In the News - France Leads the Way by Introducing a "Repairability" Index

Have you noticed in the last few years (decades?) how it's gotten cheaper to buy a new [fill in the blank] rather than repair the old one? Whether it's a fridge, freezer, computer, lamp or bread-maker, somehow repairing these items has gotten ridiculously expensive, while the cost of a new one has gotten relatively cheap. There's something wrong with this picture.

I know that manufacturers have been building things under the motto of "planned obsolescence" for years now. The idea being, manufacture something so that it will only last a few years and the consumer (that's us) will have to buy a new one. Gone are the days when you buy a washing machine and expect to keep it for 25 years. Now, we're lucky if they last 10 years.

Part of this is also the "latest" fad. We need the "latest" iPhone or iPad or smartphone or purse or whatever. And where do the old ones go? The broken and worn out devices that are only a few years old? Well, hopefully they get recycled but... that's not always the case. Apparently a LOT of dead devices are sitting in people's cupboards, not being recycled. Some even end up in the garbage where they leach toxic waste.

Broken smartphone screen
"Droid Eris meets pavement" by robertnelson is licensed under CC BY 2.0

It's not an ideal scenario. Can you imagine if we changed cars as quickly as we changed our smartphones? Oh... wait... I think some people do that! But what if you always had to take your car to the dealership to get it repaired? What if independent mechanics couldn't access the user manuals and specs on your car's electronic systems? You'd be paying through the nose for dealership repairs. Sounds ridiculous but up until a few years ago in the USA, that was exactly what was happening. If your car broke down, you'd have to have it towed to the dealership. Their "proprietary" repair manuals and specs were not available to independent mechanics. You, as the car owner, did not enjoy the "Right to Repair". Crazy, yes?

Well... the exact same thing happens today with smartphones and other electronic devices. Oh sure, people can figure it out and there are all sorts of people and businesses that will repair smartphones but... did you ever notice the most appliances have a little phrase on the back/bottom? Something along the lines of "Attempts to open this appliance/case will void the warranty". Imagine if that is written on the undercarriage of your car motor? "Sorry... this car is not repairable... go and buy a new one."

The manufacturers don't make it easy for anyone else to repair their devices. In fact, repairability is not something that dovetails nicely with planned obsolescence. After all, why would you make something easily repairable if your ultimate goal is to have the device break down so that the consumer will buy a new device? The thing is... our current level of consumption is not sustainable. If the entire world consumed items at the same rate that we do in Canada and the USA... we'd need to find five more Earths. Not going to happen. We need to conserve what we have and use it very wisely.

Even something as simple as replacing the battery in a smartphone or a laptop can be a challenge. I remember our first smartphones (Samsung Galaxy S2) ... you could easily remove the back and access the battery and SIM card. Same with my old laptop... just pop out the batter housing and pop in a new one. Not anymore. Our new (1 year old) Samsung Galaxy S10s do not have a removable back. Same with my HP laptop. If the battery starts failing... well, then, it's time to replace the entire laptop and/or phone. There's a website, IFIXIT, that scores the repairability of smartphones... Here's what it has to say about the S10

-   battery replacement is possible but still unnecessarily difficult
-   glued-down glass both front and back means greater risk of breakage and makes repairs difficult to start
+   a single Phillips driver takes care of all the screws

Repairability index of a Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphone

That's just crazy... but that's a lack of repairability for you. The S10 scores only a "3" on the list (out of a possible 10). Does any smartphone score a 10?? Well, our old S2 scored an "8"... hmph. The S5 (which we also had) scored a "5"... And then the S7 scored a "3". See the pattern? Older phones are more repairable than the new ones. Sigh. But... there is hope... enter the FairPhone 3 which scores a solid "10" on the scale of repairability. The Shift 6m (German company) scores a "9". All of the other newer phones (since 2019) score a "6" or lower. The thing is... buying a new smartphone is NOT a cheap endeavour! They usually cost well over $1000 CAN and that is a hefty chunk of change.

This is why repairability is about to explode onto the global market. France is first out of the starting gate by introducing an index of "repairability" for things like washing machines, lawnmowers, televisions and smartphones. The ultimate goal is to reduce the amount of waste and keep appliances and devices in circulation for longer. Nearly two-thirds of Europeans would rather repair their products than buy new ones... savvy people.

