Ecofrugal fails

I usually post here about our ecofrugal wins: successful repairs, DIY projects like our new planters, secondhand finds like Brian's new laptop. But I try to report on some of our failures too, partly to help you learn from our mistakes and partly to present a more accurate picture of the ecofrugal life, rather than a carefully curated glossy social-media version. So here's a quick midweek post to tell you about two recent problems that we could only fix in the least ecofrugal way: with a brand-new, store-bought product.

Case #1: The unsatisfactory window blinds

One of the last finishing touches we made to our guest room in 2014 was install window treatments. Rather than go out and buy some, we just hung up a set of bamboo window blinds that we'd acquired for free somewhere. We figured they'd do until we found something better, but of course, twelve years came and went and we never got around to replacing them.

These shades are just about the worst possible window treatment for this space. You have to pull the cord all the way to the right to raise them and all the way to the left to lower them, which is difficult to do with the seedling table in the way (particularly if you've got stubby little arms like mine). And even if you can manage to pull the cord across, eight times out of ten it gets caught on one of the slats, and you have to try to maneuver it loose before you can pull on it. Every time I try to open or close the blinds, I spent at least five minutes wrestling with them.

I finally decided I'd had enough and informed Brian I wanted to replace the window treatments. Since i had a meeting in Somerville last Saturday, he proposed we make a short jaunt afterwards to the Habitat ReStore to see if we could find something secondhand. And jaunt we did, but we found that the selection of window treatments was woefully limited. There was only one shade in the size we needed, and it was a Venetian blind like the ones we were trying to replace—not exactly a solution.

So we ended up making a trip up to IKEA yesterday and dropping $88 on a new set of honeycomb shades. And, of course, while there we also spent another $40 on other odds and ends: more rechargeable batteries, a few new dish towels, a couple of bowls to replace the two we've broken over the past two years, one new bed pillow for guests, and a couple of lingonberry products. Plus we spent $23 having lunch at the cafe, and while his falafel balls (a new menu item) were okay, my salmon filet was woefully overcooked and not at all satisfying.

I know it's silly to feel bad about this expense. The old blinds really were a problem, and we really did make a good-faith effort to find secondhand ones first. But I can't help feeling like a bit of an ecofrugal failure for having to resort to retail.

Case #2: The broken sink

I feel even worse about this second failure, because in a way, it was my fault.

I treat my hair every day or two with a solution of rosemary oil to reduce thinning. And, foolishly, I've been keeping this mixture in a little glass jar, allowing myself to be swayed by sustainability influencers railing against plastic use. Yesterday, as I was reaching for something else in the medicine chest, this little jar came tumbling out and landed in the sink. Fortunately, it landed top side down, so the jar didn't break and no harm was done.

Or so I thought until this morning, when I noticed a small damp spot under the sink. Brian checked it out and discovered two large chips nearby that had broken off from the porcelain of the sink itself. At first he thought he might be able to patch the hole with epoxy, but closer examination revealed that there was a huge crack running all the way up the side of the sink bowl. So he had to spend most of the morning removing the nice new sink that we just put in three years ago, heading out to Home Depot for a replacement, and installing the new one in its place. This cost us $50 and most of the morning, and we still can't use the sink until the caulk has set. And worse still, in the process of extracting the old sink, he also cracked the new laminate of the vanity top. Fortunately, he was able to stick it back down with some superglue, and the pattern of the laminate hides the crack pretty well, but still, our nice new vanity top is now permanently damaged, all because I stupidly paid more attention to anti-plastic screeds than to my own common sense. (I've now transferred the rosemary mixture to a salvaged plastic container that should prove less hazardous.)

For someone who devotes so much time and energy to looking for ways to save money, I seem to be doing an awfully good job of spending it.

Ring out the old, ring in the older

To my great relief, the pile of stuff we hauled home from our trip to Indiana has by and large integrated itself neatly into our home. The camp chair and the various tools have all found new homes in the reorganized workshop. The table lamp now graces an end table in the big downstairs room. The automated cat feeders haven't been put to use yet, but we found space for them on the shelves in the workshop, so at least they're not in the way.

In fact, many of these new acquisitions have actually helped us fix minor but annoying problems. For instance, in the office, the power strip next to Brian's computer used to keep tipping over because it was so lightweight that the heavy cord plugged into the outlet would pull it sideways. Brian glued a couple of the powerful hard-drive magnets acquired from his dad to the bottom, and now the power strip is firmly secured to the metal filing cabinet it sits on. 

Likewise, most of the glass Ball jars we brought home are now on the top shelf of our pantry, holding various staples that used to be in plastic bags. Actually, most of them were double-bagged, with the bags the products came in tucked inside zip-top bags to protect them from both spillage and spoilage. This resulted in an unsightly jumble of identical-looking bags that made it hard to find anything because they all looked alike. The row of neatly labeled glass jars is a decided improvement. (We still have a few things in bags, but three zip-top bags look much better than a dozen.)

But the biggest transformation has taken place in our media cabinet. We spent the better part of a day hauling out all our old A/V components, testing them and the ones from Indiana, and putting back only the ones that worked best. As it turned out, it was a good thing we were forced to do this, as some of the components—like my 25-year-old VCR and even older cassette player—proved to be entirely kaput. We replaced these with a working VCR from Brian's folks and an old workhorse of a tape deck, and Brian hauled the broken ones down to the recycling shed. (This turned out to be unnecessary, since they were so old that they didn't contain any computer chips and could safely have gone into the regular trash, but the Department of Public Works graciously agreed to dispose of them for us.)

A couple of other pieces were technically still usable, but not really useful for us. The centerpiece of our old stereo system was Brian's old Marantz receiver—older than him, in fact—which we'd hauled all the way across the country when he moved here in 2003. But it had become increasingly cranky over the years, and it had pretty much reached the limits of Brian's ability to repair it. He reluctantly concluded that it should go to someone who had both the time and the skill to bring it back to its full glory, so we listed it on Freecycle as a project "for the audiophile and do-it-yourselfer." The posting immediately got multiple responses from people fitting that description, and we sent it off to a good home. In its place, we hooked up an equally ancient, but still working Dynaco receiver and a smaller, separate amplifier. This addition gave us more plugs than our power strip could accommodate, so we daisy-chained it with the small, square power strip we'd gotten from his folks to fit everything in. We also Freecycled an old set of Pioneer speakers we'd been storing in the back of the cabinet as a just-in-case backup.

