Save 50% on Your Monthly Water Bill with a $5 Bucket

Water is a big problem for us today - not only here in sunny San Diego, CA, but the world at large.  The dwindling stock of fresh water supplies is no secret to anyone who has picked up a Wall Street Journal within the last three years.  We have discussed water at length here given that the City of San Diego approved major annual rates hikes for water supplies for the next few years.

To that end, here is another little step each of us can do to save more water than we probably thought: recover and save the excess water running from your shower while you wait for the water to get hot.  You will be absolutely amazed at how much water is wasted while we wait for our water to get hot - even if you do have a hot water pump in your house or an instant hot water heater.

This savings is created by the fact that there is actually quite a bit of water just sitting in your pipes in between your shower head and the water source.  Doesn't sound like much water, right?  That is what I thought too.

Five gallon bucket = BIG $$$ savings on water bill

I started running this experiment in my own home a few months ago.  I bought a simple five gallon bucket from Ace Hardware and put it under my shower head where it collected excess water while I waited for the shower to heat up.  It is worth noting that all of my showers are fitted with SDG&E supplied Energy Saver (low-flow) Shower heads, so wasted water is already kept to a minimum.  The shower I used for this experiment is also located just ten feet from the water heater.  I was trying to use the most efficient setup possible to see what a minimum savings/efficiency threshold would look like.

After just one week I found that I was saving five gallons every two days taking just one shower a day from the shower just ten feet from the water heater and outfitted with a high-efficiency shower head.  Wow.  I had so much excess water that I began to dump my excess shower water into a large spare trash can.  I filled the large trash can in a little under three weeks.  I now use this water to irrigate my yard.  I have completely shutdown my backyard irrigation system and gone to just using a simple backpack-style hand pump sprayer (similar to one you would use for insecticide).

My water bill was cut in half.  That's right - a 50% reduction in water consumption and no adverse consequences to show for it.  If anything, I found my yard was getting TOO MUCH water using just the shower excess (my backyard is well shaded) and I have now started to use the water in the front yard too, but there is not enough water savings to completely replace irrigation in the front yard, unfortunately.


Is this a particularly big deal in the scheme of things?  No, not at all.  But you might be able to save yourself 50% per month on your water bill - especially if you have a family or a large house.  Now I would say that is something worth noting.

These same types of practices are applied everyday here at Old Town Plaza - Old Town's Greenest Commercial Office Building.  To find out more about what we are doing at Old Town Plaza to reduce our environmental impact or about how you can get into the premier commercial office space in Old Town, check out our website at www.LeaseOldTown.com or call our office to schedule a tour.  Our available listings can be found here: http://www.leaseoldtown.com/leasing.html

Space is limited and going fast, so call today!

New Ad Campaign - Farmers Insurance Agency

Check out this new ad campaign for Old Town Plaza's very own Farmer's Insurance Agency featuring Jasmine Guerrero and Brent McKiernan:


http://www.1888lowermy.com/JasmineGuerreroAgency

The ads will run on Fox 5 San Diego for one year starting tomorrow.

Our Garbage – what is it and where does it go?

A big part of our mission here at Intermarket is reducing costs for our customers by reducing superfluous consumption. We control CAMs by reducing energy waste and using our building systems more efficiently. We reduce our carbon footprint by reducing water deliveries and going to filtration systems. We reduce TI costs by recycling our doors. We reduce administrative expenses by printing on both sides of the paper here in our office and recycling old paper from old files that we don't need anymore. These efficiencies are passed on directly to our tenants in the form of property improvement projects, lower operating costs and more competitive lease rates which deliver the best overall value in our sub-market.


I recently learned about how this can be done on a much larger scale...with garbage. Literally.


Like most people, I rarely gave any thought whatsoever to the waste I produced everyday. In fact, in 90% of my daily activity, I often didn’t know that I was producing waste at all. For example, we often get our groceries bagged in plastic or paper bags only to throw them away or use them for trash for something else like food waste. This trend seems to be bucking, however, as we see more and more reusable grocery bags everyday. In the office, simply taking paper that has been printed on one side and recycling it through the printer to print on the other side will literally cut your paper consumption in half.


