I found this really cool website called Low Impact Living where you can calculate your impact on the earth. They ask you questions about your house size, how often you cook, do dishes and laundry, and drive. Then at the end of the quiz, they give you some suggestions for offsetting your impact. Some of them are cheap and easy (installing aerators on your faucets for $6 can save $66 annually) and some are expensive and major changes (installing a whole-house solar system to the tune of over $40,000).
An average score is 100, and my family’s score came out to be 81. So we’re better than average, but not great. One of our biggest problems is our 25 year old heating and cooling system. I can imagine that we are sucking up energy left and right, but at this time, we just can’t afford to change it out. (Especially since we don’t plan on living here for too much longer!)
The website also has some fantastic ideas for home remodeling, grocery shopping, and has some links to really amazing green products, many with customer reviews.
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April 11, 2008 at 3:30 am
Traci
We’re a 78 : ) “Plenty room for improvement.” ; ) That was a fun exercise. I’ve been wondering how we added up
April 12, 2008 at 12:09 am
Crystal
We are a 87…thought i would give it a try lol
April 12, 2008 at 1:06 am
Lynsey
We’re a 71! I wish it would have given an option for a wood stove for heat. Luckily we just got new wall heaters here and the’re 99% efficient! Yay government housing! Now if I could just get them to spring for a low flow toilet!
April 13, 2008 at 3:22 am
bambijo
Yay for all of you! It sounds like you are all doing great.
Lynsey, I thought the same thing. I played it with the numbers from the house we hope to have some day, and it came up with something like 57! (And that was without their score for wood heat.) Of course, an 800 square foot house with brand new heating and cooling probably WOULD be low impact.