made by Smart Solar and sold by Gaiam. The light comes from two sets of LEDs. It’s activated for 30 seconds by a motion sensor.

The small solar panel (above) that comes with the light charges the batteries during the daytime.

There’s a lot to like about this security light. The lights can be set at many angles, and the fixture can be mounted on even a corner. It’s bright enough to see about 30 feet in front of you. The batteries need only about five hours of sunlight a day to remain charged.

The setup contains all the hardware you need. The only tools I used were a drill, a Phillips screwdriver, a marking tool and a hammer — all for the installation. It took me less than an hour to set the whole thing up. And Smart Solar provides easy-to-follow illustrations for installation instead of written directions.

It’s been another 31 days with the 1.5 kilowatt solar system on our roof. It has generated 183.7 kilowatt hours since that time, with is just under 6 KWH per day.

That’s a decrease from 7.2 KWH average in the previous month. The drop is caused by the shorter days, plus the Tulsa area had several days of torrential rain in which there was very, very little sunshine.

Apologies for the lack of updates on this blog. I promise we’ll have a bit more coming up soon, including a product that’s a good little power-saver.

Thirty-two days have expired since our 1.5-kilowatt solar-power system was installed on our Tulsa home’s roof.

It has generated 230.6 kilowatt hours of electricity.

That’s an average of 7.206 KWH per day. The system has done better than I expected, with the help of a lot of sunny and 8-plus-KWH days.

We’re still going to undertake a few projects to cut back on our power consumption. More on that later.

Since the 1.5 KW solar energy system was installed, it has generated 159.4 kilowatt hours of electricity in 295 hours of operation. That’s more than a half-KWH per hour. Pretty good.

Today, the system generated 8.32 KWH. It’s been going well over 8 KWH for the past four or five days because a high-pressure system sitting over Oklahoma. It’s been sunshine all day, with only the occasional cloud.

The solar panels continue to perform well despite temperatures in the high 90s. It’s my understanding that a solar panel’s performance tends to go down during hot weather.

In the past two days, I’ve conducted an experiment. During the heat of the day, I check the inverter readings, hose down the panels with cool water, then quickly check the reading again. I’ve read a lot of anecdotal evidence that solar panels will get a 10-15 percent production boost when you do this.

However, when I did it, the output rose less than 4 percent. I did this twice, and the modest increase was similar both times.

A recent conversation with John Miggins, owner of Harvest Solar, may reveal why. He said he once mounted solar panels an inch or two above the roof surface. But the roofs would get hot and hurt the panels’ performance.

With our house, Miggins decided to have the panels mounted a good four inches above the roof surface. This allows more air circulation around the bottom of the panels and thus keeps them cooler.

Combined with our light-colored roof shingles that reflect sunlight instead of absorbing it, our panels’ performance isn’t suffering much despite outdoor temperatures near triple digits.

That’s why it pays to have a solar installer who’s experienced and is willing to adjust his methods for the better.

We’ve had the solar system in operation for six days. It has generated 41.8 kilowatt hours in that time — an average of just under seven per day. Not bad. Of course, on the first day, we didn’t throw the switch until almost noon. So the total should have been higher.

We had been averaging 7.5 KWH per day until recently. On Saturday, it turned partly cloudy. Then on Sunday, it was partly cloudy again, with a big rainstorm in the late afternoon that dropped the panels’ output to zero. On Monday, it was mostly cloudy, and the system still generated 5.4 KHW.

On a side note: one reader surmised that the Sharp solar panels we use are 167 watts and not 170. Looking over the installation manual, I can assure they are 170-watt panels. It’s an NE-170U1 model, which you can see here.

In another discussion, I said our installer was saying the current system would generate 7-10 KWH per day. I was mistaken, due to the fact I didn’t look over my notes carefully. When we were first discussing our options with Harvest Solar, we were talking about systems as high as 2,000 watts, which certainly would have generated that 7-10 KWH daily. But because of budget constraints, we went with a 1,530-watt system. So our daily output is probably going to be in the 5-8 KWH range.

We got the solar-power system we could afford, and we’re very happy with it. We will add panels in the coming years, because our Sunny Boy inverter can handle up to 2,100 watts.

The first day the solar panels were put into service at 11 a.m., they generated 7 kilowatt hours of electricity.

On Thursday, the first full day they were in operation, they generated 7.7 KWH under partly cloudy skies. You could tell when a cloud obscured the sun by the Sunny Boy’s real-time readout — it would go from 900 watts to 150 watts in a hurry.