France's repairability index (scale of 1 to 10)

And... in November 2020, the European Parliament followed suite and voted to support consumers' Right to Repair.

The resolution was adopted with 395 in favour and just 94 against, with 207 abstentions.

“By adopting this report, the European Parliament sent a clear message: harmonised mandatory labelling indicating durability and tackling premature obsolescence at EU level are the way forward,” said Rapporteur David Cormand, MEP from France.

Apparently, more and more US states are proposing Right to Repair legislation in their jurisdictions as well. Which is good news!

There are, however, a few potential hiccups with the French system... manufacturers are the ones who grade their devices/appliances on how repairable they are. Hmmm... still, it's a start and time will tell how that works as people engage with the devices and decide if the repairability index is accurate!

Repair Café from Wikipedia

You're likely heard of repair cafés popping up all around the world. The idea is that volunteers come and help people repair their broken [fill in the blank]. I just had a look at the link above and there's even a repair cafe in Nanaimo! (Although, I'm not sure how much it's doing during the pandemic!)

The truth is... some appliances have gotten so complicated (I'm looking at you Smart TV) that it's no longer an easy thing to just replace a tube or a transistor (or whatever). Repairing a Smart TV can be a daunting prospect.

On the other hand... we have also lost a lot of the repair no-how for simple things like a hole in a sock. My Mom used to darn our socks (remember that!?) but I don't think I'd be able to do it. Not only do I not have a darning block/egg, but our entire sewing kit fits in a cookie tin. There's no big supply of yarn or thread. We can still sew buttons back on... but that's about it! So... in some cases, the tendency to not repair isn't due to a lack of repairability... just a lack of ability!

I'm hopeful that this repairability thing will take off... we can do our own part. By not buying the latest whats-it... but taking our broken whats-it to a repair cafe. By asking manufacturers about the repairability of their devices/appliances. It can be hard. Not to be driving the latest flashy SUV. Ours is just a few months shy of it's 25th birthday... imagine that... driving the same vehicle for 25 years. Radical thought.

P.S. Another news article came out which indicates that the repairability legislation is spreading across Europe! Excellent news.

The Shear Terror of Stepping out of my Comfort Zone

Taking the leap
(Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay)

I'm really comfortable with Blogger/Blogspot, Google's free blogging platform... the very site that this blog is hosted upon. I started using it over 10 years ago and have written a number of blogs on it. It's comfortable. It's familiar. It's safe. It's also limiting. There is only so much you can do with Blogger...

I've looked at other options in the past... Weebly, Wix, WordPress (both .com and .org)... but I always came back to Blogger. It's safe you know. And free. There's no risk with Blogger. I just write and post... but, for one of my blogs, I've been realizing that I need more space and more options.

After much research (which can be a form of procrastination), I've taken the leap and started the process of migrating 9 years worth of blog posts to WordPress.org site. And it is absolutely terrifying! On top of that, I am wracked by self-doubt. Am I making the right decision? There is sooooo much new stuff... you would not believe the learning curve. Am I smart enough to figure all of this out? Finding a hosting site, picking a theme, getting a security plugin and a backup plugin and an anti-spam plugin and an SEO plugin and... there are literally thousands of available plugins. There is a part of me that just wants to call the whole thing off and retreat back to my happy, safe little nest in Blogger. Yes, it might be limited... but it's safe... and easy.

It's kind of like going from a Model-T Ford to a Tesla or a Ferrari. Waaayyy more bells and whistles. And tonnes more power under the hood! But all of those buttons and levers and switches and options... do I have the time to figure all of this out? I want to write... not try and figure out the best plugins for my site... or worry about being hacked or figure out how to use Gutenberg blocks... 

The difference between my comfort zone
and where the magic happens!

Have you ever seen this picture... Two circles... one with "My Comfort Zone" and one with "Where the Magic Happens. The trick is to get from one to the other and that means stepping out of my comfort zone. Which... as the arrow suggests... isn't necessarily a straight line. Call it terror... call it excitement... but there's a lot of emotion bundled up in there.

And I know that I'm not the only person this has ever happened to. If you Google "comfort zone", you'll find a gazillion websites and articles that talk about moving out of your comfort zone. As I read them, I'm pretty clear that I've built myself a nest of comfort. And I'm also clear that it is time to leap out of that nest. I can only do so much from my tests... and there is so much more to do "out there". So much more to be... But when you're standing on the edge of that nest... man... it's a long way down!

