After reading this post, don’t forget to enter our contest – you could win a new dishwasher. Plus, do you have your own story to tell? Send it to greenchallenge@canadianliving.com (no more than 300 words, please), and you could win one of 30 daily prizes.
Today’s winner is Jackie Brown of Harcourt, NB.
No, the subject line is not a typo! Our story began six years ago when we purchased our current home. It was a humble hunting/fishing camp situated on a lovely river and consisted of six acres of wooded land. It was also without electricity, water, sewer… all the “creature comforts” we had come to expect living in the city! The first two years were spent searching for “whats.” We decided to go with solar electricity when the cost of running grid power was to exceed our budget by thousands of dollars. So we set off to purchase components for our system…little did we know that we were way ahead of our time in “going green”! Almost everywhere we went for information or purchase of panels, batteries, controllers, fuses resulted in the comment “you want a what??” Same comment when we wanted to purchase a water pump without a surge on starting, same comment when we asked about an on-demand hot water heater, etc., etc., etc. We had done our homework and persevered, educating a few retailers in the process! Six years later we still have our “green” home which is now connected to the grid, although we still use primarily solar electricity. Due to our “green” shopping initially, our highest monthly usage of grid power has been 137kwh in a month. So the moral of this story is that the “whats” paid off in “watts”!
Thanks to Jackie for sending in her story – and don’t forget, if you still haven’t entered, there’s still time to send your own story to greenchallenge@canadianliving.com.
Jackie wins a copy of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, courtesy of HarperCollins, and a Clear2O Home Water Filtration System.
Today’s code word: what
Read more:
• Make your reno eco-friendly
• Eco-friendly lawn and garden ideas
• 10 ways to conserve water in your home