Harvest Solar eventually will come back to test the system, which is part of the installation contract. Perhaps it needs to tweak the angle of the panels. Maybe one panel is defective and needs to be replaced. But based on what I’ve seen, I’m pleased with how the system is performing.

Also, our power utility, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, soon will replace the analog power meter with a digital one. I’ve read that digital meters are more accurate, and the new meter will allow the utility to take its monthly reading for billing by remote.

But I have to admit, I’ll miss that little metal disc spinning backwards.

As I write this at noon, the solar panels are cranking out more than 1,000 watts of electricity and have generated 1.3 kilowatt hours of electricity in barely an hour.

And the power meter is spinning backwards. You can see the wheel in the center going clockwise, instead of the usual counterclockwise.

We have solar electricity. This is a culmination of a dream that Emily and I have cherished for many years. And now it’s here.

David of Harvest Solar arrived here shortly after 7 a.m. to beat the summer heat. Today was the day he would actually place the solar panels on the roof rack.

I asked him how he kept from zapping himself while carrying the solar panels. He said that the panel wiring has rubber stoppers on the ends that you remove only when you’re ready to hook it up.

Here’s what the finished installation looks like:

After that, David finishes the rest of the wiring that goes to the house:

At 11 a.m., David threw the switch on the main breaker. Within seconds, the Sunny Boy inverter’s digital display read 840 watts. The panels were generating electricity. We heard nothing, except for a very faint hum from the inverter. There was no flickering of the lights. It was all seamless.

This photo was taken about 10 minutes later. As you can surmise, the wattage was going up:

We’ve noticed that the power meter does move forward when the air conditioner is on, but at a much slower pace. When the A/C shuts down, the meter resumes its backwards pace.

It’s a happy day.

Today, David of Harvest Solar came out to begin installation of the solar panels. Here, he attached the racks to the roof during the early hours before the heat of the day. (By the way, at the upper right is the solar attic fan that Harvest Solar installed last year.)

Here’s what the racks look like when they were done less than an hour later:

Next, David started installing the Sunny Boy 2100 inverter in the laundry room, which is where the main circuit box is located.

You have to attach it to something that’s screwed directly into the wall studs. That’s because the inverter weighs about 45 pounds. It’s so heavy and bulky, I helped David hang the inverter onto the bolts. After that, he screwed in the bolts so the inverter would be flush.

Here’s what it looks like, all finished:

There were plenty of other wiring and junction boxes to install, including an outdoor switch (shown below):

By the time, he finished most of this, it was late in the day. David said he’d be back early in the cool of the morning to install the nine Sharp solar panels that are 170 watts apiece. We’ll probably be able to throw the switch on the system sometime tomorrow.

In case any of y’all were doubtful of my earlier post about how light- or dark-colored roofs can make a difference with your home’s climate control, here is this report from KRQE.com in Albuquerque, N.M.

A reporter flew over the city and took infrared photographs to find out where the hot spots and cool spots were.

One of the cool spots was a water park, in which jets and mists of water help keep the local kids cool. Other cool spots were where grass and trees were planted. Albuquerque is planting 2,000 trees a year in medians, parks and golf courses in a long-term effort to cool it down.

On the other hand:

One of many elements affecting the temperature of the city is by the colors chosen for the tops of the buildings.

In the United States, 90 percent of rooftops are dark colored.

The sun’s rays are absorbed making buildings and surroundings much hotter. That also drives up energy use.

Two neighboring houses recorded from Skyranger illustrate the difference: The infrared camera shows the home with the dark-colored roof as white, hot, while the white-colored roof is recorded as dark and cool.

That 90 percent number for dark-colored roofs is a startling statistic. Maybe there ought to be a public campaign to inform the public about how energy-sucking dark-colored roofs are, especially in the Sun Belt.

As previously mentioned, Harvest Solar & Wind Power of Tulsa is coming today to begin the installation of the solar panels. But this isn’t the first job the company has done for us.

In February 2006, Harvest Solar installed a solar-powered attic fan and lined the attic with radiant barrier (below) to keep the air space there from getting too hot in the summertime.

Fortunately, the fan and the barrier both work when they should — and don’t work when they shouldn’t. The fan contains an automatic switch that shuts it off when it cools below a certain temperature. And the radiant barrier has some insulation value to retain warmth in the attic during the winter.

We decided to install the fan because 1) it made sense for climate control in general; and 2) we had removed a box elder tree that had provided partial shade for the house.