Moving from the Comfort Zone through the Fear Zone
into the Learning Zone and the Growth Zone

And yet, I know that it's the only  way forward...  Move through the Fear Zone... into the Learning Zone and then into the Growth Zone. Until... what was learning and growth becomes my new Comfort Zone. And the cycle repeats itself.

I can see that I'm in the Fear Zone... but working my way into the Learning Zone. I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos on WordPress... reading a lot of blog articles and test driving the new website/blog and tinkering with things. There have been challenges... but I think I'm slowly finding solutions for them.

I can see that it might be a while before I feel comfortable with the new system. But the same thing happened 10 years ago when I first started on Blogger. It was all new and unfamiliar and it took me a while to get a handle on things. And now, I can help other people get set up on Blogger... who'd-a-thunk-it 10 years ago? Not me!

So there is some comfort in knowing that I have been in the place of fear and terror before... and moved through it. And... I keep reminding myself to tackle one small step at a time. I don't need to become a WordPress virtuoso in a week or a month. All I need to be able to do is write and publish my blogs. The finer details can come later... It doesn't need to be a perfect looking site right out of the box... small steps... I keep reminding myself of that... just one small, next step...

Busted! Illegal Backcountry Trash Dumpers caught on Video

Have you ever dumped anything out in the bush? Or in a ditch along the side of the road? Or maybe in an empty lot?

No??

Maybe it was just some grass clippings or leaves or some sod?

Or maybe it was more than that...

Illegal dumping (or fly tipping in the UK) is on the rise in many countries. It can include anything from grass clippings to cars to appliances to pallets to construction waste to medical waste. It is a huge environmental problem. Apart from leaching toxins into the soil (asbestos, chemicals, bio-hazards) illegal dumping can also spread noxious and invasive weeds.

Yard waste dumped in an empty lot might not just be "grass" clippings but might include invasive species that threaten the native ecosystem. Over here... that includes things like

• English Ivy
• Himalayan Blackberry
• English Hawthorn
• Japanese Knotweed - Polygonum cuspidatum
• Policeman's Helmet or Himalayan Balsam - Impatiens glandulifera
• Scotch Broom
• Butterfly Bush
• English Holly
  
• Morning Glory
  
• Spurge Laurel - Daphne laureola
  
• Gorse
  

Such plants should never be included within your compost bin either but should be double bagged and sent to the landfill where they can be buried forever...

Illegal dumping also costs taxpayers (that's you and me) millions of dollars every year. It's not a cheap thing to bring in a crane and trucks to haul away derelict cars, tires, machinery, appliances and other crap.

Caught Red-Handed

Some municipalities and regional districts, rather than just cleaning up after someone's made a mess, are getting proactive and installing motion-activated trail cameras at some of the most popular illegal dumping sites. Busted!!

 

And it's not just hidden cameras that can track down illegal dumpers. One farm owner in New Brunswick found 30 to 40 garbage bags worth of garbage strewn in the ditch in front of his family farm. While cleaning it up, he found a Nike box with a shipping label receipt inside that gave him the name and address of the perpetrator. The farmer drove to the address, confronted the perpetrator, who eventually admitted his guilt and told the perpetrator to unload the garbage onto his front lawn.

Some irate land owners haven't been so polite... they have just driven to the address found within the pile of garbage and dumped it on someone's front lawn (presumably that of the perpetrator). That can of course backfire as the land owner is simply doing the same as the perpetrator... illegal dumping. 

Some upset property owners, when they find identifiable information in a pile of garbage, call out the perpetrator online via social media. But that can lead to other problems... sometimes legal... so is not ideal. But what can irate land owners to do? Apparently, not much. Unless you have photos and videos... a simple visual description and license plate number won't stand up in court.

Of course there are the rare times where a person will be caught live on a dashcam, in the very act of dumping stuff out in the bush. I always wonder... what happened after the camera shut off? Did the perpetrator obediently take his stuff to a legal dump? Or did he just find another, less patrolled spot?

Other Forms of Illegal Dumping

As noted above, illegal dumping also includes dumping yard waste in natural areas (yes, even Christmas trees). But it also includes such seemingly innocuous things such as dumping household waste in a public garbage can or dumpster (even your dumpster at work). My Dad would do this for some odd reason. He would take a bag of his garbage along to Walmart and dump in the garbage can our front. I tend to think it was mostly empty cookie packages that he was trying to hide from us!