One thing our new setup doesn't currently include is a record player. We own two of them—my old one and another we got from Brian's parents—but neither one is working properly. We've stowed them both in the basement until Brian has time to tinker with them a bit more. If he can't fix either of them on his own, perhaps someone at our town's repair cafe event next month will be able to help. (Watch this space for details about that.) In the meantime, we've got all the rest of the components—TV, receiver, tape player, disc player—hooked up to Brian's nice Polk Audio speakers, and everything sounds lovely. Brian also added his Iron Giant figure to stand guard on top of the amplifier and prevent cats from sitting on it, which would definitely create a fire hazard.

So, contrary to my fears, the big pile of junk we brought back from Indiana has not turned into another big pile of junk in New Jersey. In fact, hauling it all home turned out to be quite helpful. It gave us the kick in the pants we needed to test all that stuff in the cabinet we hadn't been using and get rid of the actual junk that wasn't usable at all. If we hadn't had this pile of stuff to deal with, we might not have learned our VCR didn't work until we actually wanted to play one of our old tapes, and then we'd have had to hunt down and spend money on a replacement for it. This way, we have a fully functioning stereo setup (minus phonograph), Brian's parents have less stuff in their garage, and two happy Freecyclers have new toys to play with. Win-win-win.

Return of the Master Tinkerer

Way back in 2011, I dubbed Brian the Master Tinkerer after he successfully fixed up three items around our house using mostly materials we already had. In the 14 years since, apparently, his skill has not deserted him. Just in the past month, he's repaired three items that were so badly broken any normal person would just have thrown them away—all using only the materials we had on hand.

Repair #1: Toilet brush handle

The toilet brushes from IKEA seem, in principle, like such a good idea. They come in three pieces: a sturdy metal handle, a separate brush attachment, and a nice-looking metal container to hold it. That way, when the brush part wears out, you can just remove it and swap in a new one, rather than having to replace the whole thing. 

But in practice, this system tends to break down—literally. The first IKEA toilet brush we had, the LILLHOLMEN, became unusable when the store stopped carrying the inserts for it. When we tried replacing ours with the store's newer brush model, it worked for only a few uses before snapping off. Our attempt to repair it with Sugru (a moldable adhesive) didn't hold up, and we ended up springing for one of IKEA's newer toiler brush systems that would work with the new inserts. And that worked okay until a couple of months ago, when the handle of the newer one came off too.

In this case, though, it wasn't the plastic piece that had broken. The problem was with the handle, which was designed to snap into place over the brush insert and hold it in place by friction. See that tiny dimple there in the photo? That's the part that was supposed to hold the brush, and over time it had simply lost its grippiness. We could put a new brush insert into the handle, but it wouldn't stay put. Both the brush and the metal collar that fits over it would simply slip out.

Brian initially tried to solve this problem by wrapping the end of the brush insert in plumber's tape. He hoped that little bit of extra volume would be enough to keep it wedged into place. This sort of worked for one use, after which the brush came loose again. So he tried a new tack: He took the handle down to his workbench, lined up his center punch over the metal dimples, and banged on it with a hammer. This expanded them just enough to keep them snapped in place on the metal collar. The brush assembly now feels slightly wobbly, but it's usable. And if it comes loose again, he can simply apply the same fix at no cost.

Repair #2: Toaster oven door

Our toaster oven is an old trooper. We don't know exactly how old it is because Brian inherited it from his grandfather, and we don't know how long it had belonged to him before his death. But it's clearly old enough to qualify as "vintage." 

Despite its advanced age, this toaster oven never gave us a single problem until this month, when the door hinge stopped working. The door would still open and close, but it wouldn't stay closed. Brian assumed the spring had given out, but to replace it he'd have to take the whole toaster apart, a time-consuming job that would have to wait for a free weekend. So for a couple of weeks, we made our toast by propping the door shut—first with a heavy pot, then with a long-handled wooden spoon jammed through the door handle.

When Brian finally got the sides off the toaster and took a look at it, he was pleased to discover that the spring itself was actually fine. What had broken was a thin piece of bent metal that connected the spring to the door. Unlike the actual spring, this was something he figured he could easily cobble together from scratch. After a little trial and error with different types of wire, he found that a heavy-duty paper clip made the perfect substitute: flexible enough to bend into just the right shape, thin enough to fit through the holes, and strong enough to hold the door open. With this new part in place, the toaster oven is just as good as new—or perhaps I should say just as good as old.

Repair #3: Headphone cable

Brian owns two pairs of over-the-ear headphones, and until this week, neither of them was usable. The culprit in both cases was the same: the wire that connects the earpieces to the main cable, which had lost its outer insulation. Without it, the wire kept kinking and sound wouldn't come through clearly. He'd tried wrapping the wire in electrical tape, but it always slipped off. He wasn't too bothered about losing the use of the cheaper set of headphones, but the other pair was a nice Sennheiser model that he hated to discard over such a trivial problem. 

I did a little research and found that there's an inexpensive fix for this problem called heat-shrink tubing. You slip it over the wire, then heat it up with a lighter, heat gun, or blow dryer, causing the plastic to shrink until it fits snugly in place. Brian thought this sounded like the simplest solution, so he picked up a small package of this stuff for $3 at Lowe's. However, when he attempted to use it, he quickly realized there was a problem: the place where the cord was stripped was above the point where it split into two separate ear wires. He couldn't feed the wire into the tubing without detaching it from the earpiece, and he wasn't confident of his ability to reattach it.

