December 15, 2023 • 10 mins
In this podcast episode, WCLN's Dan DeBruler interviews Lexi Hasapis from Fayetteville's Public Works Commission (PWC) about holiday tips. They discuss energy-saving strategies, electrical safety for Christmas decorations, and community events like Christmas in the park. Lexi offers advice on conserving energy in winter and mentions a bill credit for LED light purchases. She also encourages recycling Christmas trees through the city's mulching program. The episode focuses on enjoying a cost-effective, safe holiday season while collectively reducing energy consumption.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
The Daily Grind Rewind well as always, it's a joy to sit across from
you, Lexi hassapists from those PwCwith all sorts of Christmas tips and ways
that we can save this year.Lexi, thank you so much for being
here, Thanks for having us.We're so excited. Merry Christmas. Merry
Christmas to you. And there areso many things going on in the community,
so many things we can get engagedwith and involved with, and I
(00:23):
know Bable's PwC is involved with alot of those things, especially our downtown
area. This year. Absolutely,we have beautiful Christmas lights downtown. We
have lots of winter scapes downtown,huge human size Christmas lights. It's really
fun downtown. And we also haveChristmas in the Park, which I'm going
(00:44):
to today with my dogs. I'mreally excited. So they're going to see
all the lights in our Nett Parkand then there's also at the Cape Farra
Regional Botanical Garden we also have thatevent too, So there's a lot of
light bulbs, a lot of funstuff to see and a lot of those
that's are free. Now the ArnettPark lights, is that something that their
dogs ask for each year or dothey well. I saw a couple of
(01:08):
people last year bring their dogs andtheir dogs were just looking out the window
and so excited. And one ofmy coworkers took their dog yesterday and I
was like, well, if youdon't have children, maybe the dogs would
have fun. So we're going topile up in the car, get some
hot cocoa, and we're going togo take the dogs and see if they
like it. It is fun.I've only been out there one time personally,
and we went early, so itwasn't bad, you know, because
(01:30):
they do get a line. Nowthey work people through, but they do
get a line out there, andyou can see the other Christmas lights.
Depending on which direction you're going,they're white or they're red. Absolutely in
the Cumberland County or fayette Cumberland CountyParks and Wright do an excellent job every
single year with that. Yeah,that's a wonderful event. And speaking of
(01:51):
lights and beautiful displays, you know, lots of people light their home at
this time of year, and sothey may see a little difference in their
bill, but Fayetteville PwC has calledout of the way to make that a
little easier. Right, Absolutely,So if you have some of those old
school lights in the attic that youtake about two or three hours to you
know, get unwant wound, andthere are those old incandescent lights. We
(02:12):
have a bill credit available if yougo and buy new LED lights, and
if you go to any store rightnow, a lot of people have gone
and bought lights. So if you'vekept your receipts, you can always turn
them into PwC and depending on howmuch you've purchased, you can get up
to forty dollars on your bill andthat's it could be really significant and depending
on your bill and how you handlethe rest of your winner. Yeah,
and those LED lights are safer becausethey don't get hot because they don't use
(02:36):
This aboutch energy. Now, howlong do people have to turn those receipts
in to exchange it for that credit? Till the end of the year,
So hurry up, go look foryour receipts. Well, hopefully you do
have them. And you know,if there are many stores, some of
the bigger stores where if you shopand you're part of their shopping club or
whatever, you can always go onlineand get your receipts, so that's kind
(02:58):
of a bonus. Absolutely if youwhip out the card. Maybe some places
give you a discount and others thatyou can just find your receipt later.
And that's great for people like mebecause I never keep my receipt. Now,
there are some things that we shouldand should not do, and a
lot of times we get into theholiday season and there are so many other
things going on and we just kindof abandon some of the well really common
(03:20):
sense dos and don'ts. But inyour latest newsletter from VILLEPWC, you actually
have a naughty and nice holiday liston there. Tell us about that.
Absolutely to check out our website forall of those electrical safety tips. But
during this year, what we normallysee is people, you know, you've
got a lot going on, You'rebuying gifts, you're also still working,
you got family coming into town.You might forget if you have a live
(03:44):
Christmas tree, to keep that wateredagain, you have lights, it's attached
to electricity there, you need tomake sure that that tree is always hydrated.