And... putting an item out at the curb and placing a "Free" sign on it can be problematic as well. Inevitably, the old couch (or whatever) is not taken and then it rains and the item is essentially abandoned at the curb... yep, that's illegal dumping.

Why Do People Dump?

That's always the burning question. Why do people dump things in the ditch or in the bush?

Apparently "convenience" is a big driver, although that doesn't always make sense. Some of the remote bush dump sites are a longer drive than the regional landfill. Sometimes people don't want to have to deal with the hassle of sorting their waste. Easier to just toss it all in the truck and dump it somewhere.

Cost is often cited as an issue since some waste actually costs money to dispose of at the landfill (harmful construction waste - e.g. drywall with asbestos). Even yard waste can cost money - usually $/pound. On the other hand, many items can be dropped off for free at our local recycling depot - anything made out of metal... any appliances... any propane tanks or canisters... paint cans (with legible labels). And the list goes on. 

Ignorance seems to be a driving motivator for illegal dumping. People don't know the environmental dangers of what they are dumping... or they just don't care. And they aren't aware of the numerous legal means for getting rid of unwanted items.

Beware of the Two Guys and a Truck Scheme

And finally... a word of warning. After my Dad passed away, we needed to get rid of his old (1960s?) mattress and box spring. We didn't have a pick-up truck capable of hauling it off to the dump. So we looked on Kijiji and found two guys with a truck who would come and haul it away for us. Only $40! Seemed like a good deal. They came and loaded up. We paid them cash and they left.

But... did they really take it to the dump? Did they really pay the dump fee. The average cost to dispose of a box spring and mattress in our regional district is... $15 each. That's $30 in dump fees. Yeah. I'm going to guess that Dad's old mattress is mouldering away in some illegal dump site in the bush.

Live and learn. Beware of any "cheap" offers by a couple of guys with a truck who offer to haul garbage away for you. There is no guarantee that your garbage is going to end up in the dump.

Happily... things have progressed in the last few years to the point where many landfills are now diverting mattresses to be recycled rather than buried in a landfill!

On a final note... even legitimate companies can run into trouble with illegal dumping, often because their employees are too lazy or uninformed to adhere to company policy. In Chicago, one truck from the Two Men and a Truck Moving Company were actually caught dumping furniture in an alley. The two guys were fired and the company had to come and haul the furniture away.

Other Resources

CBC - Illegal garbage dumpers in the Okanagan

CBC - Hidden cameras

Langley Township - Other Forms of  Illegal Dumping

CBC - Dumping off a 30 metre Cliff in Parksville Continue

Recycling Council of BC - Report on Illegal Dumping (opens as a pdf)

What happened during our Two Week TV Detox

How's your television viewing? If you're like most people, your consumption of television (including streaming options!) has probably gone waaaay up during the pandemic. Same happened for us, particularly this past winter.

We'd congregate in the living room around 4 pm and turn on the television and find some innocuous and mildly interesting reno show on HGTV or DIY to stare at. We'd have something to eat around 5:30, sitting on the couch in front of the television. And the boob tube would stay on all evening until around 8:30 pm when we would finally heed the not-so-subtle messages from the cat that it was "bedtime"!

But we noticed something strange. Most evenings, neither one of us would actually be watching television. We'd be sitting on the couch, maybe scrolling through our phones and the television would just be background noise.

On top of that... our sleep was quite disrupted. In case you missed the memo, blue light (from television and all electronic screens) seriously messes with melatonin production which throws off our circadian rhythm. Melatonin production (which gets your body ready for sleep) normally goes up in the evenings as it gets dark but... blue light basically tells your eyes (and your body) that it's daytime and to wake up! Not a good mix.

Remote control
(Image by Renate Köppel from Pixabay)

Soo... 10 days ago we agreed to kill the television viewing for a two week experiment. We also agreed to turn off our devices (smartphones) at 7 pm. Kind of a drastic step, but it was only for two weeks... we could handle that!

We started our television detox on a Monday and... it was hard! Sitting on the couch was like a trigger to pick up the remote and turn on the television. But we talked about it instead.

