Inner City Farmer

I’ll say this for those in charge of the City of Austin: they put their money where their mouth is when it comes to selling the idea of conservation. A smart homeowner can get all sorts of things for free and/or save a ton of money by taking advantage of all the rebates that are offered. I bought a high efficiency washing machine just after moving into this place, and, if I remember correctly, I received not one but two rebate checks soon afterward, one from Austin Energy, the other from the City. I also drove down to some generic office building downtown and picked up a low-flow shower head, which was about ten times nicer than my old one. And a couple months ago I got a rebate for buying an Energy Star refrigerator. The list of what they offer rebates for goes on and on: solar panels, rainwater harvesting, air conditioning, weatherization.

Just when I thought I’d hit them up for everything possible I discovered that the City was giving away high-efficiency toilets. I would be just as happy to install a “dry” toilet in my house—that’s right, humanure!—but composting your own feces remains an illegal activity within the city limits. So today I drove up to Metric and Rutland and picked myself up a fancy new Niagara Ecologic toilet. Warning to those who might be thinking of doing the same: it appears the program is wildly popular. When I got there I was initially informed that they were all out of toilets, but one miraculously appeared after a little poking around. Be sure to give them a call first.

Despite my penchant for peeing on trees and recycling my bathwater, I’m not as self-sufficient as you might think. There are some situations that just don’t seem to have any reasonable solutions. Take diapers. Before my boy was potty-trained, I spent way too much time debating the merits of cloth diapers versus disposable ones, when in the end they both suck—cloth ones require wasting lots of energy and water while disposables end up in the landfill.

Debating the merits of various refrigerators has proved to be just as frustrating. The one that came with this house is all but dead. It quickly turns my ice cream into soup. The best solution, according to those who are into hard-core self-sufficiency, would be for me to simply do without. Sure, I could make some sort of root cellar to preserve my perishable food items. Most of what goes into a refrigerator really doesn’t need to be there. But I’m just not that hard-core. This is where I draw the line. If there is one advance created by man that I prize especially, it’s refrigeration. I simply couldn’t stand to live in Texas without being able to open the fridge and grab a cold one.

So today I broke down and went shopping. I had heard wonderful things about Sun Frost refrigerators. They reduce energy consumption by 80 percent. They provide high humidity. They’re quiet. They’re really pretty. But they cost a freaking fortune. One will set you back nearly three grand. Like solar panels, they will eventually pay for themselves, but also like solar panels they’re a hard sell. I only have some many years left on this earth.

However, I did vow to buy one that was part of the government’s Energy Star program. Sadly, most of these fridges are high-end models that are not only out of my budget but also more fridge than I need. Most of the ones I saw consume close to 500 kWh a year, nearly 100 kWh more than the smaller, more inefficient models consume. That doesn’t make much sense to me. A smarter government program (oxymoron) would make the cheapest fridge the most energy efficient, and I would bet it would end up being the biggest seller. I finally found one that only consumes 383 kWh a year, not a huge improvement but it was the best I could find. And it’s as black as Johnny Cash’s shirt. My hope is that one day I’ll slap some solar panels on the roof and then I won’t feel so guilty about my desire for cold beer and ice cream.

The other problem that arises when buying a new fridge is what to do with the old one. Luckily, Austin Energy has a really cool program set up—they’re sending someone to my house to pick my old one up and they promise to dispose of it in an “environmentally-sound” manner and, oh yeah, they’re also giving me fifty bucks. In the end I’m happy with my decision. After four hours of research, I picked the most energy-efficient model I could afford. What more can a lowly consumer do?

Self-Sufficiency Meter: 29% (and dropping)