Another thing that we see, unfortunately, is people are so excited to
put up their Christmas lights and theydon't pay attention to where necessarily they put
the ladder. And sometimes you'll putit, you know, on a light
pole, you could definitely damage thatlight pole, which is attached to not
(04:06):
just electrical lines which are very dangerous, but also your internet, your phone
lines, and things like that,so definitely be careful about that. We
have a great video on our YouTubechannel that has a lot of safety tips
from our safety director. Something thatshe says she sees a lot is,
you know, you have a threefoot extension cord, but you really need
a five foot so you put twotogether and that is not good. That's
(04:29):
not how they're intended to work.So if you can just go to the
store and get yourself a six orseven foot extension cord to be a little
bit more safe, or you know, people don't like to look at extension
cords, so they run them underthe carpet or things like that. But
they can also get worn down frompeople stepping on them, and if they
get frayed, you could start afire. So we really want people to
not just save on the usage duringthe holidays, but also keep yourself safe
(04:53):
because we don't want any kind ofaccidents while you're enjoying your beautiful Christmas lights.
Yeah, and you can't think ofwhat you should and shouldn't do.
And you don't have a copy ofthe newsletter, handy, just watch National
Lampoon's Christmas vacation and don't do everythingthat they did. Yeah, although that
was funny. Yes, if thosethings happen for real, it's really funnier
(05:13):
to watch in this experience. Youknow, several years ago I met one
of my new neighbors as a resultof me not doing something as safety consciously
as I could have when I wasclimbing on the roof and the ladder fell.
I'm like, oh, come on, man, and you know,
so my neighbor wanders across the streetand from the ground he says, you
need help. Yes, thank you. Yeah. Unfortunately, we're just all
(05:35):
busy during the holidays and sometimes youjust forget these very simple things, like
you said, And we just wantto keep all of our customers and the
listening audience as safe as possible.Yeah, And you know, moving beyond
the Christmas season, I know,typically the coldest time of the year,
at least since I have been here, has those times have come in January
and February. And there are alot of people near where I live who
(05:58):
have irrigation systems, who have youin ground sprinkler systems. Are there some
things that we can do specifically toprepare for that? What can we do
now to prepare for that time?It's coming? Absolutely? Actually this week
we've had some below freezing temperatures,and if you have any water in your
back flows, even if you're asmall business and you have a backflow prevention
device and there's water in there,water can expand and it can actually break
(06:21):
your pipes. Your water could berunning and you don't even know about it.
So you can check out our websitefor some specific tips. But you
can insulate it. Whether it's ablanket, whether it's just some fabric or
some pool noodles, whatever it mightbe. You can actually get the water
taken out. There's like a littlehose on there. You can drain that
just like you would in your home. You'd want to keep those pipes as
(06:42):
warm as possible so that water doesn'tfreeze, and same thing goes for inside.
Open up your kitchen cabinets, yourbathroom cabinets when it's below freezing to
let the heat that you're already usingin your home keep those pipes from freezing.
Now, you mentioned pool noodles andI discovered those several years ago.
The ice really easy and they aregreat for covering the valve on, you
(07:04):
know, to spick it on yourhouse and things like that to keep those
pipes from freezing. Because it's amazinghow quickly that happens. You know,
once the icing starts, it justkind of keeps traveling up the line.