We were reluctant to take down the tree. But box elders are notoriously brittle. In fact, ours had dropped a big limb onto our neighbor’s driveway. It didn’t cause damage. But the tree stood so close to our house, we feared it would drop an even bigger limb (or worse) on our roof or window during the next windstorm.

Secondly, the box elder also would have kept our home’s roof from gaining the maximum amount of sunlight for our future solar panels.

So away it went.

The day Harvest Solar installed the attic fan and radiant barrier was an uncommonly warm one for February. It was hot in the as attic the workers began stapling the barrier to the ceiling and truss boards. But as they progressed, they told me the temperature had dropped 15 to 20 degrees by the time they had finished.

It was barely installed, but the radiant barrier was already doing its job. And it still is.

The solar panels and inverter are going to be installed tomorrow! Harvest Solar of Tulsa is doing the job for us.

When we moved into our house in Tulsa, it came with a 50-gallon electric water heater that was close to 10 years old.

We knew we would probably replace it soon. It started to run out of hot water if showers ran over 10 minutes. A thermostat started heating water to scalding temperatures. The water heater developed a small leak in one of the valves. These problems were repaired, but they were danger signs that the water heater was about to go kaput.

This spring, we decided to replace it with a 40-gallon gas water heater from Kenmore (shown at left). We were a bit nervous about trading down to a smaller-capacity water heater, especially when we were already having problems with a 50-gallon model.

But I learned a few things from Consumer Reports:

Capacity isn’t as important as the first-hour rating, which is how much actual hot water the device can deliver in an hour. This Kenmore model delivered 81 gallons an hour, one of the best I could find. In comparison, a 10-minute shower should use only about 20 gallons.

Go with the longer warranty. Consumer Reports says to buy a water heater with 9- or 12-year warranty. The magazine said these models tend to have better parts and more insulation, and the cost difference isn’t all that much (usually $100 or less). The Kenmore we purchased is packed with 2 inches of insulation and a 12-year warranty.

Make sure you have room. I would have gone with the 50-gallon model, except a well-insulated one with a 12-year warranty would have not fit in the utility closet. I elected to go with a well-insulated 40-gallon model instead.

We’ve been very happy with the Kenmore’s performance. We haven’t run out of hot water yet. At one point this week, I bathed three dogs, took a shower, washed a load of laundry, and still had hot water. When you take a shower, you can hear the gas burners go for about 10 minutes, and then they shut off for the rest of the day. That shows you how insulation can make a big difference in keeping the hot water’s temperature stable.

But what shocked us is how much energy the Kenmore saves. Most experts recommend that you buy a gas water heater instead of an electric one because it’s more efficient. But going from an old electric water heater to a top-of-the-line gas heater has created some dramatic changes in our utility bills.

In the months we had an electric water heater, our electric usage was between 500 and 625 kilowatt hours per month. In the three months we’ve had the Kenmore, we’ve seen our consumption drop to 300 to 400 KWHs per month. We estimate that’s a drop of 150 to 200 KWHs each month.  With local power rates at about 10 cents per KWH, that’s a savings of $15 to $20.

That also means our forthcoming solar panels will provide an even greater percentage of electricity for our house.

Our gas bill? It averaged about $12 a month before installing the Kenmore. Afterward, it’s been $20. We’re saving money each month.

In the three years we’ve lived in Tulsa, we’ve never had an electric bill of more than $90. Our average is $50 a month, and dropping fast.

With our natural gas bill, we’ve never had a bill higher than $78. Most of the time, it’s $20 or less.

Yes, you can cite the usual suspects for our miserly power consumption — compact fluorescent light bulbs, Energy Star appliances, and a thermostat that’s set at 78 degrees in the summertime (bumped up to 80 when we’re not home) and 68 during the winter (nudged down to 62 when we’re sleeping or away from home).

But the big reason our energy bills remain low is that our house is small. It takes a lot less juice to heat or cool the air in a house that’s a hair under 1,000 square feet than it is to heat and cool a 3,000-square-foot behemoth.

We’ve been a big fan of small houses, namely because the economies of scale make it easier for climate control, maintenance and our pocketbook. We’ve had no desire to keep up with those who want to flaunt their materialism by showing how elaborate of a house they own.

When you buy a house, you should ask these questions:

• Does it provide a solid roof over your head?
• Is it well-maintained?
• Do all the appliances work?
• Is it comfortable for you and your two- or four-legged companions?

If you can say yes to these questions, then you shouldn’t worry about square footage or whether the house has a decorative gryphon or some other nonsense.

