Year: 2016

In October 2002, I bought a new 2003 VW Turbo S Beetle. 6-speed. Fast. Loved it.

In June 2009, we bought our lot where we now have our new home. The idea was to be able to walk more and be less car-dependent.

In June 2015, we moved into our new home. From day one, we decided we would see if we could live using only one car. The Beetle had 111,000 miles on it. Our thought was, if we could do this thing, we would sell one of our cars. We have been blessed to have two cars our entire married life.

I started riding my bike to work. Every day. We walked most everywhere on the weekends. I would start and drive the Beetle every once in a while just to keep it running. I bought a battery trickle charger for those weeks I would forget to start the car.

Now, one year later, and 130 miles more on the Beetle (yes, I only drove it 130 miles in a year), we put it on Craigslist and within four days it was sold. A little bittersweet, I must say, because I’ve had the Beetle almost 14 years. It’s been a good little car. It’s been a fun little car to drive.

But times change. Lifestyles shift. And we are in a new chapter of our lives.

Has this last year using only one car been easy? Actually, yes it has. I’ve enjoyed biking to work. I biked a lot prior, but now it’s even easier and more direct. We have enjoyed walking more. The bus, when needed, is actually quite easy and convenient most of the time. I still have my Car2Go app for when we take Amtrak to PDX or SEA. We’re still hoping they come back to Eugene someday.

And I just downloaded the Oregon Taxi app today. Just in case.

Bye bye Beetle.

 

 

One year ago today, we moved into our new home. It has been an amazing year!

We have not only met virtually all of our neighbors, we’ve become good friends. We’ve gone to plays, concerts and had dinner together. We had a Memorial Day Potluck that was a blast with 22 friends from the ‘hood.

Brenda and I have loved living downtown. We walk most places, so much so that the VW Beetle we own will be for sale soon; no need for two cars anymore.

The house is performing impeccably well. Energy use is so low, we actually are a “net producer” both for the house and the cottage. As of today, the cottage has generated 867 kWh more electricity than it has used and our house has generated 1,073 kWh more than we’ve used. So not only have we achieved net zero, we’ve exceeded it.

And as you may have noticed from my Facebook posts, our garden is going nuts. This is the first house we’ve had where we have enough sun for a garden. I don’t post food pictures, but last night we had sautéed crookneck, zucchini, green onion and basil pesto, virtually all from our garden.

Lovin’ it downtown!

 

[UPDATED 29 April 2016] I haven’t posted for a while. We’ve been enjoying the neighborhood and our neighbors and settling in. But we’ve had a couple of pieces of “news” that I wanted to update you all on.

First, our LEED certification is OFFICIALLY complete (finally). Looks like the main house needed 86 points to achieve Platinum (the highest rating) and we scored right at 101 points. The Cottage needed 80 points and ended up right at 98. Woo hoo! [Also, our HERS ratings are 9 and 18 respectively; find out what that means at HERS]

And add to that, we’ve been through the winter and now are generating more solar electric. As of yesterday, we have received to date from EWEB 4,361 kWh since we’ve moved in and have delivered 4,663 kWh, about 300 kWh more than we’ve used. The Cottage is at 2,254 kWh and 2,558 kWh respectively.

That means both houses are currently running at net zero. Pretty exciting.

I’ll post more updates along the way, but we’re having family over and getting ready to bbq.

Later.