Next thing you know, you know, you're visiting with a plumber. Yeah,
thank you to whoever invented pool noodles. We've been using them in all
kinds of creative ways. Yeah.Well, again, you know, we
(07:25):
are in a time of year whenwe use a little bit more energy,
you know, because we didn't takeadvantage of the PWEC incentive and get all
new LED lights. So what aresome of the things that we can do
to conserve at this time of theyear, Because you know, we're going
to have more people over, thedoor is going to swing open and close
maybe a little bit more, andas it gets cooler, we're heating it
(07:46):
more. What are some things thatwe can do to help us save absolutely
Well, if you don't want tospend any money and you want to try
to save, then I would suggestdoing things like keeping your window blines open
during the day so the sun canget into your house, closing them night
to keep the heat in and thinkingabout you know, weather stripping or you
know, you could just go forten dollars and get some weather stripping and
(08:07):
put it around your door. Veryinexpensive type things. You know, I
like before I go to bed,my house to be toasty. But you
don't need to do five, six, seven, to ten degrees at a
time. Two degrees at a timeis reasonable. Unfortunately, if you have
a heat pump and it is belowthirty two degrees, you're going to be
using auxiliary heat. So just knowingthat ahead of time, auxiliary heat and
(08:28):
emergency heat used three times as muchelectricity, so you're going to be using
it anyway. So really try maybeduring the day put that through the temperature
down just a little bit so maybeyou can conserve a little bit during the
day. So at night when thatthree times energy auxiliary heat, you know,
ramps up your you know, tryingto at least you know, use
(08:50):
less during the day, so there'sjust a lot Unfortunately during the summer,
I mean during the winter, thatis going to increase your usage. Now
you and I have talked about keepingthe blinds open. We've talked about that
before, and we're at that timeof the year now where the afternoon sun
warms the studios where we're sitting andwarms most of our office areas further into
(09:11):
the building, as opposed to endthe summer when we wish we could get
away. Absolutely, you can alwaystell my dog is wherever the warmth is
in the house, so that definitelydoes help. And you know you could
turn your thermoseet down just a littlebit. Well, whatever you do,
I hope that you find a wayto save energy in your home and take
(09:31):
those practices into wherever you work andhelp make good conscious decisions there and conserve
energy. And it's not just toconserve on your bill. It's because it
causes the price to come down foreveryone. When we use less collectively,
we're able to have to pay lesscollectively as well and individually. Absolutely,
(09:52):
and it just f y. Ifyou have a real Christmas tree and you're
keeping it hydrated, even if you'renot keeping it hydrated, and you live
in the city limits, curb yourChristmas tree. Put it on the curb
by January seventh, and it couldbe part of our grinding of the greens
where we grind it all up withthe City of Fable and they use it
as free mulch instead of putting itin the landfill. Well again, Merry
Christmas to you, and I hopeyou have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season
(10:15):
with your family and you see allthe people that you know and love and
have a chance to hug their neckand maybe share a cup of cocoa with
them this year. Absolutely, MerryChristmas.
The Daily Grind Rewind well as always, it's a joy to sit across from
you, Lexi hassapists from those PwCwith all sorts of Christmas tips and ways
that we can save this year.Lexi, thank you so much for being
here, Thanks for having us.We're so excited. Merry Christmas. Merry
Christmas to you. And there areso many things going on in the community,
so many things we can get engagedwith and involved with, and I
(00:23):
know Bable's PwC is involved with alot of those things, especially our downtown
area. This year. Absolutely,we have beautiful Christmas lights downtown. We
have lots of winter scapes downtown,huge human size Christmas lights. It's really
fun downtown. And we also haveChristmas in the Park, which I'm going
(00:44):
to today with my dogs. I'mreally excited. So they're going to see
all the lights in our Nett Parkand then there's also at the Cape Farra
Regional Botanical Garden we also have thatevent too, So there's a lot of
light bulbs, a lot of funstuff to see and a lot of those
that's are free. Now the ArnettPark lights, is that something that their
dogs ask for each year or dothey well. I saw a couple of
(01:08):
people last year bring their dogs andtheir dogs were just looking out the window
and so excited. And one ofmy coworkers took their dog yesterday and I
was like, well, if youdon't have children, maybe the dogs would
have fun. So we're going topile up in the car, get some
hot cocoa, and we're going togo take the dogs and see if they
like it. It is fun.I've only been out there one time personally,
and we went early, so itwasn't bad, you know, because
(01:30):
they do get a line. Nowthey work people through, but they do
get a line out there, andyou can see the other Christmas lights.
