washing machine off solar?

[FloridaSun]

I believe most Americans have grown up in a throw a way society. The amount of food and products that gets trashed is criminal and the idea of recycling is just extra work for them.

They are so use to the finer things in life that "roughing it is a foreign thought. They are also the first to cry when the power goes out or when their hand held entertainment device loses connection. So sad.

Finer things in life? Americans seem to be more accustomed to ease and convenience without thinking of environmental cost or financial efficiency which shows in the multitude of newbies here expecting solar to be 'green' while providing them with wasteful luxuries.
Economic cost is eased by government entitlements. Even the poor have little consideration for anything but their mindless TV entertainment and daily trips to mcdonalds to poison their minds and bodies all the while buying chinese plastic products and thinking they have a full life.
As a 40 year survivor of traumatic injury and lifelong handicaps I've learned to live efficiently all the while never depending on guvment handouts. Maybe I have more the European view?
Many (most americanos) think cheap fuel is their savior. I say tax th ell outta it and force americans to adopt the EU view. Economics is the only way to change views.

[ChrisOlson]

I believe most Americans have grown up in a throw a way society. The amount of food and products that gets trashed is criminal and the idea of recycling is just extra work for them.

Going to the Scandinavian countries is interesting. People have cars there too, but they are about 50% diesels so they're more fuel efficient than what we drive. And many of them are designed so they shut off when you come to a stop. You press on the accelerator pedal and it starts the engine back up and away you go. People in the US would not stand for that because the air conditioner might stop working when you're sitting at a stop light.

Europe also has a very well designed public transportation system that actually works, is on time and reliable. In Sweden people don't jump into a car and drive 6 blocks to buy a jug of milk. They walk or ride a bicycle, or sometimes small scooters. Sweden is about the same latitude as Fairbanks, Alaska, and yet even in the winter time people will bundle up and walk 3-4 km to get to work instead of driving a car.

You can go just about anywhere in Sweden, Denmark, Norway or Finland on public transportation at less cost and greater convenience and reliability than you can by owning a car - so there are many families that don't even own one. Here in North America our lives are pretty much centered about personal transportation and the automobile.

So it is pretty much a totally different lifestyle that most North Americans would find very hard to adapt to.
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Chris

[FloridaSun]

My wife is European. After 28 years of living with her it becomes evident there is a totally different mindset that is ingrained since childhood - and the fact that energy is twice as expensive in Europe as it is in North America. It goes so deep, and is so ingrained, that my wife will not even pull the plug and drain dishwater down the drain in the sink. She bails it out and carries it outside and dumps it on the garden.
Chris

haha, you cruel husband... come on now Chris, set that sink drain into a decent gray water system so your wife doesn't have to bail the sink.

[ChrisOlson]

haha, you cruel husband... come on now Chris, set that sink drain into a decent gray water system so your wife doesn't have to bail the sink.

Well, cruel don't really apply. We've been married for 28 years and I learned after day 1 that you don't tell a Swedish woman nuthin'. I could go to all the work to put in a gray water holding system and she would bail it and carry it out anyway just because that's what she was taught as a little girl as the way to do it.
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Chris

[FloridaSun]

Well, cruel don't really apply. We've been married for 28 years and I learned after day 1 that you don't tell a Swedish woman nuthin'. I could go to all the work to put in a gray water holding system and she would bail it and carry it out anyway just because that's what she was taught as a little girl as the way to do it.
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Chris

ya, habits can be hard to adjust... maybe if you just let her wash in a tub outdoors she'd be more comfy?

haha, seriously, there is way too much irrigation water going down the drains everywhere, specially for country folk. I have the washing machine, one shower and one sink going past septic system. No problem at all as long as there is enough water going into septic tank for good slurry digestion.

[ChrisOlson]

haha, seriously, there is way too much irrigation water going down the drains everywhere, specially for country folk. I have the washing machine, one shower and one sink going past septic system. No problem at all as long as there is enough water going into septic tank for good slurry digestion.

