Archive for the ‘living green’ Category
Remember the Draft Snakes?
During previous decades, “draft snakes” were regular accessories in many homes, particularly during the Great Depression and in other tight times, according to expert Brian Howard. But as current homeowners have gotten used to relatively cheap oil, these handy items have largely fallen out of favor. However reducing drafts in the home can cut down on energy use 5 to 30%, according to the U. S. Dept. of Energy.
Place a rolled bath tower or custom-made “draft snake” across the bottom of leaky doors and windows. This will improve the efficiency of heating and cooling, which are typically the biggest energy uses in the home, as well as make your rooms more comfortable.
The best thing about a “draft snake” is that it is an extremely cheap and easy way to green up your living space. You can buy premade ones, reuse an old towel or get crafty and make one out of scrap fabric, filled with sand or kitty litter for weight. Add humorous touches with googly eyes or felt tongues. Another idea: recycle old neckties into adorable “draft snakes.”
Here are 5 tips to tighten up your home’s envelope:
1. Seal your attic door
2. Install gaskets in outlets
3. Seal ductwork
4. Replace door gaskets
5. Repair window gaskets
Sealing against drafts will save you both energy and money.
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Tips for Living Greener
Here are some eco-friendly suggestions for living greener, ranging from the simple to the more extreme:
1. Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents. Switching to compact fluorescent lighting could save you $30. a year in electrical costs, and the bulbs last 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs.
2. Turn off your tap while brushing your teeth. It will save you 10 gallons of water each time you brush.
3. Put your computer on sleep mode when you are not using it during the day. This can reduce the compter’s energy usage by 80 percent.
4. Buy groceries in bulk, not only to save costs, but also to reduce the amount of excess packaging you are throwing away.
5. Unplug appliances and other devices such as cell phone chargers, when not in use.
6. Skip the dry cycle on your dishwasher.
7. Start a backyard garden and produce as many of your own vegetables and fruits as you can.
8. Sell all but one car and use the bus-system to get around. If that isn’t possible, at least reduce the number of car trips your family makes. Carpool, walk or ride a bike.
9. Buy 120 watts of solar panels, LED lights and a solar refrigerator to reduce energy consumption.
10. Reduce your debt and consumption of resources and goods, even if it means living in a smaller house than you currently own.
11. Don’t isolate yourself from nature. Take time to enjoy the natural world and share the experience with others.
Think GREEN, people are realizing the environment is worth taking care of…be an optimist…there are big challenges, but we’re capable of dealing with them.
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Is Your Garden Water-Wise?
If you garden consists of flowers, vegetables or a little of both, here are some tips to help you maintain a water-wise garden:
1. Water in the morning so roots have time to take up moisture before it evaporates during the heat of the day.
2. Install drip irrigation or soaker hoses to put water right at plants’ roots and prevent runoff.
3. Frequently check irrigation systems, sprinkler heads, etc. for leaks.
4. Water deeply but infrequently, causing roots to reach down into the soil for moisture and strengthen growth.
5. Use an organic mulch to keep roots moist and cool.
6. Reuse household water as much as possible (e.g.water from rinsing and cooking pasta and vegetables, cleaning aquariums and emptying coolers, vases, etc.)
7. Put up a rain gauge to help manage your water needs.
8. Clean decks, patios, sidewalks, etc, with a broom instead of a hose.
Remember, using rain barrels is a great way to water your garden and lawn and conserve water.
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Houseplants VS. VOCs
Houseplants can help remove certain harmful volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) from indoor air. Things nobody wants around their lungs or their kids.
According to NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA) in the late 1980’s they conducted a study of 19 houseplants and found that the plants had potential for capturing harmful gases. The study was an attempt to find ways to purify air for extended stays in orbiting space stations.
Many of these plants are adapted to tropical climates and grow under dense canopies and low-light conditions. They have to be superefficient in capturing light as well as in processing the gases necessary for photosynthesis. Because of these traits, they have greater potential for purifying the air in your home by capturing the harmful gases.
The next time you visit a local nursery, pick up a few of these common houseplants: palms, ferns, corn plant, dracaena, rubber plant, weeping ficus, english ivy, peace lily, dieffenbachia (dumb cane), schefflera, orchid, philodendron, pothos, dwarf banana and Chinese evergreen. Florist mums and gerber daisy will also do the job for you. What they learned in outer space can be applied to your inner space as well.
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Quiet as the Evening Breeze, Install An Attic Fan
Quiet as the evening breeze and almost as green-installing an attic fan can bring the ancient wisdom of natural ventilation to your home with modern technology. Man has harnessed natural ventilation to keep his dwellings cool, yet the contemporary house ignores this idea, relying instead on creating a sealed and expensive conditioned environment.
Summer temperatures in an attic can get up to 220 degrees, and fans can bring that down to 100 degrees, cooling your whole house. Make sure you have venting fans in your attic, the temperature controlled type being the best. The cold air your air conditioner produces is being heated by the hot ceiling, making your AC much less efficient.