Depending on which direction you're going,they're white or they're red. Absolutely in
the Cumberland County or fayette Cumberland CountyParks and Wright do an excellent job every
single year with that. Yeah,that's a wonderful event. And speaking of
(01:51):
lights and beautiful displays, you know, lots of people light their home at
this time of year, and sothey may see a little difference in their
bill, but Fayetteville PwC has calledout of the way to make that a
little easier. Right, Absolutely,So if you have some of those old
school lights in the attic that youtake about two or three hours to you
know, get unwant wound, andthere are those old incandescent lights. We
(02:12):
have a bill credit available if yougo and buy new LED lights, and
if you go to any store rightnow, a lot of people have gone
and bought lights. So if you'vekept your receipts, you can always turn
them into PwC and depending on howmuch you've purchased, you can get up
to forty dollars on your bill andthat's it could be really significant and depending
on your bill and how you handlethe rest of your winner. Yeah,
and those LED lights are safer becausethey don't get hot because they don't use
(02:36):
This aboutch energy. Now, howlong do people have to turn those receipts
in to exchange it for that credit? Till the end of the year,
So hurry up, go look foryour receipts. Well, hopefully you do
have them. And you know,if there are many stores, some of
the bigger stores where if you shopand you're part of their shopping club or
whatever, you can always go onlineand get your receipts, so that's kind
(02:58):
of a bonus. Absolutely if youwhip out the card. Maybe some places
give you a discount and others thatyou can just find your receipt later.
And that's great for people like mebecause I never keep my receipt. Now,
there are some things that we shouldand should not do, and a
lot of times we get into theholiday season and there are so many other
things going on and we just kindof abandon some of the well really common
(03:20):
sense dos and don'ts. But inyour latest newsletter from VILLEPWC, you actually
have a naughty and nice holiday liston there. Tell us about that.
Absolutely to check out our website forall of those electrical safety tips. But
during this year, what we normallysee is people, you know, you've
got a lot going on, You'rebuying gifts, you're also still working,
you got family coming into town.You might forget if you have a live
(03:44):
Christmas tree, to keep that wateredagain, you have lights, it's attached
to electricity there, you need tomake sure that that tree is always hydrated.
Another thing that we see, unfortunately, is people are so excited to
put up their Christmas lights and theydon't pay attention to where necessarily they put
the ladder. And sometimes you'll putit, you know, on a light
pole, you could definitely damage thatlight pole, which is attached to not
(04:06):
just electrical lines which are very dangerous, but also your internet, your phone
lines, and things like that,so definitely be careful about that. We
have a great video on our YouTubechannel that has a lot of safety tips
from our safety director. Something thatshe says she sees a lot is,
you know, you have a threefoot extension cord, but you really need
a five foot so you put twotogether and that is not good. That's
(04:29):
not how they're intended to work.So if you can just go to the
store and get yourself a six orseven foot extension cord to be a little
bit more safe, or you know, people don't like to look at extension
cords, so they run them underthe carpet or things like that. But
they can also get worn down frompeople stepping on them, and if they
get frayed, you could start afire. So we really want people to
not just save on the usage duringthe holidays, but also keep yourself safe
(04:53):
because we don't want any kind ofaccidents while you're enjoying your beautiful Christmas lights.
Yeah, and you can't think ofwhat you should and shouldn't do.
And you don't have a copy ofthe newsletter, handy, just watch National
Lampoon's Christmas vacation and don't do everythingthat they did. Yeah, although that
was funny. Yes, if thosethings happen for real, it's really funnier
(05:13):
to watch in this experience. Youknow, several years ago I met one
of my new neighbors as a resultof me not doing something as safety consciously
as I could have when I wasclimbing on the roof and the ladder fell.
I'm like, oh, come on, man, and you know,
so my neighbor wanders across the streetand from the ground he says, you
need help. Yes, thank you. Yeah. Unfortunately, we're just all
(05:35):
busy during the holidays and sometimes youjust forget these very simple things, like
you said, And we just wantto keep all of our customers and the
listening audience as safe as possible.Yeah, And you know, moving beyond
the Christmas season, I know,typically the coldest time of the year,
at least since I have been here, has those times have come in January
and February. And there are alot of people near where I live who
(05:58):
have irrigation systems, who have youin ground sprinkler systems. Are there some
things that we can do specifically toprepare for that? What can we do
now to prepare for that time?It's coming? Absolutely? Actually this week
we've had some below freezing temperatures,and if you have any water in your
back flows, even if you're asmall business and you have a backflow prevention
device and there's water in there,water can expand and it can actually break
(06:21):
your pipes. Your water could berunning and you don't even know about it.
