Living Like Ed

by Ed Begley, Jr.

  Many experts theorize that water is going to be our next crisis, because of global climate change. If there is less snow in mountainous regions, which most climatologists agree is going to happen, then a water shortage will come. There will be periods of rain, certainly, but right now we have a big savings account banked in all that snow. With global warming, we’ll have less snow in the future, so this “cash” in the form of rain will be passing by quickly. Instead of freezing and staying in a “snow bank,” it will wash right on by and we won’t be able to use it fast enough.

  Those same experts say there will be flooding and other problems, too, but the worst part is there will simply be a lot less water, and we won’t have this wonderful reserve. Nature has been doing it this way for years: Build up a stockpile and then release it when the snow melts from the Sierras and our other water storage banks. Year in, year out, you could pretty much count on it. But that cycle has been broken, many experts feel, and if they are correct, it will be very, very dicey for places like Southern California, where nearly all of our water comes from other areas. We get it from the Owens Valley, from the California Aqueduct, from the Colorado River. And if one leg of that stool gets shaved off, we’re going to teeter and eventually fall.

  Water comes at such high environmental cost for the fish, and for the people, too. In the Owens Valley lots of folks have respiratory problems and what have you. A bit of a dust bowl thing has occurred there. It’s been an on-going problem for many, many years because of the way they sold off their water rights so we could thrive here in Southern California. But the plant and animal species, as well as the human population, are paying dearly for this transaction.

  Water also requires a great deal of energy to move from place to place. One of the biggest energy bills for the infrastructure of the State of California is pumping water. Certainly it takes a great deal of energy to pump water into the California Aqueduct. Gravity does most of the work getting water through the William Mulholland project from the Owens Valley, I’m told, but once in the California Aqueduct, the water must be pumped over mountain ranges. The water that comes from the Colorado River also requires a tremendous amount of energy.

  Ways to Save Water

  How can you save water? There are so many ways. Some involve simply changing a habit. Others might involve changing a piece of equipment in your home. But none are really all that complicated, when you come right down to it.

  When I first moved in with Ed, he would come in and turn off the water when I was brushing my teeth. It never occurred to me that I was wasting water. I just liked the sound of water running while I was brushing my teeth; it seemed comforting.

  I thought everyone did it. Well, not in this house. I’ve learned about a million different ways to save water, and I’m getting much better at it. I know, because Ed shows me the water bill every month!

  Sometimes Rachelle will turn on the water in the bathroom and then go, “Oh, wait. I’ve gotta call Jennifer.” And then she’ll get on the phone and the water will be running and all I can see in my mind are fish flopping in the mud in Northern California.

  When you’re brushing your teeth—or doing anything—turn off that water if you’re not actually using it. That’s really important. It’s an easy habit to change and it definitely saves water. Fill the sink and use that water to rinse off your razor while you’re shaving, rather than leaving the water running. If you’re doing just a few dishes, put the stopper in the sink and fill it partway with soapy water, rather than letting the water run while you do the dishes or running the dishwasher with just a partial load inside.

  You also can purchase a flow restrictor for the tap, not to mention a low-flow showerhead to reduce water usage.

  Ed eventually started timing my showers. He’d come in and say, “You know, you’ve been in there for like ten, fifteen minutes!” I’m like, “How do you know?” And he was standing outside the bathroom timing me, telling me how many gallons of water I had used. I’ve cut back since then. Ed can tell you exactly how many gallons of water I’ve saved ever since!

  I do a navy shower. I get wet and then I turn off the water while I soap up. And then I rinse off. I use very little shower water.

  If you’ve ever been on shipboard when there’s a long cruise and a small vessel, you’re allotted a certain amount of water each day. You can drink it, you can shower with it, you can do whatever you want with it, but once you’ve used up your allotment, you’re done, because they have only a certain amount of fresh water on board.

  I try to go through every day as I if I were on board a boat, and not exceed my own personal allotment of water. Each of us has only a certain amount of fresh water. But I think there’s a certain amount of denial. People waste water all the time, doing all sorts of crazy things, like hosing off their sidewalks!

  I plan to teach my daughter, Hayden, about navy showers. But right now she’s not using very much water, either, since she takes a bath. When we fill her bathtub, that’s a fixed amount of water.

  There are plenty of other ways to save water around the house, particularly in the garden. Obviously, it’s smart to choose plants that don’t require more water than you normally get in your area. That means avoiding tropical plants if you live in the desert. You’ll also want to capture as much rainfall as you can, using a rain barrel or some other water-collection system. That way, you can use rainwater when you need additional irrigation for your plants, instead of turning on the hose or the sprinklers. (We’ll go into more detail about water-wise gardening in Chapter 5, “In the Garden and Kitchen.”)

  Take Care of Your Toilets

  Another way to save water around your home is to replace old toilets. In 1989 I replaced every toilet in the house with a low-flush toilet. Some older toilets use as much as 6 gallons of water per flush. The new low-flow toilets use just 1.6 gallons.

