‘Green living’ projects that paid off

Gray water

Value ranking: 1

Gray water is the waste generated from faucets, showers and laundry machines — water that accounts for 54.2% of all water used inside a home, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. With California deep into a drought, in August 2008 I retrofitted the plumbing on my laundry machine to send its gray water into my landscape. Over the past two years, that simple switch has sent 9,720 gallons of laundry water to passion fruit vines instead of the sewer, and it required only one change to my usual routine. I had to swap laundry detergents because my usual brand, like many, contained salt and other ingredients that kill plants.

When I first installed a gray-water system, it wasn’t legal. Making it legal would have required a permit, extensive filtering apparatus and enormous amounts of cash. But in August 2009, these laundry-to-landscape systems were legalized in California, as long as homeowners followed 12 guidelines.

I’ve been so pleased with this low-cost, high-impact system that I hired a plumber to expand it in January, tying the waste water from my bathtub, shower and bathroom sink into the same gravity-fed plumbing line that handles my laundry water. This so-called “simple” system also was legalized in California in 2009. Its legal status has since been rescinded, so once again I’ve gone rogue. I estimate that my additional savings to be roughly 1,120 gallons per month, and the only significant change was my bath products.

Financially, this system is paying for itself, just slowly. LA DWP charges me less than half a penny per gallon, so technically gray water has saved me only $95 in water costs so far. But it’s also reduced my sewer charge by about 1/3, saving me an extra $3.30 per month. In drought-prone Southern California, gray water feels like the right thing to do. Overall, it’s been the easiest, most sensible, hassle-free, sustainable system I’ve put in place at my house.

Cost: $1,988 ($312 for laundry-to-landscape line, $1,676 for bathtub and bathroom sink tie-in)

Resources: Greywater Action, https://www.greywateraction.org; Oasis Design, oasisdesign.net

Solar power

Value ranking: 2

Photovoltaic systems pay off most quickly for consumers who use a lot of energy because tiered rates impose a penalty for heavy use, but solar electric still makes sense for low-energy users such as myself. So much of Americans’ carbon footprint results from buildings — about 43%, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. I’m a household of 11/2 (mom and 7 year old), and we only use about 4 kilowatt hours of electricity per day, something we’ve managed through behavioral changes, such as turning off the lights in rooms after we’ve exited, and through in-home efficiencies, such as swapping out incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescents and using power strips that can turn off DVD players, coffee makers and other energy vampires.

Using less electricity means I can get by with a smaller, less expensive photovoltaic system that not only covers my use but also produces a credit on my power bill. Going solar also meant my house was upgraded with a time-of-use meter. This type of meter allows me to receive credit for the electricity I generate during peak hours when electricity costs the most, but pay the least for the electricity I use since I now recharge my cellphone and laptop and perform other tasks during off-peak hours.

My initial interest in going solar was to power an electric car. Unfortunately, LA DWP’s rebate structure is based on current electricity use. The rebates don’t cover future use, so no rebate for a larger system that would charge a plug-in car to be purchased at a later date.

The only other downsides are that I am tied in to the grid and still susceptible to power outages, and I now have panels that need to be cleaned. It’s a subject of debate, but my installer, REC Solar, said dirty panels decrease energy production by 6% to 8%. Many panel manufacturers recommend cleaning panels at least once during the summer. I wash mine whenever they look dirty or dotted with bird droppings, which is about every other week.

Overall, I think $6,000 is a small price to pay — not only for panels that should generate my next 20 years of electricity, but also for the greenhouse-gas emissions I’m not creating.

Cost: $5,939 ($11,564, minus a $3,898 LA DWP rebate and a $1,727 federal tax credit)

Resources: California Public Utilities Commission, https://www.cpuc.ca.gov; 1 Block Off the Grid, https://www.1bog.org; REC Solar, https://www.recsolar.com

Rain barrels

Value ranking: 3

I was a rain barrel skeptic before I joined L.A.’s rainwater harvesting pilot program last fall and received a 55-gallon pickle barrel. Though rainwater holds such enormous potential for supplementing Southern California’s dwindling reserves of imported water, rain barrels seem like such thimbles. During a normal L.A. winter, my 1,500-square-foot roof generates 13,500 gallons of water — a tidal wave compared to what a little barrel can handle.

Having lived with rain barrels for a year, I’ve learned that their small size makes them manageable and affordable. The water they catch isn’t only stored for summer use. It can be drained in between rains to water nearby plants. An added perk: reducing stormwater runoff to the ocean.

I have three rain barrels — one from the city and two that I purchased separately. They’re along the edge of my house, at the halfway point in a row of kiwi vines and berries. The 175 gallons they hold were a lot more useful than I’d expected for feeding my exceptionally thirsty fruit plants. The water they held lasted about a month into the summer.

I never had mosquitoes. I did, however, have some algae growing in the plastic tubes I used to connect my rain barrels, but it wasn’t significant enough to reduce water flow. Water pressure was only problematic for the last few gallons of each barrel.

I still think larger rain catchment systems, such as cisterns, are preferable. Unfortunately, larger systems frequently need electric pumps and are far more expensive. In this economy, affordability rules. And it’s affordability that could lead to mainstream adoption and ultimately significant water savings for our parched city.

Cost: $500 ($300 for rain barrels, $200 for installation and parts to connect barrels together)

Resources: L.A. Rainwater Harvesting, https://www.larainwaterharvesting.org; Rain Bud, https://www.rainbud.com

Earth works

Value ranking: 4

Rainwater isn’t only a resource. It’s also a potential pollutant if it runs off property onto pavement, picking up fertilizers and automotive fluids that are washed, unfiltered, into the ocean.

To prevent my home’s contributions to runoff, which could be as much as 10,000 gallons per year, according to L.A.’s Bureau of Sanitation, I’ve sculpted my landscape to retain as much rainwater as possible.

The parkway between the sidewalk and the curb is concave and mulched. My backyard is home to a 15-foot-wide hole in the ground that is fed with gutters from my roof. During the rainy season, this infiltration pit can hold as much as 500 gallons at a time, allowing it to gradually replenish groundwater. During the dry season, it’s been doing double duty as a skateboard pit.

Cost: Not easy to determine because it was part of a larger landscape project, but for DIYers, potentially free

Resources: Rainwater harvesting books by Brad Lancaster, https://www.harvestingrainwater.com