We also decided that we would play some real games (not digital games) in the evenings. We brought our little stash of games out of deep storage and put them in a cabinet in the living room for easy access. We don't have a huge stash but... what we do have has been working so far. We've been learning/relearning SkipBo and UNO. I had played the games before but they were new to my partner... who promptly beat the socks off of me multiple times! It's been quite fun (even the losing part) and we still have other options like Yahtzee, Cribbage and 10,000 (dice game).

I have to  admit, having not played UNO for years, I went online and downloaded the UNO app. I played it for a few days, just to refresh my memory and then deleted the app and brought  my learning into the real world. We still aren't great at calling out "UNO!" as we lay down the second to last card... but then the other person isn't great at catching the omission either!

I also downloaded the Phase 10 game app and played that for a few days to get a feel for the game. A cousin of mine from Europe had brought us the game as a present seven years ago but... we were not a game-playing household at the time and so I donated the game to a thrift store during one of my decluttering sprees. Sigh... But I think I'm going to buy a copy from Walmart (less than $7) and see how that goes. It looks a bit more challenging than SkipBo and UNO which is good.

Phase 10 card game (from Wikipedia)

Sooo... game playing has replaced TV watching for at least part of our evenings, which is a good thing. We are engaging with each other and laughing together. Lamenting repeatedly about "these cards aren't mixed!" and "who mixed these cards?" (that would be me...).

I've also taken to doing puzzles some evenings. It's a nice relaxing activity that calms my mind and spirit. We also journal, read books or sometimes call friends and family. That doesn't  always work well though because we are then interrupting their television-watching time!

I thought that when the weekend rolled round, we might be more tempted to watch a movie or something specific off of Netflix but... we managed to make it through unscathed. That's a good sign!

The thing I've noticed though is... if I don't choose something specific to do in the evenings, I default to just scrolling through my smartphone (before 7 pm)... maybe playing the Phase 10 app (I've already got the hang of it, so this is now just pure indulgence), checking the news, blinking through Facebook or... whatever. This is not a great alternative to television... and I know this. All I'm doing, if I'm not careful, is forming another evening habit and replacing one screen with another. Better to nip that in the bud...

As the weather warms up, we'll be able to do some outdoor activities in the evenings which will give us a wider range of options. I'm hoping that the siren call of the television will slowly wane... Who knows, once this two week experiment is over, we might renew it for another two weeks...

Is a Heat Pump Worth it?

Fujitsu Heat Pump

Does your electricity company have Power Smart challenges? The idea is that you sign up and if you reduce your electricity consumption by 10% over the next year, you get $50! We've done it a few years running. The first year, we made our goal! Yay! But then... the next few years it all fell apart. We started running our basement suite as an AirBnb and the extra laundry loads (4 or 5 per booking) sent our electricity usage through the roof. On top of that... we got into the habit of using the dryer for our own laundry instead of hanging it out on the line or on racks upstairs. Double whammy of high electricity usage.

But... on January 6, 2021, we started a new challenge and this time we have an ace in the hole. A heat pump.

What is a Heat Pump?

For those of you in far chillier climes than West Coast BC... the heat pump is a device that sits outside the home and extracts heat (or cold) from ambient air temperature. It then funnels the heat (or cool) into your house via a centrally located wall unit. You can get heat pumps that are good down to -30 Celsius (!). The one we chose is good down to -17 Celsius, which is perfect for our West Coast climate as we rarely get down to -10 Celsius.

The heat pump is supposed to save big time on electricity costs, using only a third of the electricity that traditional baseboard heater use. They are particularly good if you still have an oil furnace since oil heating costs $$$$ during the winter months. We have/had electric baseboard heating and the thought of saving $$$ on our electric bill was enticing.

Worth it?

We did a cost/benefit analysis and figured that it was worth. We bit the bullet and got quotes from Lennox (via Costco) and Fujitsu (via Coastal Energy) and decided to go with a Fujitsu mini-split ductless heat pump. The unit was installed in mid-November 2020 with one outside unit and two interior units, one upstairs (for us) and one downstairs (for the AirBnb).

We paid $9400 for the whole system which comes with a 12 year warranty. We also applied for a rebate from the provincial government (via BC Hydro) for $1000. We had excellent timing, because shortly before we were to have our heat pump installed, the BC Government doubled the rebates! So we ended up walking away with $2000 in our pockets which pushed the actual cost of the unit down to $7400.

