No air conditioning in Florida?

We did it! We managed to go an entire year in Florida without any air conditioning! It was one of the tougher things we have ever taken on, and I'm not sure if I would do it again...

The good news is that we were able to save over $1000 in electricity bills, when comparing our bills to the average in prior years (Feb-Oct which are the primary months for A/C usage):

 How did we do it?

1) Determination - We both agreed and committed to doing it before the summer started, and we had to rely on each other when it got really hot outside, and we were sweating in the middle of the night. Florida had an especially hot and long summer in 2009, which made it even tougher. It takes a special woman to even consider this idea, let alone agree to try it.

2) Use natural cooling - Everyday we opened up the garage door and all windows, and allowed the wind to provide most of the cooling by allowing the wind to blow through the house without obstruction. We also kept the shades down, to keep the inside from getting too warm.

3) Cold showers - Whenever it got too warm, we'd jump into the showers for a quick cool down. If you don't heat up the water, it's really cold, and the shock to the system was enough to get us by for a few more hours.

This summer, we don't plan to go completely without air conditioning, but we know we can greatly minimize its use by using the techniques above. We'll be in Iowa, so the heat won't be around as long as it is in Florida.

Could we do the same thing in Iowa in the winter and go without heat? Not a chance. I think we would need a fireplace to even consider that option.

This was really rewarding, and I felt like we really made a difference. Most of our friends thought we were crazy or thought it was physically impossible, so that made it even better when it was all over.

Old shower tiles

I decided I needed to update my bathroom, if I wanted to even have a chance of selling my home. I have a shower/bath combo (standard in most homes), but I needed to update it. After talking to my handyman friend, we decided to rip out the bathtub and put a walk-in shower.

Two green decisions: What to do with the old bathtub and tiles? What to buy for the new tiles?

For the bathtub, I had no idea where to turn to get it "recycled" or reused somehow. I wish I knew who to ask, because I ended up setting it on the curb to be hauled away. I wanted to bury it in the yard and make a fish pond out of it, but I knew I would never have the time to complete that task. Strike one!

The tiles that were removed were saved into a box (my request). I spend a couple hours cleaning and sorting through the mess of drywall and paper backing to figure out how many tiles I had remaining. I wanted to give them away to someone, but we didn't have a ReStore type of place nearby that I could drop them off.
(Update: Later I realized we did in fact have a ReStore, I just never knew about it!)

I decided to go on craigslist and see if anyone was interested. Luckily, I had a taker, and I was able to give her some free tiles to redo her bathroom, and I was able to ease my conscience about the bathtub. Going green is definitely a process, something that takes diligence and patience. It would have been easy to just throw the tiles away and avoided a few hours of labor, but I'm glad I did it.

Finally, I had to find new tiles. I didn't have a lot of time to find what I wanted, and didn't have the money to get exactly what I wanted. The prices I was getting for tiles made out of recycled material ranged from $5-12 per square foot. This was quite the increase over the $1.50/sq ft price that I could get from Lowes. (Again, if I had known about the ReStore, I could have saved some serious money, and avoided another green mistake). I unfortunately chose the new tiles from Lowes.

Overall, one positive (the tiles) and two negatives (bathtub and new tiles). Not feeling real good about it. Lost this battle, but determined to win the war...