So, instead, he decided to try the electrical wire again, but with a twist: instead of wrapping it around the wire horizontally, he'd do it vertically. He cut a piece long enough to cover the bare section, laid the wire down on top of it, carefully folded it over to enclose the wire, and trimmed off the excess. Then he reinforced the seam with a line of hot glue to keep it from unfolding. This jury-rigged solution isn't exactly pretty, but it seems to be secure. When you plug in the headphones now, you get clear sound in both ears, rather than fuzzy crackling.  

One thing that definitely is secure, though: Brian's Master Tinkerer status. With these three low-cost fixes, he's proven yet again that he is worthy of the title. 

Shedding deadweight

Over the past year, Brian has been slowly collecting shipping pallets and odd bits of lumber from various spots around town. He didn't have any particular use in mind for them, but he knew they could come in handy for projects like our DIY compost bin, so whenever he happened to spot a piece in good condition, he'd just grab it and stow it away in our shed. All these new acquisitions sat snuggled up against the top from our old patio table, which Brian had also squirreled away "just in case" after we replaced the patio set last summer. Since the shed isn't very big and already contained quite a lot of stuff, useful and otherwise, it gradually became harder and harder to get around in there.

So, Saturday morning, he decided it was time to haul out all that wood and "do something" with it. He hadn't actually figured out what he wanted to do with it, but he thought he'd retrieve it first and take it from there. But in order to haul out the wood, he had to first haul out all the other stuff in the shed that was blocking his path to it. And once he'd started doing that, he realized that some of the stuff in question was in pretty bad condition and really should be disposed of. So when I came down to join him, about 20 minutes after he'd gone out (saying vaguely that he'd "be outside"), I found the yard looking more or less like this and Brian in the process of breaking apart an old plastic trash barrel—which we'd somehow managed to get stuck inside another trash barrel—with his bare hands.  

Well, once I saw this project in progress, naturally I had to jump in. What started out as just a general notion of dealing with the wood pile turned into a full-scale clear-out and reorganization of the shed contents. Over the next few hours, we dragged out pretty much everything that was sitting on every horizontal surface in that shed—floor, table, shelves—and decided what was worth putting back and where it should go. (Since I'd come late to the party, I didn't manage to get a "before" picture of the shed in its cluttered state, but I took several of the "during" and "after.")

We kept the big pile of old birdseed bags that we use to haul bulk compost and mulch home from the Co-Op, but we discarded most of the smaller cat-food bags that were too small for this purpose. (We brought a few indoors to use as trash bags, and we kept a couple as material for tree bands to foil pests like squirrels and lanternflies.) We sorted out our tangled piles of rope and deer netting, removed the damaged ones, bundled the rest up neatly, and tucked them into one large bin together. We went through our huge collection of plant pots, removing any that were damaged and culling some of the ones in less useful sizes. (The remaining collection is still huge, but at least it's now been neatly sorted into stacks that won't fall over.) We tossed several items that had clearly ceased to be useful, such as torn gardening gloves and the aforementioned big trash barrel, which Brian divided into two large pieces so it could fit inside our even larger trash bin. And we swept off all the exposed surfaces, clearing away years' worth of accumulated dust, straw, and desiccated rat droppings (though, fortunately, no fresh ones).

Among the trash, we also found several items that were possibly useful to someone, just not to us. These included:

• A set of very nice garden tools (a fork and two trowels) that were still sitting unused in their original box. We'd received them as a gift and never used them because we were so used to our old ones. Fortunately, these quickly found a new home on Freecycle. 
• A grill basket too large to fit on our grill and a couple of other grilling tools (a long spatula and fork) that we'd picked up somewhere and never used. These will go on Freecycle as soon as we've cleaned some of the rust off them.
• The pan and funnel we used for changing the oil in our old Honda, which we haven't used in over 14 years. (The oil pan on our "new" car, bought in 2011, proved much harder to access, and we decided it wasn't worth the hassle.) These will also go on Freecycle.
• An old trowel that's not as nice as our three other trowels. This went out by the curb with our discarded plant pots, where it was quickly snapped up.
• An  unidentified electrical device that plugs into a car charger. Brian thought it was meant for defrosting a cold engine block, but when I searched "engine block heater" online I couldn't find anything that looks like it, and I hesitate to list it on Freecycle if I can't even put a name to it.
• An old rolling cart that had been sitting in the corner of the shed ever since we bought the place. When we dragged it out, we discovered that it was apparently meant to hold electrical appliances, because it had a crude power strip built into one side: a couple of small outlets connected to an ancient electrical cord with no grounding plug. That feature probably isn't useful anymore, but the cart itself could be, so we set it out on the curb as well. If that doesn't work, we'll try Freecycle.

Once all the junk was gone and the surfaces were clear, we could find better spots for the things we wanted to keep. Our Hudson SQ-X Squirrel Excluders, two useful but unwieldy chicken-wire constructions, found a new home on a high shelf with a couple of tarps and a spare garden hose. The PVC pipes we use to make cages for our honeyberry bushes got tucked away on a lower shelf behind some smaller pots and tools. A couple of tools that had previously sat on the floor got hung up on the wall, now that we had access to the wall to hang them.

The reorganized shed is much cleaner and airier than the cluttered space we started out with. We didn't actually get rid of that much stuff, but it all fits in much better, giving us much better access to the things we use regularly. And there's enough room left over to put away the charcoal grill and the patio chairs once winter comes.

Ironically, one thing that ended up going back into the shed was that big stack of pallets. We spent so long on the cleanup that, in the end, Brian didn't have the time or the energy to break them down. But at least they're out of the way now, tucked into the corner where that rolling cart used to be, so they're no longer impeding our movement.

Ecofrugal episodes, July 2025

Time for another exciting installment of ecofrugal episodes, in which I fill you in on all the little things that have been going well and not so well in our ecofrugal life. This past week or two has had a mix of both, so I'm doing the post in "hits and misses" style.