  In Los Angeles, city code mandates that every new toilet installed must be a low-flush model. That really makes a difference.

  And here’s another habit worth breaking: Don’t use your toilet as a wastebasket. Why would you waste water to dispose of something that can go into an actual wastebasket or go into the compost pile or into a recycling bin?

  You also can check pretty easily to see if your toilet has a leak. You just put a little food coloring or a special leak detector in the toilet tank. If that leak detector makes its way down from the tank into the toilet bowl and the water in the bowl turns that color, you know you’ve got a leak—and that means you’re wasting water.

  Nontoxic Paint

  I’ve been using nontoxic paint for years, since I first moved into this house. Whenever I bought paint, I sought out the least toxic stuff available. That was a challenge in the early ’90s, and even in the mid- to late ’90s, it was not that easy to find earth-friendly paints.

  Fortunately, it’s gotten a little bit easier. There’s a nice selection of stuff that won’t harm the environment and that also goes on smoothly and provides good coverage. In Southern California, paints are required by law to have a low level of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), but wherever you may be, you’ll want to buy nontoxic paint—or nontoxic anything—whenever it’s available for a project you’re doing. You can even find zero-VOC paints, if you try, as well as nontoxic paint strippers.

  It wasn’t a challenge just to find this stuff a few years ago. It was a challenge to live with it. The nontoxic paints chipped really easily. But now they’re making better and better paints, with a great choice of colors, and they’re longer lasting and more durable. And that’s a good thing, because my husband will never use anything else. Using nontoxic paints is important. If you’ve gone into anyplace newly painted and smelled the intense fumes—and I kind of like the smell—that stuff’s really toxic. Van Gogh and all those painters went crazy because of all the heavy metals and toxins in the paint. It’s like the expression “mad as a hatter,” which refers to all the chemicals used to shape the hats, which eventually caused neural dama
ge. That toxic stuff just makes you crazy. So thank goodness they’ve come up with some nontoxic paints that are good for the environment and good for your health and good for your home’s style, too.

  Traditional paint has got all kinds of nasty stuff in it: petrochemicals, solvents, mercury, formaldehyde, benzene, lead, cadmium, chromium, dibutyl, and diethyl phthalate. This frightening chemical cocktail then releases VOCs into the air.

  You might assume that VOCs are only a problem right after you paint, when you can actually smell that new-paint smell when you walk in a room. But it turns out paints and other finishes release low-level toxic emissions for several years. And it’s definitely not good to be breathing this stuff.

  I love having a clean house. In fact, I’d say that I’m a neat freak. My biggest pet peeve when it comes to the house is having paint on the walls that doesn’t look fresh and crisp. Walls get dingy and banged up really quickly, and I wish that we could paint them much more often than we do. These new nontoxic paints definitely make it easier for me to convince Ed that it’s okay to paint the walls again. It’s still a negotiation, but it’s less of a battle than it used to be.

  I do go into homes where I think, “Wow, the courage!” when I see the home owners’ color schemes, but I’ve gotten a little bolder about using color now, too. At one point, my walls were all Swiss Coffee, which is a designer’s fancy name for off-white. Now I’m using color as an accent, so my dining room is green, which I never would have tried before. You know, the inside of your house is an expression of your personality, so don’t play it too safe. Just consider the colors of your furniture and the artwork before you choose a bold color. If you want to showcase your art collection, keep the walls on the neutral side.

  I’m still very conservative about exterior colors. I like the basics, white and gray. Some of the stucco houses, which are common in California, can be a little bolder. But I sometimes drive through a beautiful neighborhood where I know people have paid a lot for their homes, and see that someone has painted their house bright canary yellow. So my advice is: Express yourself, sure, but try not to offend your neighbors.

  Air Purifiers

  Even if you use nontoxic paint and change your air filter regularly, the air quality inside your home could still be unhealthful.

  In part, this is because a normal household is filled with chemicals (cleaners, paints, and so on), not to mention dust mites and pet dander, pollen, cooking oils, common molds (including airborne bacteria), and even viruses. There’s a virtual army of pollutants assailing our lungs, sinuses, and personal health in our own homes.

  Also, the air inside your house might not get circulated all that well or that often. You can do wonders simply by airing out your home once in a while. Open the windows and get some cross-ventilation.

  Of course, nontoxic cleaning products and nontoxic paints can reduce the number of chemicals you release into the air in your home, and you’ll want to avoid things like hair spray and air fresheners.

  Once you’ve stopped introducing toxins into the air, you’re ready to take the next step and purify the air in your home. The purification process helps to eliminate both germs and toxic odors, improving the environment inside. I started using an electronic air purifier—a relatively small device from Advanced Pure Air that doesn’t require much energy—in both my home and Rachelle’s Pilates studio, which is over the garage. The air purifier has been great for improving our health and alleviating our allergies. I’ll let Richard Mayer from Real Spirit USA, the company behind Advanced Pure Air, explain how the device works (see “Ed’s Green Friend: Advanced Pure Air”).

