private homes. Despite his initial pro- testations, Ed admits that he’s excited about the prospect. If there’s one thing he relishes, it’s a green challenge.
Life with Ed It’s not easy to live up to Ed’s 30-year- strong waste-nothing ethos. Although he first made a name for himself as an actor, initially as Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the 1980s TV show St. Elsewhere, fol- lowed by his recurring roles in the hit TV series Six Feet Under and Arrested
Development, as well as a co-starring role in Woody Allen’s 2009 film Whatever Works, lately he’s become best known as Hollywood’s green guru. He’s the people’s go-to expert on green building and saving energy, authoring the how-to books, Living Like Ed and Ed Begley, Jr.’s Guide to Sustainable Living. Ed is often spot- ted around Hollywood riding his bike, his preferred mode of travel; on weekdays, he and his daughter ride together to her school, pedaling two miles each way. This down-to-earth, affable man
is perhaps eco-conscious to a fault. The success of the show Living with Ed relied in great part on the watchdog antics of Ed catching his wife stuffing vegetable peelings down the garbage disposal, instead of in the compost bin, timing her long showers or opening a running dryer to discover Rachelle’s lone tank top inside. In each case, the chastised Rachelle vowed to be more eco-conscious, with a raised eyebrow aimed at the camera. “I felt vindicated,” Rachelle says of her reality show adventures. “They [the viewers] were going to side with me.”
If there’s any question that Ed’s needling occurs only when the cameras are on, his family members put those doubts to rest. Rachelle describes how her husband insists on keeping the temperature uncomfort- ably low on cold nights for the sake of saving energy; of turning off her curl- ing iron while it’s warming up if she leaves the room; or switching off the TV if she’s listening to it while getting dressed down the hall.
22 Tucson
Daughter Hayden’s biggest gripe
has to do with TV time. “I love to watch TV for hours on end,” she says. “My dad is very cautious about using power and we have to turn off several different things when we use the TV, like the DVR and its power switch.” But Ed insists that all these little
energy-saving strategies add up. While he was willing to recently trade his obsolete 1992 TV set for an HDTV, he knows it’s a major energy hog—and not only when someone’s watching it. “The phantom power can be as high as 100 watts per hour,” he says—that’s the power the TV consumes simply by being plugged in. “But,” he notes, “ if you have put power strips everywhere in the house and you just walk around and click off a few of them, all of that phantom power is turned off. Then, you can enjoy an appliance like that without using a tremendous amount of energy.” The sun may be an unlim- ited source of energy, but the solar power stored in their home’s batteries has limitations—and Ed is a vigilant watchdog. With rooftop solar panels provid- ing most of the home’s power, the Begleys remain blissfully unaware when there’s a power outage in the neighborhood. “I only find out about it when I walk to the post office and
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