Hit: Our first trip to Savers

Last weekend, Brian and I went to visit my sister and her family in Boston. One of the things we did there was visit Savers, a for-profit thrift store chain we don't have in our area. (There's a store in the same family, called Thrift Superstore, in Union, but that's a good 40 minutes away.) The store has a good selection and decent prices, but no dressing rooms, so we had to either try things on as best we could in the aisles or take our best guess about the size. Brian got one pair of jeans and a new pair of Ren Faire shoes, since his current set (also thrifted) has proven insufficiently supportive for a long day of walking. I got one fairly cute top and a pair of warm tights for winter. (It's not clear how big a hit that purchase is, since I still don't know if they fit. I couldn't try them on in the store, and after we got them home it was too hot. But for only a couple of bucks, they seemed worth the risk.) 

Since my sister's family also brought along four bags' worth of used clothes to donate, they got four coupons good for 40% off on up to $100 worth of purchases and gave one to us. With that discount, our total cost was $26.87 for the four items. That's not breathtakingly cheap, but it's clearly cheaper than buying new, which isn't always the case at thrift shops nowadays.

Miss: A sustainable-living guide that doesn't

On our way back from Savers, we stopped by a farmers' market. One of the booths there was a used-book stall run by the local public library. I can't pass by a table full of books (especially cheap ones) without at least taking a look, and I always like to support libraries when I can, so I spent $2 on a paperback copy of The Self-Sufficiency Bible, by a Brit named Simon Dawson. The cover promised "100s of Ways to Live More Sustainably - Wherever You Are," so I was hoping there might be at least a handful I didn't already know about.

Unfortunately, like many books on this topic, this one proved to be a mix of things I already do and things that aren't relevant to me. The three chapters on "The Home Dairy," "Livestock," and "Meat Preparation and Basic Butchery" were of no use to us at all. The chapter "Curing and Preserving" wasn't completely irrelevant, because the instructions for preserving meat were interspersed with pointers on pickles, chutneys, sauces, jam, and dried mushrooms and herbs. But most of this was already familiar to us, as was everything in the chapter "The Home Baker." And parts of the chapter "The Kitchen Garden" were clearly aimed at a British audience and didn't apply to us, like the advice that tomatoes and peppers are "likely to disappoint you" if you try to grow them outdoors. 

There were also a few tips that didn't seem to fit the "self-sufficiency" brief. The chapter on "Natural Solutions: Health, Beauty, and the Home" contained numerous recipes for natural cleaners and beauty products made from ingredients that you clearly can't produce yourself and aren't cheap to buy, such as cocoa butter, sandalwood oil, and avocado. His homemade hair conditioner recipe ("beat an egg either with an avocado or a banana") would cost a minimum of $1.16 per application, while my Suave conditioner costs around 9 cents. 

Also, the few chapters that looked like they'd be most useful, like "Arty Crafty Bits," largely glossed over the details of the things I was keenest to learn about. The section on knitting lists all kinds of things you can make this way, but never actually talks about how to do it; the section on making your own clothes advises you to "buy a good, lightweight machine...and get sewing," as if setting the machine up and threading it and using it required no explanation. And on top of this, the book is peppered with errors, both mechanical ("it's" for "its," "forraging") and factual (saying that rhubarb leaves are unsafe to compost, describing wood as a green energy source).

Despite these drawbacks, I did manage to glean a few useful tidbits from this book. I learned (and confirmed from reliable sources) that it's best to water seedlings before transplanting them so you lose less soil; that you can make an alcoholic "turbo cider" from store-bought juice in a couple of weeks; that you can knit with strips of fabric rather than yarn; that the comfrey plant growing next to our recycling bin can be eaten (in moderation); and that you can preserve mushrooms at home by air-drying or freezing. But having filed away those facts, I don't see any need to keep the book on my shelf for future reference. I'll either donate it to our library book sale or drop it into one of our town's many Little Free Libraries so it can go to someone who may get more use out of it.

Hit: DIY shower indicator buttons

When Brian and I bought new shower control knobs nine years back, they came with little plastic "indicator buttons" to identify the hot, cold, and direction knobs. These weren't truly necessary, since most people know which is which, but they served to cover up the mounting screws. Unfortunately, within a year, these buttons started to fall apart. They wouldn't stay in place because the little teeth that held them in the knobs had come loose and begun to fall out. This looked like an easy fix; we just bought a new set of indicator buttons for about $5 and swapped them out. But within another year or so, these buttons also began to fall apart in exactly the same way. I looked for metal indicator buttons that I thought might be more sturdy than the plastic ones, but I couldn't find any to fit our faucets.

So, with two of our faucet knobs now sitting there naked and the third button hanging on by a thread, I started brainstorming ways to rig up a DIY version of these buttons. I considered metal bottle caps, but we don't tend to buy drinks in glass bottles, and I wasn't sure how I'd get them to fit into the faucets. I also thought about gluing some decorative beads in place, but that would make it impossible to get at the screws. Finally, I concluded that the best fix would be a couple of large metal washers tucked under the screws. This would leave the heads exposed, but it would hide the dingy, mineral-stained surface underneath. And if the washers themselves got dirty, I could easily remove, clean, and replace them.

I found two washers in our collection that were just the right size and painted them with nail polish: red, which I already had, for the hot-water tap and blue, which cost me $4 at the local discount store, for the cold. It was the work of a couple of minutes to remove the screws, thread the washers on, and screw them back in. With these in place, the damaged knobs look much more presentable. And whenever that last button gives up the ghost, I can give the middle knob the same treatment.

Miss: Shaky sunglasses repair 

On sunny days, I wear special sunglasses designed to fit over my regular glasses. They're much cheaper than a pair of prescription shades, and they're easier to put on and take off because I don't need to stash my other glasses. Their weak point, it turns out, is durability. This month, the frames cracked right across the top. Brian thought maybe he could mend them with epoxy, but the difficulty would be figuring out how to clamp them while the glue dried. I decided instead to shell out $2 for some fast-drying superglue from the discount store and try to fix them that way. I laid them out on a sheet of newspaper, put on gloves so I wouldn't glue my fingers together, dabbed on a little glue, and held the joined area in place for about a minute to let it set.

