Winding down

With retirement looming, my wife and I have begun cutting costs pretty much in any way possible. Electricity and water rates are continuously going up, so how to put the crimp on those bills?

We have explored solar hot water and photovoltaic systems, but our bills are not that high, and the investment returns may be too far out in the future for us. So we’ve decided to try small changes.

One change that helped reduce our electric bill substantially was to install a timer on our electric hot water heater. The timer is adjusted so that power is applied to the heater only for two hours before we get up in the morning and two hours before dinner. This arrangement gives us all the hot water two people can use, and the tank temperature is not being heated 24/7.

Installing the timer made a big difference, and proved worth the $50 investment. Please note that installing an electric hot water heater timer is dangerous and should only be performed by a qualified electrician.

Water may be a more urgent problem for us because we pretty much live outside all year, and prefer foliage to wasteland. Still we don’t have grass, unless you count the seasonal weeds when mowed, so our water use wasn’t that bad to start with but getting expensive!

We were able to reduce our water use cost by approximately 45 percent from 2013 by replacing our drip system hardware and adding timers. Over the years we had patched and replaced bits to the point that there were many leaks and emitters of unknown size. With the new hardware we are clear on how much water is being metered to each plant, and if they start to look stressed we can run the drip a little longer, or accept that the stressed plants will have to die.

Drought-tolerant plants like California pepper trees and wax flower bushes are taking over in our yard with some fruitless olive trees growing fast. We also removed our small fish pond and replaced it with a tiny fountain that our animals like to drink from. So far so good, at least until the next water hike forces us to make more adjustments.

In the last column I wrote about replacing a cable or satellite TV monthly bill with a broadcast antenna, and had several people contact me with plans to do the same. With everyone’s ideas at work, maybe we all can save money. No need to wait for retirement, however. Send me your ideas so we all can save a few bucks. dpatterson998@yahoo.com subject — Winding Down.