In case you're thinking of buying a heat pump at a big box store, that is always an option. But in order to qualify for the provincial rebate, it needs to be professionally installed. The Fujitsu guys were grumbling about having to install some cheapo heat pump on one of islands and basically told the homeowner not to call them for maintenance issues! Forewarned...

We did have a hiccup with one of our remotes for the upstairs unit. The remote would tell the unit to increase the temperature just fine but when we turned the remote down one degree, the unit would not come back on to maintain the temperature after it had gone down that one degree. The temperature in the room just kept going down! But, the guys came and replaced both remote controls and, since then, everything has been working tickety-boo.

Helpful Heat Pump Tips

There are, however, some things to know about heat pumps. When we first got it, we thought we would do what we've always done with gas furnaces or electric baseboards. Program it to go down a few degrees at night and then have it come back on in the morning.

That was an epic fail. The entire unit was shut off when we got up that morning!

While the remotes are good for basic tasks, the programming features leave a lot to be desired. Mind you, this was the goofy remote that got replaced, so that could have been part of the problem.

When the service guy came to replace the remotes he told us that heat pumps are very different beasts from other sources of heating. A heat pump can basically raise the interior temperature 1 degree an hour. So, if we turn the unit down to 17 Celsius in the evening and want the place to be at 20 Celsius during the day, it will take 3 hours to get back up there. Basically, we'd need to program the heat pump to come back on at 2 am, for me getting up at 5 am. That sounded a bit silly. We could splurge and get a wifi system installed with the heat pump so that we could use our smart phones to program the heat pump but... we'll pass on that. The tech recommended a Set It and Forget It approach. We received an email from BC Hydro a few weeks ago which gave exactly the same advice. Ignore the remote's temperature reading and set the room for your comfort with a Set It and Forget It attitude.

Ignore the temperature setting on the remote (it doesn't have a thermostat in it) and use another thermostat to monitor room temperature. We are just using our programmable baseboard thermostats which are still connected (albeit set for 11 Celsius) to get an idea of room temperature. We are aiming for 20 Celsius in the living room and once we have that temperature... we just walk away and leave the unit to do its thing.

This all works quite well for the living areas (the interior unit is in the living room) but... we like to sleep in a cool bedroom. We've learned that while we can leave the other bedroooms open to receive heat circulation, we should keep our bedroom door closed during the day (at least during the winter). The temperature in the room (depending on the outside air temp) goes down to 13 or 14 Celsius during the day which is a nice sleeping temperature. We also tend to open the window a bit at night, just to keep the temperature nice and cool during the night.

This would all work quite well except... the cat wants to come into the bedroom at night... which means we need to leave the door open a cat-width. This has two side-effects: (a) the bedroom gets warmer as the heat pump works away all night and pumps warm air into it and (b) the rest of the house gets cooler as the cold air flows out of the bedroom. We've considered a few options: (a) close the bedroom door to keep the cat out (unlikely) or (b) get a cat door to put into the bedroom door which would leave a much smaller opening through which cold/warm air would move. We're still working out these details.

I've learned that when the outside temperature goes below 0 Celsius, it's best to not open the bedroom window at all! It's a learning curve to be sure.

Electricity Savings

Sooo... where does that leave us with our electric bill? Well... December/January/February are traditionally our coldest months and... we are down 34% in our electricity usage! That is very good news indeed! Our equal payment plan is $190/month and they are already dropping that down to $175 since we are still running a surplus in our payment plan (which renews in early July). I'm going to guess that we'll get a nice refund in July and that our monthly payment will drop to around the $150 mark... or more... fingers crossed!

But... here's the thing. We definitely have not dropped our electric bill by two thirds, mostly because we use electricity elsewhere.

If we look at a typical summer month when we use zero baseboard heaters, we average 700 kwh/month. If we then subtract that baseline off of our winter months... We are left with about 1700 kwh/month being devoted to heating during our worst winter months before the heat pump. And... after the heat pump, we are looking at 800 kwh/month, which is more than 50% savings on our regular heating costs. So... that is nothing to sniff at but it's not a 2/3 saving on our heating costs (66%). Still, we are in early days/weeks/months yet and it remains to be seen how the unit affects our electric bill during the summer when we might want to avail ourselves of its air-conditioning potential! We'll have to keep tracking this...