What do you do for bath soap? My wife says dishwater is good for the plants (and they seem to do really well on it). She uses some stuff called "Dishmate" that is supposed to not have toxic stuff in it for both dishes and clothes. Most bath and laundry soaps have toxic chemicals in them that are not good for the plants (or for people for that matter), according to her. I've never really looked into it, though, as that's her department.
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Chris

[FloridaSun]

What do you do for bath soap? My wife says dishwater is good for the plants (and they seem to do really well on it). She uses some stuff called "Dishmate" that is supposed to not have toxic stuff in it for both dishes and clothes. Most bath and laundry soaps have toxic chemicals in them that are not good for the plants (or for people for that matter), according to her. I've never really looked into it, though, as that's her department.
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Chris

Good for plants but would probably help to flush out accumulated salinity, etc once in a while. No problems here as the soil is well draining sand and annual rainfall plenty. Plants do like the nitrates and phosphates in soapy water. Whatever toxic ingredients may be in my soaps... I wouldn't worry about it unless I was irrigating root crops eaten raw. I am picky bout my vegies and they are grown organically, no chemicals or poisons of any kind used there.
My washer drain here has been going into a dry well under some palm trees for over 60 years now and they've grown to monsters. No doubt some nasty chemicals have been flushed thru there back in 1950s-60s. I've only dug out the well once about 20 years ago to remove root mass. Arm&Hammer powder used now, never softeners, bleach very very rarely with my use.
Sink drain waters a navel orange tree and it's always been healthy, providing good fruit. I'm a fan of Dawn dish soap, powerful stuff. I'll look into that dishmate product. Description is "100% plant based ingredients" but would it cut the grease in hard water? haha, those nasty chemicals have their uses.
Shower drains to ornamentals, tropical shrubs, ferns mostly. Dial and Ivory used there.... along with whatever family/company brings as their shampoo favorite.
I'm not all that into a 'green fiend' lifestyle but live in healthy moderation, probably have an extremely low carbon footprint compared to most with my low elect. and fuel consumption.

[ChrisOlson]

I'll look into that dishmate product. Description is "100% plant based ingredients" but would it cut the grease in hard water? haha, those nasty chemicals have their uses.

Dishmate seems to work really good, even on greasy stuff. But she uses hot water with it and that helps too I think. Our clothes washer pumps outside and is connected to a soaker hose that is laid between the rows in our sweet corn. We get really nice sweet corn from doing that. In the summer my wife waters the tomatoes and carrots with the dish water. In the winter she waters all her house plants with it.

I think the food residue in the dish water is what provides some of the nutrients for the plants - it's organic matter. Whatever she waters with it seems to grow really lush and green. Not really sure what the analysis would be on nitrates and phos in that Dishmate though. She found a country store here locally that handles it, and she usually researches that stuff fairly in-depth, so she feels it is good for her plants.

We let bath water go down the drain. If we don't our drain field will freeze up in the winter time, and probably not enough water in the septic system without it too.
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Chris

[Bfayer]

...I say tax th ell outta it and force americans to adopt the EU view. Economics is the only way to change views.

I disagree, I don't believe the government should be involved in driving markets one way or the other. That includes both the supply and the demand side. Generally speaking it is government interference that encourages people to be less efficient with their own resources. Government interference to correct problems caused by government interference does not usually make things better in the long run. Just my two cents.

[SunEagle]

I disagree, I don't believe the government should be involved in driving markets one way or the other. That includes both the supply and the demand side. Generally speaking it is government interference that encourages people to be less efficient with their own resources. Government interference to correct problems caused by government interference does not usually make things better in the long run. Just my two cents.

I believe FloridaSun was joking. Or maybe not.

[FloridaSun]

Government interference to correct problems caused by government interference does not usually make things better in the long run. Just my two cents.

True, if the govment got a load of tax money for elect. it most likely wouldn't go into a better grid system but spent elsewhere.

[FloridaSun]

I believe FloridaSun was joking. Or maybe not.

hahaha, you know I'm no fan of big govment

[Bfayer]

hahaha, you know I'm no fan of big govment

Here is one for you. Much of my land (along with others) in northern Michigan is wetland which makes it against the law to build anything on most of it. It was not always wetland, the government built a dam to raise the water level in the local lake to encourage development and of course increase property values, so they could raise tax revenues.