So you can check out our websitefor some specific tips. But you
can insulate it. Whether it's ablanket, whether it's just some fabric or
some pool noodles, whatever it mightbe. You can actually get the water
taken out. There's like a littlehose on there. You can drain that
just like you would in your home. You'd want to keep those pipes as
(06:42):
warm as possible so that water doesn'tfreeze, and same thing goes for inside.
Open up your kitchen cabinets, yourbathroom cabinets when it's below freezing to
let the heat that you're already usingin your home keep those pipes from freezing.
Now, you mentioned pool noodles andI discovered those several years ago.
The ice really easy and they aregreat for covering the valve on, you
(07:04):
know, to spick it on yourhouse and things like that to keep those
pipes from freezing. Because it's amazinghow quickly that happens. You know,
once the icing starts, it justkind of keeps traveling up the line.
Next thing you know, you know, you're visiting with a plumber. Yeah,
thank you to whoever invented pool noodles. We've been using them in all
kinds of creative ways. Yeah.Well, again, you know, we
(07:25):
are in a time of year whenwe use a little bit more energy,
you know, because we didn't takeadvantage of the PWEC incentive and get all
new LED lights. So what aresome of the things that we can do
to conserve at this time of theyear, Because you know, we're going
to have more people over, thedoor is going to swing open and close
maybe a little bit more, andas it gets cooler, we're heating it
(07:46):
more. What are some things thatwe can do to help us save absolutely
Well, if you don't want tospend any money and you want to try
to save, then I would suggestdoing things like keeping your window blines open
during the day so the sun canget into your house, closing them night
to keep the heat in and thinkingabout you know, weather stripping or you
know, you could just go forten dollars and get some weather stripping and
(08:07):
put it around your door. Veryinexpensive type things. You know, I
like before I go to bed,my house to be toasty. But you
don't need to do five, six, seven, to ten degrees at a
time. Two degrees at a timeis reasonable. Unfortunately, if you have
a heat pump and it is belowthirty two degrees, you're going to be
using auxiliary heat. So just knowingthat ahead of time, auxiliary heat and
(08:28):
emergency heat used three times as muchelectricity, so you're going to be using
it anyway. So really try maybeduring the day put that through the temperature
down just a little bit so maybeyou can conserve a little bit during the
day. So at night when thatthree times energy auxiliary heat, you know,
ramps up your you know, tryingto at least you know, use
(08:50):
less during the day, so there'sjust a lot Unfortunately during the summer,
I mean during the winter, thatis going to increase your usage. Now
you and I have talked about keepingthe blinds open. We've talked about that
before, and we're at that timeof the year now where the afternoon sun
warms the studios where we're sitting andwarms most of our office areas further into
(09:11):
the building, as opposed to endthe summer when we wish we could get
away. Absolutely, you can alwaystell my dog is wherever the warmth is
in the house, so that definitelydoes help. And you know you could
turn your thermoseet down just a littlebit. Well, whatever you do,
I hope that you find a wayto save energy in your home and take
(09:31):
those practices into wherever you work andhelp make good conscious decisions there and conserve
energy. And it's not just toconserve on your bill. It's because it
causes the price to come down foreveryone. When we use less collectively,
we're able to have to pay lesscollectively as well and individually. Absolutely,
(09:52):
and it just f y. Ifyou have a real Christmas tree and you're
keeping it hydrated, even if you'renot keeping it hydrated, and you live
in the city limits, curb yourChristmas tree. Put it on the curb
by January seventh, and it couldbe part of our grinding of the greens
where we grind it all up withthe City of Fable and they use it
as free mulch instead of putting itin the landfill. Well again, Merry
Christmas to you, and I hopeyou have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season
(10:15):
with your family and you see allthe people that you know and love and
have a chance to hug their neckand maybe share a cup of cocoa with
them this year. Absolutely, MerryChristmas.
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