Three Gallon Drought Dish Washing

Drought Dish Washing at the Debi Cates Home

I enjoy washing dishes. Good thing, too, since I don't have a dishwasher. The machine, non-me kind anyway.

My little house was built probably in the late 40s or early 50s. There are lots of challenges for modern living in an older home, especially one just 800 square feet. I have a heck of a time finding furniture that's sized moderately enough not to look like a gorilla stuffed in a shoebox. And don't get me started on the stingy number of electrical outlets. Thank heaven for power strips because otherwise I'd be writing this blog on a manual typewriter. Then there's the time I tried to install a clothes washing machine in the back add-on room with its badly done peer and beam floor, a funny story for the scrapbook...

Where was I? Oh yes, hand dish washing. You won't find it surprising then that my house does not have a dishwasher installed. Here are five steps I've been perfecting to conserve both water and the energy to heat it, yet to get dishes as clean as humanly (this human) possible.

1. Fill each side of the sink with one gallon of hot water. You read right, just one drought-thrifty gallon per side. And I only do dishes once per day  depending on how much I cook but never more than once a day. The third gallon is to pre-rinse while waiting to wash (see hints below). Until this method becomes second nature to me -- it's not yet -- I've been using a pitcher to measure the water.

2. Do not put dish washing soap in the water. Instead I directly squirt my dish scrubber, the round green one in the photo. My daughter crochets these scrubbies out of tulle. They're my favorite, soft enough not to scratch cutlery and strong enough to scrub pots. Not putting a big squirt into the water, I'm using a lot less dish soap. A penny saved is a penny earned.

3. Wash the items that touch your mouth first.  I learned this rule from my mother, at the tender dish-washing age of six. That would be your glasses and silverware, the dishes you'd like the most clean, washed while the water is hottest and cleanest.

4. Scrub out of the water. By washing each dish in my hand, not in the sink, I can give it a dunk in the wash side which isn't made wildly soapy by directly washing there. Then ready for the crystal clear rinse in the left side. Doing this also reduces even further the amount of soap I use since my sudsed-up scrubber never goes in the water.

5. Continue washing from cleanest to dirtiest. Common sense, I know. The wash water will get inevitably dirty as you go along, but here are a few things that might help:

• Scrape: I use a rubber spatula to scrape plates and bowls, which to my delight gets them as clean as pre-wash possible. For pots and pans, Pampered Chef sells three nylon pan scrapers for $3. They work wonders and will outlast you. I've used the same one for over 15 years and it looks new. Also good for scraping off mooshed-in gunk on floors.
• Soak: Between washing, I keep a one gallon mixing bowl by the sink full of water. I pre-rinse dishes in it, or soak things I know will set hard as rock, like eggs and breakfast cereal. On days I'm not lazy, I will even pour that dirty water outside onto the compost bin which in my desert clime, always needs watering.
• Grease or Oil: I have a septic tank so am especially aware the bad effect grease has on drains and sewage systems. I haven't yet devised a good method for responsibly disposing of cooking oil since it is one of the things I don't compost. I try to use as little as possible, throwing away used oil in the trash. In any case, not having excess oil or grease on the dishes is helpful.
• Pink Cup: I have this one small pink plastic cup, an odd man out. Since I'm not using much water, and when the sink is full of dishes, it's sometimes hard to fully rinse. I use that cup to scoop and pour rinse water when there's not enough room to dunk. 

After years of washing dishes with a full, sudsy sink and after years of always rinsing under running hot water, it's a big step for me to perfect washing with less water, less expense, and hopefully less effort to boot.

What hand dish washing hints do you recommend? For those with dishwashers (the non-human kind), feel free to share your best green hints as well.

Quieting the Slurp

I'm beginning to think more and more of my energy consumption as slurping loudly at the trough of diminishing fossil fuel. You could say this photo is my straw: my electric meter.

Since I posted last month where I hinted about making changes, a terrible disaster struck. The BP oil spill is tragic and a reminder why this subject is important. The need for ever more risky oil drilling isn't something just Corporate America demands. My own wanton usage has demanded it, too.

Starting last month I began seriously monitoring my electric consumption. While I didn't do anything radical like replacing appliances with a lower energy-rated ones -- not yet -- you might say I myself become an energy-efficient model.

I spent the month doggedly turning off everything when not in use. I looked at every item with a fresh eye for reduction or reuse. But mostly I spent the spring days allowing myself to feel the experience of the season. I opened windows wide when it was cool and closed curtains tight when it was too warm. To combat the heat, ironically I also spent lots of time outdoors, like when I was a kid. Remember when even the hot days of summer never seemed too hot because you were too busy doing "stuff?" (One difference now, I apply lots of sunscreen first).

Those small things apparently worked.

April...	kWh Used
2010	267
2009	691

Holy cow! I reduced a whopping 424 kWh, down to almost a third of what I used last year. And this is the lowest usage I've had the last 30 months, going back as far as my provider keeps online records. I love the financial benefit, too. Based on my current rate of .122333 cents per kWh, I have an extra $52.30 in my pocket. Mine, all mine.

To be objective about the effectiveness of my actions, though, there is one other thing. I have to take into account the weather.

Heating and cooling are the biggest consumers of energy and in West Texas most of our annual energy goes toward cooling. This billing cycle happened to be mild, cooler, than last year's. I wondered how much of my savings was due to that cooperative weather and how much to my new diligence.

Meteorologists have devised something they call Heating Degree Days and Cooling Degree Days, HDD and CDD for short. Weirdly the calculation doesn't really report days. You can learn more about it by googling it. Basically it is a number that indicates variation in temperature, up or down, from 65F for any given day. I'm using it to put temperature into the mix.

Billing period...	HDD + CDD =
04/15/2010-05/12/2010	83+71=154
04/15/2009-05/13/2009	15+287=302

The difference is significant. With 287 CDDs last year, and only 71 this, it was much milder this year. And that makes my comparison not quite apples with apples. :(

How do I incorporate this difference to fairly compare? I know that I didn't turn on the A/C or heater this billing cycle so that tells me that the 267 kWh I used is pretty much my bottom line.

As for using the degree days data I gathered, well, I have no idea how to use them scientifically in this case!

I guess it's going to take the whole summer -- June, July, and August when my kWh consumption has historically risen, yikes, over 1,000 each month -- to get the big picture of how well I will haven taken the responsibility to reduce my fossil fuel consumption.

Let's hope it's going to be a summer to be remembered fondly. Mild would be nice. If not, I'm sure I'll be hotter than last year, but also less worried about large carbon footprints and high bills. Ask any kid, they'll know the kind of summer I'm talking about.

How about you? How are you feeling these days? Cool? Hot? Saddened, maybe angered by the 5,000 barrels of oil spewing into the Gulf daily? What cooling techniques or other reductions have you tried? What worked best? Anyone else willing to monitor their use with me during the long, hot summer of 2010?