The increased water level caused by the dam turned countless acres of land into wetlands. But now that wetlands are protected, development has essentially stopped and property values have dropped to just about nothing. You can buy a half acre lot in the planned development for as little as 8 or 9 hundred dollars. Duck hunting is much better however

It gets better. Since property values have dropped, they raised the tax rates to offset the lower property values. So now property owners are just walking away from their property (which they can't do anything with anyway) and letting the county take the property on tax forfeiture.

Now since the county needed the money, they let the folks that own the local quarry expand their limestone pit. Don't ya know that they expanded the quarry so much that the lake is now draining into the pit, and water levels are dropping to below what they were before the dam was built. Who would have thunk.

Very much a true story. It took the better part of 50 years to get to this point, but that is the way these things work. Unintended consequences of the government getting involved in areas they have no business getting involved in.

[FloridaSun]

Here is one for you. Much of my land (along with others) in northern Michigan is wetland which makes it against the law to build anything on most of it. It was not always wetland, the government built a dam to raise the water level in the local lake to encourage development and of course increase property values, so they could raise tax revenues.

The increased water level caused by the dam turned countless acres of land into wetlands. But now that wetlands are protected, development has essentially stopped and property values have dropped to just about nothing. You can buy a half acre lot in the planned development for as little as 8 or 9 hundred dollars. Duck hunting is much better however

It gets better. Since property values have dropped, they raised the tax rates to offset the lower property values. So now property owners are just walking away from their property (which they can't do anything with anyway) and letting the county take the property on tax forfeiture.

Now since the county needed the money, they let the folks that own the local quarry expand their limestone pit. Don't ya know that they expanded the quarry so much that the lake is now draining into the pit, and water levels are dropping to below what they were before the dam was built. Who would have thunk.

Very much a true story. It took the better part of 50 years to get to this point, but that is the way these things work. Unintended consequences of the government getting involved in areas they have no business getting involved in.

hahaha! good story,
Have much the same story down here with the guvment draining of Kissimmee river basin for ranching/cattle, then the reclaiming of swampland for water filtration, all the while big landowners getting rich off taxpayer money.

[ChrisOlson]

I disagree, I don't believe the government should be involved in driving markets one way or the other. That includes both the supply and the demand side.

While they shouldn't, I think they have since the concept of government and money was invented. In Europe, they put higher tax on gasoline than on diesel fuel, and no tax on biodiesel, to promote the use of diesel power for transportation. This has worked, for the most part, as roughly 50% of Europe's auto fleet is diesel - with the correspondingly higher fuel efficiency that goes with diesel power.

Here in the US it is different. The government does not really want high fuel efficiency because they make a lot of money off highway fuel and federal excise tax on fuels. The entire industrialized world runs on diesel power. From the food you buy at the supermarket, to a car or toothbrush, it is all grown, raw materials mined or recycled, and transported with diesel power. So the US has excessively high federal excise tax on diesel fuel and states have higher road tax on diesel fuel than on gasoline which gives them a bigger slush fund for the Christmas Party.

A few years back here in Wisconsin they diverted $7.2 million of the highway fuel tax fund to the DNR for doing a migratory bird study in the Horicon Marsh. And they diverted another $2.5 million of the fuel tax fund to put radio collars on the elks in the North Woods. And then somebody hit a elk on highway 27 north of Hayward. Can't have people killing the government-owned elk herd without a permit. So they diverted another $4.7 million of the highway fuel tax fund to putting in lighted barricades that drop across the road when a elk with a radio collar is near the road - with flashing yellow lights and a sign on it that says "STOP - elk crossing road". The one on the northbound lane lasted until a 18-wheeler was wingin' it north to Cable and that barricade dropped across the road in front of him. He took 'er right off at the post and then they figured that maybe wasn't going to work. So they abandoned it.

Nobody that I know approved any of this nonsense. The government just does it. Imagine if you could just set on your ass and pass rules that force everybody everywhere to send you money that you can spend on whatever you want. The only work you have to do is hold meetings with your buddies to figure out how to spend all your money - and you get paid a six figure income to do this. That's government.
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Chris