At first, this simple repair seemed to be holding. Then the crack opened back up, but only partway. I glued it again, but after a week, it popped open completely. I got out my tools and glued it one more time, but this time there was a slight mishap; I got a bit of glue on my glove, which then got stuck to the inside of the nose piece. I was able to pull most of the nitrile off, but there's still a little scrap of blue there that will have to be scraped off with a utility knife. And it remains unclear whether this second repair will hold any better than the first. If it doesn't, I'll have to move on to more complicated methods: either adding a splint along with the glue, as suggested at Eyeglass Repair USA, or plastic welding.

Miss: High quotes for heat pumps 

Last month, in the wake of a brutal heat wave and the passage of a bill that will kill home electrification credits at the end of this year, Brian and I took another stab at getting quotes for a home heat pump. Three weeks ago, after talking to two contractors and getting one quote back, I was feeling doubtful. Now, after five consultations and four quotes (the fifth one never got back to me, even after a follow-up call), I'm even more pessimistic. 

The bottom line seems to be that a system that can completely replace our gas boiler will cost well over 30 grand. That doesn't include the $10,000 decarbonization credit that the first contractor mentioned, but that's because none of the other contractors I spoke to believed that this credit actually exists. More than one of them said that PSE&G has been talking about such a program for years, but nothing has ever happened, and there's no evidence that this year will be any different.

Now, if we were willing to settle for a hybrid system—one that would supplement rather than replace the boiler, reducing our gas usage—we could probably do that for between 20 and 25 grand, including the upgrades to our electrical panel. But that's still a lot of money, and the new system would probably cost as much to run as our current one, if not more. So the costs would continue to pile up every year.

What I'm starting to wonder is, if we're only going to reduce, not eliminate, our use of fossil fuel for heating, do we even need to install a whole-house system? Maybe we could just replace our old through-the-wall air conditioning unit with a heat pump that could provide supplemental heating as well as cooling. It looks like we could buy one for around $1,000, and since it would be replacing an existing unit, the installation cost shouldn't be more than another grand; we might even be able to install it ourselves. We'd still need to use the gas boiler, but the heat pump could probably cut our gas use by half, and for less than one-tenth the price of a complete system. It would be like the heating equivalent of our little induction burner: not a full replacement for a gas appliance, but one that can take over most of its duties for a fraction of the price. Am I crazy, or is this the ecofrugal way?

Even more ecofrugal episodes

Nothing happened this week that seemed big enough to warrant an entire blog post on its own, so instead I'm doing another of my ecofrugal episodes posts—a roundup of the small successes and failures in our ecofrugal life. Fortunately, this time the successes outnumber the failures. 

Item #1: A grout makeover  

My birthday request this year was for Brian to replace the grout in our upstairs tub-shower, which had developed stains that no amount of scrubbing could remove. (This photo—taken after the grout had just been cleaned—doesn't really do it justice, but it should give you an inkling of how bad it was.) It wasn't until this month that we finally had a free weekend to tackle the project, and we ran into a couple of setbacks while carrying it out. 

First, after he'd already scraped out as much as he reasonably could of the old grout, Brian discovered that the pre-mixed grout he'd bought to replace it was was actually sanded grout, which isn't recommended for narrow gaps like this. (It would have been nice if the package had said this on the front, rather than in small print on the back.) So we had to make a hasty trip to Home Depot to replace it. We also grabbed an extra tube of caulk, just in case we needed extra. At first, Brian thought this purchase had been a waste of money, since the old tube ended up having enough in it to fill all the joints. But he learned otherwise the next morning, when he discovered that the caulk he'd just applied, which was supposed to set up within two hours, was still liquid. Clearly it was no longer good, so he had to spend part of that morning laboriously removing all the goo and replacing it with fresh caulk from the new tube. 

So this birthday request proved to be more of a hassle than we expected, but it turned out well in the end. Every time I've stepped into the shower this past week, I've been delighted at how fresh and clean the grout looks now. Brian even took the extra step of repainting the grungy-looking trim on the tub window, so the whole enclosure now looks sparkling and new. Once the new grout has had a couple of weeks to cure fully, we're going to follow up by applying a sealant, which will allegedly keep it fresh and stain-free  for the next few years. And even when it wears off, we can just apply a new coat, rather than going through this entire messy job again.

Item #2: Pride pants 

Recently, I noticed that my older pair of blue jeans was starting to wear out in the thigh area. This is a common occurrence for me, but this time the pattern was a bit unusual: instead of spreading across the whole inner thigh area, the threadbare sections were confined to a line right along the inseam. I thought this would be a good spot for a little visible mending, but wasn't sure whether it made more sense to darn these tiny holes individually or try to cover all of them with a patch. 

I went hunting for suggestions online and came across this image: a long row of stitches in different colors of embroidery floss running down the length of the seam. I decided to try a similar idea, but with a rainbow color scheme. The whole worn area was about 12 centimeters long, so I divided it up into sections of roughly 2 centimeters for each color. I started at one end putting in parallel stitches in red embroidery floss, then about 2 centimeters down I tied off the red thread and started on orange, and so on down the spectrum to purple.

I've only done one seam so far, since the wear on the other isn't quite as bad, but eventually I intend to do the other one to match. The stitching is far from perfect, but it's colorful and cute and gives me a little boost of happiness every time I wear these jeans now. And it's just in time for Pride Month!

Item #3: Repair, then replace 

About a year ago, our old toilet seat broke. Rather than buy the cheapest model to replace it, we decided to spring for one with "soft close" hinges. I quite enjoyed this feature, but unfortunately, these slow-closing hinges weren't very durable. A couple of days ago, I noticed that the lid was askew, and when I examined it, I discovered that one of the hinges had snapped clean through. I managed to wiggle it through so that the lid could close fully, if no longer softly, but this clearly wasn't going to be a long-term solution.

Rather than run out to buy a whole new toilet seat, Brian decided to try repairing the hinge with epoxy. He applied the glue to both broken edges, then clamped the lid in the open position overnight to give it plenty of time to set. But sadly, as soon as he unclamped it in the morning and tried lowering the lid, it snapped straight apart again. 