  Turn Off Electronic Devices

  Looking for more low-hanging fruit? You can save energy just by flipping a switch and changing some bad habits.

  For instance, Rachelle doesn’t understand there’s this wonderful valve at the entrance to each room. It’s called a light switch. Every time you flip off that switch, you save a little energy.

  Rachelle will turn on a television in the living room and then she’ll come into the kitchen, make dinner, and eat dinner with the television still on in the other room. You can’t even hear the TV from the kitchen. So you can save a little more energy by turning off the TV when you leave the room.

  * * *

  Ed’s Green Friend: Advanced Pure Air

  I started a company called Real Spirit USA to bring environmental products into people’s homes to improve the quality of their lives. These Advanced Pure Air units are not just simple air filters. They are integrated, state-of-the-art air filtration and purification systems

  * * *

  Instead of relying on single, limited-filtration technology, these air purifiers feature as many as nine separate air filtration and purification technologies in a single, affordable unit. These technologies include:

  • HEPA filters. HEPA filtration, designed by NASA, is the best way to filter out solid and liquid airborne particles, including household dust, soot, pollen, and even some biological agents, like bacteria and germs. Studies indicate that HEPA filters are 99.97 percent effective at capturing harmful airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns (i.e., 300 times smaller than the width of a single human hair).

  • Activated charcoal or carbon. This type of filter removes smells and chemicals, such as benzenes, that foul the air in homes. Activated charcoal is also very effective on smoke.

  • UV light. UV light is highly effective in helping fight biological-based diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, and mold.

  • Photo-catalysis TiO2. This technology enhances the UV light and helps break down the DNA of bacteria, molds, and viruses.

  • Plasma grid. This high-voltage positive and negative charge causes the grid to attract dust, so air leaving the purifier is much cleaner than air coming in.

  • Negative ions. These are dispersed into the air, where they attach themselves to positive particles (dust), causing them to fall to the ground, where they’re picked up by the vacuum cleaner.

  • Activated oxygen. This is extremely good at ridding the air of odors, bacteria, and mold.

  By combining all of these technologies in our units, we are able to provide our customers with the healthiest, cleanest, most odor-free air possible for their homes, offices, automobiles, RVs, or even their pets’ environments.

  —Richard Mayer

  * * *

  Rachelle also regularly turns on her curling iron, then gets on the computer, then forgets about the curling iron. It turns off automatically after about 20 minutes. So then she’ll turn it on again . . . and go back to the computer. She’ll do two 20-minute cycles before she finally gets around to doing her hair. If I turn it off, she gets outraged—even though it gets up to full heat in 2 minutes. It doesn’t get hotter at the 3-minute mark. It’s as hot as it’s ever going to get at 120 seconds. So all you need to do is put it on for 2 minutes—let’s say a slap-happy 3 minutes—before you do your hair. Not 20 minutes, turns itself off, 20 minutes, turns itself off. There’s energy to be saved there, certainly.

  I’m picking on Rachelle, of course, but she’s like so many people who just haven’t focused on how their actions—simple little everyday actions—can make a real difference.

  Fortunately, I’ve found some cool companies that are making it easier to save energy with no thinking required. GreenSwitch is a great example. I’ll let Gregory Hood from Energy Innovation Group explain how it works.

  * * *

  Ed’s Green Friend: GreenSwitch

  The largest consumer of power in your home is your heating and air-conditioning system, which accounts for about 35 percent of the total energy used.

  * * *

  Household electronics items like TVs, stereos, phone chargers, and computers also draw power all the time; they’re designed to stay on while they’re plugged in, so you don’t have to wait for them to warm up when you’re ready to use them.

  In fact, home-electronics products like these currently consume 10 to 15 percent of
the energy used in a home—and the U.S. Department of Energy predicts this number may increase to 20 percent by 2010, due to new technologies.

  People who know this and want to save energy and save money at the same time—often run around the house before they leave, turning off lights and computers and unplugging things. This can be quite a hassle, especially in a multi-level home, where people often just give up and ignore stuff on the top or lower level.

  Now, there is a simple, low-cost solution for home energy management called GreenSwitch, which automates the process. With the flip of a single switch at the primary entrance/exit for your home, you can simultaneously turn off designated light switches and wall electrical outlets. Plus, GreenSwitch will set your heating and air-conditioning system to your desired temperature or turn off the system completely.

  When you return home, you flip on the GreenSwitch and your wall outlets and heating/cooling system are reenergized. (You’ll still have to walk through your home and turn on lights as you need them, since this allows you to continue the energy savings.)

  This technology is completely wireless, so it can be retrofitted easily to any home, apartment, or condo. You can even operate it via a remote control, if you happen to use more than one entrance to your home. We also offer a split receptacle, so some things plugged into a wall outlet can remain on, while others are turned off. This is great if you have your TV and video or DVD recording device plugged into the same electrical outlet, for example; this way, the recorder can stay on while the TV gets turned off.