Trash does have an upside though. Every year, we generate more than 250 million tons of garbage here in the US. This waste helps to fuel (literally and figuratively) a $52 billion/year industry. This trash is trucked off to landfills which have proven to be modern engineering marvels in and of themselves. The decomposing garbage creates Methane and Lechate gas. This gas is harvested using gas wells in the landfill. The methane gas is then burned to create steam and spine turbines to generate electricity. At the BMW Plant in South Carolina, the entire factory is powered by a Waste Management Landfill producing methane gas for steam turbines. The plant is literally powered by trash.1


The largest landfills, which cost over $1 million/acre to construct, can produce enough gas to power over one million homes per year! This saves us about 13 million barrels of oil per year.2


So, the next time you go to hit the print button, I would encourage you to think PDF first. We have to start somewhere, but every little bit helps.


For a detailed look at our trash problems and how we can do our part to reduce waste in general, check out this CNBC Special Report called “TRASH INC – THE SECRET LIFE OF GARBAGE.”


Citations and References:



1 “Trash Inc. – The Secret Life of Garbage” CNBC, 2010: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38830389

2 “Trash Inc. – The Secret Life of Garbage” CNBC, 2010: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38830389

"Disposable" Plastics

Last Saturday, as part of their "Green Screen Series," the San Diego Film Festival featured the film Bag It. This documentary clearly, and often humorously, outlines the sheer stupidity of single-use plastic products. Following the story of the plastic bag exposes the tremendous environmental and societal impact of disposable plastics. The film poses a simple question: Why are we using a highly durable material made from a finite resource (petroleum) for products that are discarded in a matter of minutes and take centuries to decompose? The statistics are startling. The United States is currently consuming approximately 1 million single use plastic bags per MINUTE!


Bag It Intro from Suzan Beraza on Vimeo.

Though the scale of this problem appears daunting, it is also a problem that everyone can help solve. The Bag It website offers a wealth of tips to make life with less plastic possible. The film makers are trying to distribute Bag It through more mainstream channels. Until that time please visit their website and pass along this information.

Tenant Lunch Hosted by Cox Business - October 22, 2010

Owner/Operator - OTP

In conjunction with Anthony Perez and Macie Rookus at Cox Business Services, we are pleased to announce that we will be holding another tenant-lunch event on October 22, 2010 from 1130-1330 in the Courtyard here at Old Town Plaza.  The event is being sponsored by Cox Business Services who will also be providing lunch for everyone.  Over the last few months, we have been working closely with Anthony and his team from Cox Business to ensure that Old Town Plaza has the latest in available communications infrastructure desired by our customers.  This project is part of our continuing effort to keep Old Town Plaza in the lead as the premier commercial office building here in the Old Town sub-market.

Cox Business at Old Town Plaza

Anthony and his team from Cox Business Services will be on-site throughout the event to answer any questions you might have about ways Cox can help your business with voice and data solutions.  Cox Business Services will also have Technicians on-site for existing Cox Business Customers who have issues or questions with existing systems.  The Techs will be available for trouble-shooting as well.

RSVP's are not necessary for this event.  We hope that this will be a beneficial event for all of our valued customers here at Old Town Plaza.  See you then!

Commercial Real Estate Customer Testimonial: Doug Dickerson from KW Advisors

We recently did a deal with Doug Dickerson from KW Advisors and it was quite possibly the smoothest, most professional deal Matt and I have ever done.  This was due in no small part to Doug Dickerson of KW Advisors.  His client, Traffic Geyser, LLC, took delivery of a commercial office suite here at Old Town Plaza this past weekend.  Here is what Mr. Dickerson had to say about his experience here at Old Town Plaza.  We believe the note speaks for itself (published here at OTP's LeaseOldTown.net with permission from Mr. Dickerson):

Matt & Justin,

I hope things are going well over at OTP as you near full occupancy.

In addition, I would like to say that this was one of the more enjoyable deals that I have worked on. The response times, good will, and professionalism were all top notch.

Thanks,


Doug Dickerson | Associate Director

KW Commercial  | Corporate Advisory Services

12265 El Camino Real, Suite 180 | San Diego, CA 92130

858.243.2608 - Cell | 858.436.8303 - Office

Lic. #01824183

Old Town Plaza Welcomes Gamesa Energy USA, LLC!

This month we are pleased to announce the move-in of Gamesa Energy USA, LLC to Old Town Plaza.  Gamesa Energy USA, LLC is a global innovator and leading manufacturer of wind turbines in the renewable energy sector.  They are also a significant developer of wind power generation facilities.  Gamesa needed to relocate their West Coast Development offices to a suitable commercial office building in San Diego from Austin, TX on extremely short notice and Old Town Plaza made it happen! 

Welcome Gamesa Energy USA, LLC!