Although this repair wasn't a success, I still think it was worth making the attempt. It didn't cost us anything except a little extra time, and we had no way of knowing it wouldn't work unless we tried it. And now that we know, we feel no guilt about discarding the broken toilet seat and spending $40 on a replacement. (This time around, we spent $10 more for one with metal hinges, which we're assuming will hold up better. Paying the extra $10 now seems like a better deal than spending $30 to replace the whole thing again in another year.)

Item #4: Whipping it good 

Ever since we first started cutting back on dairy products back in 2018, we've been looking for a decent substitute for whipped cream. We tried numerous homemade versions using various combinations of coconut cream, aquafaba, and plant milk, with results ranging from near success (but not quite) to colossal failure. We tried a commercial product called Coco Whip that worked reasonably well in a raspberry fool, but the store where we found it has since stopped carrying it. And we tried one or two commercial plant-based cream substitutes that were so unimpressive I didn't even bother blogging about them.

But on a couple of recent trips to Trader Joe's, we've noticed a product in their dairy case called "Vegan Heavy Whipping Cream Alternative." We couldn't remember if we'd tried this one before, but at only $4 a pint—about the same price as regular cream—we didn't have much to lose by giving it another go. So we grabbed a pint, and last weekend Brian took a crack at using some in a honeyberry fool (a phrase I love having the opportunity to say). And right away, we noticed that this stuff actually was whipping up like real cream. It formed genuine stiff peaks that held their shape and didn't collapse even when we folded in the berry mixture. And if the flavor and mouthfeel weren't exactly identical to real cream, you could hardly tell by the time it was combined with the berries.

We only used about half the pint for this experiment, so we're going to try tinkering with it further, seeing if it can make a plant-based ice cream that works better than our iced coconut cream (which didn't turn out so well the second time we tried it). If it works for that too, we'll probably stop messing around with DIY versions and make this our go-to substitute for any recipe that calls for cream—possibly even our anniversary cake.

Item #5: Extension cord life extension

One of the items we picked up at last year's yard sales (or, to be exact, from the piles of discards after the sales) was an electric hedge trimmer. It's just a light-duty plug-in model, but since our property only has one hedge and we only trim it a couple of times a year, it's been perfectly adequate for our needs. But last Friday, Brian discovered its biggest drawback: make one false move with it and you cut right through your extension cord. To add insult to injury, he had noticed that the cord was in harm's way and was just attempting to move it out of the way when it happened. 

Naturally, he was quite annoyed that this one brief slip had, as he thought, totally destroyed an extension cord that would cost around $17 to replace. But then he discovered that it's actually possible to cut off the damaged portion and attach a replacement connector, which only costs about $3. You just end up with a slightly shorter cord—in this case, 47 feet instead of 50, which is still plenty for our small yard. Less cost, less waste, and less frustration about having damaged the old one. (Of course, if this keeps happening, the cord will gradually get shorter each time until it's too short to be of much use. But I suspect after this incident, he'll take extra care to keep the cord out of danger in future.)

A completed birthday project (and one to come)

Last January, I asked Brian for my most ambitious DIY birthday gift ever: cleaning up our unfinished workshop/laundry room/storage room. I wanted to get rid of all the unnecessary stuff, neatly organize the stuff that remained, and most importantly, cover up the bare insulation that currently served as the wall surface. I knew at the time I asked that this was a big project that might take up to half a year to finish. But as it turns out, that was a serious underestimate. 

It took us a couple of months just to get around to the first stage of the project. In March, we went through all the stuff in the room and identified several things we didn't need: a junker bike we'd picked up off the curb, loads of other bike parts, my unused guitar case, a hanging-file box, a big box full of brown glass bottles that we'd picked up for free at a yard sale and used only a few of, a box of wooden blocks, and a packing tape dispenser. We donated all the bike stuff to the New Brunswick Bike Exchange and disposed of the rest without difficulty on Freecycle. 

After that, we couldn't get started on covering the walls until we'd bought the necessary lumber. But since it came in large sheets and our little Honda couldn't possibly hold more than one, this step required renting a truck. We finally got around to doing that in June, when we were able to use the same truck to pick up a new patio set from Craigslist (along with the lumber for Brian's planter project). The year was more than half over before we actually got the boards cut to size and up onto the walls (first flipping around the batts of insulation so that the moisture barrier was properly positioned on the outside, facing toward the heated space). And it took us all the way until my next birthday—and just a little bit longer—to complete the job of tidying and reorganizing the stuff that remained.

But tidy it we did, and I'm ready at last to unveil the final result. First, as a reminder of what we were up against, here's the "before" picture of the room as it looked when I asked for this present a year ago. 

And here's the "after," as seen from roughly the same angle.

The lighting is still terrible for photography, but everything else is so much better. The two remaining bikes are both neatly hung from the ceiling, the boxes are all neatly stowed on the shelves, the work table has been cleared off, and all the tools have been arranged so that they're visible and easy to access.

Here it is from another angle: the before...

...and the after. In this shot, you can see the neat reorganization of the shelves, the workbench (which has a usable surface for the first time in years) and, most of all, the scrap wood pile. It's now all neatly tucked into the back corner, arranged by size, rather than spilling out onto the floor.

 

Let's come in for a couple of close-ups. Here's one of the wall nearest the door, with its nice new wood covering. In addition to hiding away the insulation, the OSB wood panels make a suitable spot for hanging things. We put up a little hook to hold our clothespin bag (my old purse) and hung up the extra sections of our shoe rack to provide convenient, accessible storage for safety gear and extension cords. This also had the advantage of getting them out of their storage box so we could throw it away, freeing up more shelf space.

And here's a look at our reorganized tool storage. We already had that pegboard and most of the hooks; it was just a matter of arranging them optimally to display most of our tools. The few that don't fit are either tucked in a toolbox or neatly laid out on the cabinet below. (We did buy a few extra tool hooks, but they cost less than $15 total.)