An addendum from Emily: I’ve known a lot of people who insist they have to have a big house because a small house would just be “too cluttered.” Nonsense. If your house is cluttered, your problem is the housekeeper, not the house. Our house looks cluttered when we forget to pick up after ourselves. When we put things away where they belong, it looks fine. If you don’t have room to store all your possessions, that’s a pretty big red flag indicating a pretty serious problem with mindless consumerism. Decluttter your house … and then quit buying things you don’t need and don’t really want. If you’re not sure how to declutter, Flylady.net is a good jumping-off point.

When we were in the process of buying our house in Tulsa, our insurer insisted that the roof be replaced.

The roof was nearly 20 years old at this point and was near the end of its useful life. We made replacing the roof a condition of the home’s purchase, to which the seller agreed.

Our Realtor was placed in charge of hiring the contractor to replace the roof. One of the questions she posed startled us:

“Do you want dark or light shingles?”

One thing about the Sooner State during the summer and a good chunk of the spring and fall is that it’s HOT. I can’t imagine why anyone would choose dark shingles — which would attract sunlight and heat — over light-colored shingles, which would reflect sunlight.

Unless you live in the frigid Rocky Mountains or Upper Midwest, why would anyone choose a roofing color that would make your air conditioner work harder?

We chose the white shingles.

In our first house in Illinois, Emily talked me into switching out the usual light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.

At the time, I was a bit skeptical. CFLs at the time were selling for about $8 apiece, and replacing all of them in one dwelling could get expensive.

We did it by buying one at a time over several weeks. (At the same time, we installed power strips to eliminate phantom loads created by our microwave, stereo, television, VCR, and other appliances, although we’re sure the impact of this effort was much smaller than that of the CFLs, which reduced power consumption by 75 percent or more in most fixtures.)

The power company’s bill provided data on your average daily kilowatt-hour usage during the monthly billing cycle, and the usage during the same month the previous year.

We got the bill the next month, and to our surprise, the average daily kilowatt-hour usage had dropped by about 50 percent from the previous year. That was despite the fact that Emily’s parents had given us an old, fairly large freezer, which we had installed in our basement during the same month.

Those funny looking spiral bulbs made a big impact on our electricity usage.

We’ve been CFL users for about six years. They are worth buying, but we’ve learned a few things since that should help you maximize the life of CFLs.

1. Don’t buy off-brands. They tend to burn out a lot sooner. Buy CFLs from established brand names, such as GE and Philips. Based on our experience, name-brand CFLs last longer. We surmise that quality control with those companies must be better.
2. Don’t install standard CFLs in recessed fixtures. Without good ventilation, the CFLs will overheat more and die faster.
3. If your CFLs are burning out fast or in bunches, you probably have a problem with your home’s electrical system. You’d better take care of that before worrying about anything else; such problems can lead to serious trouble down the road.

For more, consult Energy Star’s page about CFLs.

I never was the most liberal, tree-hugging member of any party. So how did I become the type of person who now recycles, drives a hybrid, and is about to place power-producing solar panels on my home?

I guess I could say that I married into the environmental movement, which is true. But that’s too easy of an explanation.

One of the first inklings of my interest in alternative housing was in college, when a newspaper article told about actor Dennis Weaver building a house in Colorado made with discarded tires. I distinctly recall reading that Weaver’s house had a constant, year-round temperature like a cave, so that it would cost much less to heat and cool during seasonal extremes. I remember how cool I thought that was.

I didn’t have the chance until the Internet age to further research Weaver’s house, which I discovered was an Earthship. Emily and I ultimately didn’t build an Earthship (maybe someday), but it sparked a lot of ideas on how to lessen our power consumption and improve our home’s climate control.

But my interest in environmentally friendly methods goes back further, while growing up on the farm in the Midwest. My grandfather used passive solar heat to help dry the grain that he harvested instead of relying so much on noisy, power-eating electric dryers. A few dozen miles away, another farmer erected a wind turbine and generated enough power during some months to get the electric company to pay him.

But it wasn’t just neato gadgets and new ways to pinch pennies. My parents also instilled in us that we were stewards of the land, that it was our duty to leave it in as good or better condition for the next generation of farmers. That led to no-till planting to conserve the topsoil. That led to cutting back on the use of herbicides and insecticides because my family instinctively knew that overuse of such chemicals was harmful.

It wasn’t Al Gore or Iron Eyes Cody or, God forbid, Earth First! that ultimately led me to being more environmentally responsible. It was my years on the windswept Illinois prairie.