Our monthly electricity usage from 2017 to 2021. We've only had 3 full months of
heat pump usage but you can already see it's making a difference (green line)

Advice

Sooo... a word of advice. If you're doing a cost/benefit analysis... make sure you subtract off your summertime baseline electricity usage off of your other months. This is for things like fridges, water heaters, dryers, lights, computers, etc. That will give you a more accurate idea of how much electricity goes towards heating. From there, you can do some number crunching and see if saving 50% of your heating bill will generate the savings that you are anticipating by switching to a heat pump. My initial calculations hadn't accounted for our other electricity usage remaining the same which means that a 50% savings on electricity for heat is NOT the same as 50% savings on the entire electricity bill. I had thought that the heat pump would have paid for itself (through less electricity usage) in 7 years but right now, it's looking like 12 years. That all depends on electricity rates of course... if rates continue to go up, then our savings increase.

I'm pretty sure oil heating will see a huge savings! And... BC offers a $4000 rebate for those switching from oil to heat pumps... and that's double right now (Feb 2021).

How I Finally Figured out how to Drink more Water

I am not the most evolved being when it comes to drinking enough water.

I continually forget to take my water bottle along. And when I do take it along, I often misplace it or leave it in the car.

 To be honest, I just forget to drink water! And I then suffer from the resulting lethargy and headaches... wondering why I'm so exhausted!

Except in the summer... when I'm working in the garden... then I can drink water like a fish (I know... fish don't drink water... but you get the point).

This is a rather hypocritical state for me to be in. When my Dad was struggling with dementia, I had signs posted all around his suite, urging him to drink more water. We had full glasses of water sitting on the counter and his dining table and his side table. None of it made any difference. He was chronically dehydrated and yet, because the elderly tend to have decreased thirst, he just wouldn't drink enough. 

So... here I am... in kind of the same boat... although not as elderly! I know that not drinking enough water leads to all sorts of issues (including restless leg syndrome) but... how to actually drink more water?

Last weekend, I think I figured it out... at least, I hope so...

Here's my trick. Every time I go to the toilet, I grab my toothbrush cup, fill it with water and drink it down. After I'm finished using the toilet, I do it again. Simple and easy.

This is a beautiful example of habit stacking... except not really, because going to the bathroom is a necessity not a habit! But still... I'm tacking the habit of drinking more water onto something that is already a solid (or liquid) part of my day.

My toothbrush cup

The beauty in this is... the more water that I drink... the more I need to go to the bathroom and... the more often I go to the bathroom... the more water I will drink!

A classic example of a positive feedback loop.

Now, my toothbrush cup isn't huge... it only holds a shade over 6 ounces and a standard glass is 8 oz.  Given that the average human should be drinking 8 glasses of water (8 oz glasses) a day... that's, let's see... 64 ounces, which means I need to drink 11 toothbrush cups worth of water. Soo... if I go to the bathroom 6 times in a day, I'm set!

I like this method because it's: (a) super simple and (b) it's done in small steps. I don't need to drink a litre at a time. All I need to do is drink 6 ounces before I go to the toilet and 6 ounces afterwards. Love it!

P.S.

And yes, I drink the tap water here. We have excellent tap water and I've never been much of a bottled water fan.

P.P.S.

As an aside... I've had that toothbrush cup for... ooohhh... since I was about 5 years old. That faded, dilapidated sticker used to be a little mouse. My sister had a white cup, my mom had a green one and my dad had a yellow one. I think my toothbrush cup is the last one standing...

P.P.S.

Having done this for a week now... I can definitely say... It WORKS! I am drinking my daily quota of water and it's not hard. Most days I'm drinking 15 of my little toothbrush cups. And... in order to keep track of this, my partner suggested a super simple system... We have a pottery dish with decorative rocks on the bathroom counter. It has 15 rocks in it and every time I drink a cup of water, I remove a rock from the plate and place it on the counter...

Super simple but anything would work, moving marbles from one glass to another... or paperclips or... whatever. Get creative... Even a piece of paper where you can track how many glasses/cups you drink.

Why do Home Renovation Shows always Smash Stone Counter Tops?

I have a pet peeve with home renovation shows. It doesn't matter what show it is but... on Demo Day... they all tend to go in and just smash up perfectly good kitchen cabinets and stone counters. Why??? It seems like such a waste. A waste of money, a waste of materials, a waste of... well... waste. All that stuff has to go somewhere, into some landfill somewhere. I know it looks good on TV but... seriously?