The one problem with this new layout is that I can't quite reach the top row of tools on the board. But Brian addressed that with one more DIY piece, completed just today: a little step stool made out of scrap lumber. (He realized after completing it that the supports were placed too far in, so he added markings to indicate where I could step on it without tipping it over. But he'll probably take it apart and reassemble it at some point.)

Here's one last area that I didn't manage to get a good "before" picture of: the floating shelf over the utility sink. Previously, this shelf was a piece of MDF that was seriously bowed under the weight of all the various detergents and cleaning tools piled on it. Now it's a smaller piece of leftover plywood that neatly holds a pared-down assortment of cleaning supplies we'll actually use.

So how much did the project cost in total? Well, it depends on how you count. We spent $244.56 on lumber at Home Depot, but about half of that was for the planter project, so that's only about $125 for the walls. Add the $15 or so we spent on tool-hanging hardware, and that's around $140 worth of supplies. But if you include the $102 we spent on the U-Haul to get all that lumber home, that brings the total cost to around $242—still less than the cost of the closet doors that were my 2016 birthday present, but not by much. And in terms of time and elbow grease, this project was probably at least as demanding.

After this complicated project, I'm hoping my birthday request for this year will be a lot easier to fulfill. Over the years, the grout in our shower has become increasingly stained, despite my best efforts to keep it clean. Also, bits of it have fallen out, leaving deeper gaps between the tiles, which makes the stains even harder to remove. So, for this year, I've asked to redo all the grout, then seal it so that it will stay put and stay clean. We've done this job once before, so we know we can handle it, but last time we neglected the sealing step. I'm hoping that with a good sealant, we can keep the grout clean and intact for at least a few years, and when it starts to wear off, we can just reapply the sealant instead of having to replace all the grout. I've already invested in a bottle of Aqua-X Grout Sealer, which got good reviews from several professional review sites (including this professional tiler). Now all we need is a tub of grout and—always the tricky part—a free weekend to apply it.

Testing the heat pump waters

Brian and I have known for a while that we want our next home heating system to be an electric heat pump. Last time we replaced our boiler, this wasn't really an option; the heat pumps available at that time were old-fashioned models that struggled to produce heat as the temperature dropped below freezing. But in the ten years since, the situation has changed dramatically. Modern cold-climate heat pumps can run at full strength in temperatures as low as -5F, a temperature that we seldom see here in New Jersey. And, on top of that, the Inflation Reduction Act now offers a 30% tax credit to help pay for them. So we've been assuming that we'd ditch our fossil-fuel boiler whenever it reached the end of its lifespan. However, since it's only ten years old, we figured it would be at least another ten years before we got to that point.

A couple of weeks ago, we got a hint that might not be the case. We'd hired a heating contractor to do a routine tune-up on our heating system, and he informed me that the boiler had some major problems. He showed me a photo he'd taken that appeared to show a significant amount of rust on the heat exchanger, which he said "means there has to be a leak somewhere." Also, he said, the pressure gauge was reading around 20 psi, even though the system was supposed to be at between 12 and 15. To fix this, he claimed, we'd need to replace not just the pressure valve but the entire "trim kit": basically, all the valves, pipes, and other parts that connect to the boiler itself. And then he quoted me a jaw-dropping price for this repair: $3,500.

Well, given that the boiler itself had only cost us less than twice that price in the first place, I started wondering if it would be a better idea to simply replace it. So I went onto HomeAdvisor and put in a request for several contractors to give us quotes on a heat pump system. Unfortunately, I didn't get them. All four of the contractors I spoke with said that it wasn't practical to heat a home with electricity in this area, at least not without a fossil fuel backup. Some claimed that it just couldn't be done—that a heat pump would never be able to keep a house sufficiently warm. Others said it was possible, but the cost would be unreasonably high—as much as double what we were currently paying with gas.

This was baffling to me. I'd done a lot of reading about this topic in the past couple of years, and tons of reliable sources—Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, Yale Climate Connections—had assured me that modern heat pumps could totally handle climates much colder than ours. I'd also crunched some numbers using the Electrification Planner at Rewiring America, and it had estimated that for a home like ours, the costs for heating with a heat pump would be pretty close to what they are with gas. It said we might pay anywhere from $170 more per year to $350 less, with the median household saving $75.

Seeking more data, I made a post in the heat pumps forum on Reddit to ask if anyone else had successfully used a heat pump in our area. I got tons of responses from people as far north as Canada assuring me that they used heat pumps with no backup, no problem. A few people said that I should expect to pay more heating with electricity as opposed to gas, but only one claimed the cost would be prohibitive.

Eventually, I did manage to get one contractor to give me a quote on a heat pump system. I'd done a little research ahead of time to figure out what a reasonable price would be and gotten back a fairly wide range of estimates, so I was prepared to hear anything from around $5,000 to $18,400. You can imagine my shock when I opened the contractor's estimate and saw that he would want over $23,000 to install a ducted system (including the cost of adding new ductwork). A mini-split system, which most sources had said was the cheapest option for homes that lack existing ductwork, was even worse: close to $29,000.

Fortunately, by the time we got this quote, we knew we wouldn't need it. Because we'd learned one other thing from the various contractors who'd come out to our house: the quote the first company gave us for repairs was way, way too high. (Several of them said the company in question was notorious for this.) One of them, after taking a look at our system, said the only part we really needed to replace was the expansion tank, and that would cost less than $400. We eventually hired his company to fix it for a mere $355—about one-tenth of the price we were quoted for the initial repair.

So, the bad news is, we're not going to be ditching our old fossil-fuel boiler this year. The good news is, we don't have to make any decisions about replacing it under time pressure. We can afford to wait at least a few more years, and perhaps by the time we're ready, there will be more installers in New Jersey who are actually familiar with modern cold-climate heat pumps and can install one for a decent price. Or, who knows, by then there might actually be air-to-water heat pumps on the market that can work with our existing radiators, so we can simply swap one in for the old boiler with no need to alter the rest of the system.

September discoveries

We're only a week into September, but we've already made several interesting discoveries this month—either by design, by happenstance, or by a combination of the two. Here, in order of occurrence, is a summary of our September adventures so far:

Discovery #1: A stealth melon

Most of the time, Brian and I make a point of uprooting any "volunteer" plants that pop up in or near our compost bin. We know from past experience that if we leave them be, they're liable to take over the side yard, making it difficult to navigate. Plus, they're usually the offspring of supermarket tomatoes that don't breed true, so any fruit we get off them won't be particularly tasty.

But this summer, we made an exception. A couple of what appeared to be squash vines sprouted directly out of the bin, which kept them mostly confined. Since they weren't really in the way, and since we would have had to open up the bin to remove them, we let them stay put. And this week, when Brian went to trim the weeds around the compost bin, he uncovered this underneath one of the vines.

As far as we can tell, this is the offspring of a Galia melon (a cantaloupe-honeydew hybrid) that we bought last April to put into a fruit salad for a May Day morning potluck breakfast with our Morris dance team. If that's correct, then we should be able to tell it's ripe when it turns from green to yellow-orange. The closer to orange it gets, the sweeter it's liable to be. Since the Galia melon is a hybrid, I'm not getting my hopes up too much that this fruit will be as sweet and juicy as its parent. But just in case, I've tucked a flowerpot underneath it to get it off the ground so it won't rot from excess moisture.

Discovery #2: A found puppy

After completing his planter project in July, Brian had a lot of little scraps of wood left over. Last Sunday, he came across them in the workshop and thought he really ought to get rid of them. But since they were pressure-treated, he didn't want to burn them the way he usually does with chunks of wood too small to be useful. So, rather than just toss them in the trash, he decided to play with them a little and see if he could make them into anything interesting. He also had a bunch of wood screws we'd saved after dismantling the old patio set we replaced in June, so he grabbed his drill and a screwdriver bit and started piecing them together. And when I came into the shop to ask him a question, I found him putting the finishing touches on this little guy. 

Brian and I both decided, independently, that the most appropriate name for this new addition to our family was Woody. I adorned him with an old collar we'd bought that turned out to be too big for either of our cats, and we set him outside underneath the planters that are sort of his parents. He's close enough to the street that passersby can spot him if they're paying attention, but close enough to the house that he won't be mistaken for trash being discarded. Since he's made out of pressure-treated wood, he should hold up as long as the planters do, provided no one decides to steal him.

Discovery #3: Tofu pepperoni

After his semi-successful attempt at creating a vegan pizza topping from Soy Curls, Brian decided to try the same thing with tofu. He cut half a pound of tofu into thin strips and soaked it in a mixture of canola oil, Dijon mustard, soy sauce, Liquid Smoke, paprika, garlic powder, and ground red pepper and fennel seeds. Then he baked it for about 20 minutes at 350F before adding it to the pie, which he'd already loaded with eggplant, bell peppers, and our vegan mozzarella.  

The resulting concoction looked more similar to pepperoni than his previous attempt, but the flavor and texture were wider of the mark. The tofu didn't soak up the spice mixture as well as the Soy Curls, so it tasted mostly like tofu with a dusting of spice. And despite the pre-baking, it never really browned. The texture remained soft and tofu-like, not meaty and chewy.

So, we probably won't be using this recipe again (which is why I didn't reproduce it in full). But that doesn't make this attempt a failure. It just means that, like Thomas Edison, we have succeeded in finding a method that doesn't work.

Discovery #4: An easier way to milk almonds

A second kitchen experiment was a bit more successful. A few years ago, in an attempt to cut down on packaging waste, we experimented with making our own almond milk. The first version we tried, made from almond butter, was easy but not that milk-like. And the second version, made from whole, blanched almonds, was so much hassle that we decided it wasn't worth the effort. 

But this week, I started reconsidering the issue while reading the comments on a YouTube video titled (rather prematurely, I thought) "The DOWNFALL of Plant-Based Milks." Several comments remarked on how much cheaper it is to make your own, and the thought suddenly popped into my head, "Why not try starting with almond flour?" Almond flour is basically ground blanched almonds, so using it would eliminate two of the steps involved in making it from scratch. 

A quick search revealed that I was not the first to come up with this idea. Most of the recipes I found online called for a ratio of 1 cup of almond flour to 4 cups of water. They generally included dates for sweetening as well, and sometimes vanilla, but I decided not to bother with any of that. I figured if I wanted it sweeter, I could always add sugar after the fact.

So, one morning this week, Brian obligingly loaded half a cup of almond flour and 2 cups of water into our blender and ran it on high for three minutes, the minimum time most recipes recommend. He tried straining it with a fine mesh strainer, but it just ran right through, so he poured it through an old nylon stocking and squeezed out as much liquid as possible. And the result was...okay. The flavor was very almond-forward, much more so than the stuff we'd made from whole almonds, and entirely devoid of sweetness. The texture was watery and, even after straining, faintly gritty—nothing at all like the creamy smoothness of the emulsifier-laden commercial product. And, nutrition-wise, it has nowhere near the protein content of my Lidl soymilk.

So, sadly, this homemade almond milk isn't the cheap, sustainable milk alternative that will finally get those cardboard cartons out of our lives once and for all. But it is less work than the whole-almond method, so we'll keep it in mind as an emergency backup. If we ever run out of soymilk and can't easily make it to the store, this stuff should see us through until our next visit.

Discovery #5: Decorative basil

Several of the new crop varieties we ordered this year from True Leaf Market, our new seed supplier, have been distinctly underwhelming. The biggest disappointment: a Thai basil variety we tried called Red Leaf Holy Basil. The plants were quite healthy, but the leaves were entirely flavorless. This is not an exaggeration. When Brian used the Thai basil in a dish, neither of us could detect it at all. Even when I tried putting a fresh leaf in my mouth and chewing it up, I got nothing. It was indistinguishable from chewing on a blade of plain grass.

So, when I noticed yesterday that the plants had gone to flower, I thought, well, they're not doing any good here in the garden; why not just cut them and put them in vases? Waste not, want not. And while they're useless as food, they work rather well as decoration, so at least we'll get some use out of them. (But certainly not enough to justify devoting any garden space to them next year.)