Fixer Upper - Chip & Joanna Gains

There are some shows where they will actually take out the cabinets carefully and say that they are sending them off to be repurposed. But those shows are in the definite minority. Maybe it costs too much to lift out stone counter tops? Easier and cheaper to just smash everything with a sledge hammer?

We did a kitchen reno last year and there was no smashing involved. A couple of friends came over and helped us take the 40 year old cabinets off the walls. It wasn't a lot of fun because some of the cabinet screws had been painted several times but... we got them all down with no smashing. And our friends then loaded up all the cabinets and used them in their garage. These weren't even wood cabinets, just cheap builder-grade laminate/particle board cabinets. But they got a second life.

Our old laminate counter top, on the other hand, did go to the dump. If it had been a long 6 foot stretch, we would have taken it to the ReStore where someone could have used it for something. But... our longest stretch was 8 feet with a big hole in the middle for the double sink sooo... off to the dump it went.

Which just goes to show that it can be done. I've seen people list old kitchens on Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace and sell them. Or just give them away for free. Look in a few open garages in your neighbourhood and you might see a whole plethora of storage cabinets thanks to a kitchen reno.

As for stone counter tops... there are a gazillion YouTube videos about how to take them out in one piece. But then what? Donate it. Sell it. Use it in the garden. Get it cut into tiles. Use it for a fireplace. Use it for mosaic flooring. The possibilities are endless. And the dump should be the last place for stone counters...

Which makes me wonder... all of those home reno shows just tend to toss all the waste into a big dumpster. Does all of that just go into the landfill? Or does someone, somewhere, sort through all of that stuff and pick out the wood and the tile and the insulation and the drywall? At first I thought, Noooo, that can't be but... apparently with environmental laws, there are some things that can't be dumped in the landfill all willy nilly... things like wood and drywall and metal.

I found the local DBL site and... will you look at that... There's a pic of workers sorting through a dumpster load of construction waste. Looks like a pile of drywall in the background. Go figure... so they DO recycle all that stuff. At least... here they do.

DBL workers sorting through construction waste
(from DBL site)

But... the Gold Star for limiting the amount of waste goes to another company called... Unbuilders. Because, it's not just kitchen renos that create waste. There are also whole houses that get demolished. And those often go something like this...

House Demo via Wikipedia

Yup, just get a digger machine and start tearing away at it... then load it all into a dumpster and send it off for sorting and disposal. Again... seems like such a waste.

But... Ta-daaaaahhh!!! Unbuilders to the rescue! They are a Vancouver company that unbuilds houses... Check out this 1 minute YouTube video of them unbuilding a house.

Smart, eh? Because some of those houses have old-growth timber in them (used up until the 1970s) and that stuff is pure gold in today's market. While traditional demo companies take the wood to be chipped and burned as fuel... Unbuilders sees a better use, a second life, for ancient lumber.

Yes, unbuilding takes longer and costs more but... there are a few other things to consider. Homeowners who go the way of unbuilding qualify for a tax credit. So even though Unbuilders cost $45,000 for a traditional home ($10,000 more than a regular demolition), the tax credits allow the homeowner to come out ahead with big savings. 

Stack of salvage lumber from Unbuilders site

The Unbuilders salvage anything and everything - metal pipes, wiring, wooden floors, sinks, appliances. Their current record for a single home is 96.8 per cent of materials salvaged or recycled and diverted from the landfill. The only things that can't be recycled or salvaged are vinyl flooring and asphalt shingles.

It's nice to know that there are companies out there that don't just crash and smash and toss. And... the Unbuilders have come to Vancouver Island too!! Excellent news...

P.S. Second Pet Peeve

The habit of home renovation shows to call everything "granite". Not all stone is "granite"! There's marble, soapstone, labradorite, granite, basalt, gneiss, granodiorite, gabbro, diorite and... a whole array of stone that is used to make counters. None of which are "granite" although some could be called "granitic".

Granite, geologically speaking, is a very specific rock type with a very specific ratio of minerals like quartz, two types of feldspar, mica and maybe some amphiboles. This is granite... see the pink feldspar... typical of granite.

These... are NOT granite... although they are called "granite" by home design/decor/renovation folks. Sigh. Sloppy language...