Air conditioning is the biggest electricity user in many homes. An AirScape whole house fan (WHF) can reduce or even eliminate the need for A/C and dramatically lower home energy use and the cost by up to 50%. In dry climates where evenings cool off, it just makes sense to harness the cool air that mother nature provides, rather than expensively manufacturing your own.
AirScape whole house fans are much more sophisticated than the old whole house fan: modern, energy-efficient and very quiet using advanced noise -reduction strategies. They are designed to run all night, steadily drawing cool fresh air in through open windows while exhausting hot stale air out through the attic roof vents. This flow creates a comfortable, natural living and sleeping environment while drawing heat out of the structure to reduce A/C load for the next day.
Conserve energy, save money, and help the planet….You’ll be thrilled you did!
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Why Did Cacti Evolve?
One hypothesis is that cacti evolved to counter the effects of harsh solar radiation. According to researchers at the Institute of Geobiology in Chardonne, Switzerland, they announced in the mid -1980’s that tests showed employees who used to suffer from headaches and tiredness felt better after working for two years with a cactus next to their monitors.
If you’re worried about the uncertainty surrounding possible links to cancer and other problems from electromagnetic fields (the science is unproven) but why not play it safe and enjoy a little nature while you work?
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Greener Options for Keeping Cool
Ceiling fans do a nice job of circulating air in the rooms that you occupy most, and they use only about 1/30th the electricity of a room air conditioner. But if you can’t live without air conditioning, there are some greener options out there.
A single window unit that keeps one room cool is far less energy intensive and polluting than central air conditioning that keeps all the rooms in the house (including those you’re not using) cool. Look for new models that display the federal Energy Star label, which marks units as energy efficient.
By investing in an Energy-Star certified air conditioner, you will see substantial savings in your energy bills, as well as enjoying high quality. Maximizing energy efficiency is a great way to relieve stress on the over-taxed power grid. Room air conditioners must be a t least 10% more efficient than typical models to achieve Energy Star, and central air must be at least 14%.
When the heat is sweltering , cooling costs really add up across the country. Home buyers and sellers, FSBO, and those listed on the MLS are all interested in saving money and decreasing our carbon footprint while staying cool.
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Harvesting Rainwater with Rain Barrels
Collecting rainwater for use during dry months in rain barrels or other depositories is an ancient and traditonal practice. Historical records show that rainwater was collected in simple clay containers as far back as 2,000 years ago in Thailand and throughout other areas of the world after that. With the rising price of municipal water and drought restrictions now facing much of the United States during the summer months, more and more homeowners in our own modern society are turning to the harvesting of rainwater to save money and protect this precious natural resource.
If you aren’t ready to install a green roof yet, you can accomplish much the same thing by directing water from your roof into a rain barrel.
The main goal is to reduce the amount of storm water that runs off your property and into an overburdened sewer system. If you save that runoff and use it to water your plants, lawn or garden, you will be both conserving a valuable resource and saving money on your utility bill.
Most German houses have a rain gutter that leads to a collection water drum, which is used to hold rain runoff to water plants. Use of such devices is kinder to our ecosystem. This is a simple energy and water conservation technology that is easy to import.
If you are selling your home FSBO or listing on the MLS, this is a great tip to pass along to your home buyers.
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Catching the Sun-Solar Power Breakthrough
According to the Rocky Mountain News, a new factory that will make affordable solar panels from ordinary window panes is set to open in Colorado this year.
The AVA Solar Inc. project uses a technological breakthrough by Colorado State University researchers, and promises to produce solar panels at a price that is comparable to other forms of energy…potentially catapulting solar energy into the mainstream once and for all according to energy expert Dan Shapley.
Reaping what the sun gives naturally everyday is smart and efficient. The fewer “conversions” energy goes through the more efficient it is. If the sun drives the growth of a plant, turning that plant into fuel adds a conversion, and energy is lost. Letting that plant cook underground for millions of years until it becomes coal or oil is yet another inefficiency.
Solar power has never been very appealing, that’s the problem with it and it just costs too much. But the AVA Solar plan-should it prove to be as good as it says it is-along with other innovations are transforming solar power into a mainstream commodity. The project is one of 10 Photovoltaic Module Incubator projects funded by the Dept. of Energy’s Solar America Initiative. The program has the goal of driving technological innovations that makes the cost of solar energy competitive with traditional forms of electric production, like burning coal, oil and natural gas, says Shapley.
If every house had affordable solar panels supplying a portion of its electricity, the demand for electricity from heavy-polluting sources like coal-fired power plants would drop, along with emissions driving global warming, causing acid rain and poisoning lakes and streams with toxic mercury.
And the jobs created at the factory–as many as 500–show that dreams of a “green collar economy” that has at its heart technological innovation and high-tech manufacturing are a very real and lucrative path toward the future.
Energy is a necessity and clean renewable energy is an obligation to our earth and our future. Solar energy is currently available, cost effective and clean. It’s time for us to adopt solar energy systems.
For competitive cost estimates and expert advice check out www.energy-guru.com
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The Buzz on the Bees
Nearly one-third of America’s honeybees have vanished in the last two years-mysteriously abandoning their hives, never to return. Are you aware that every third bite of food of food we eat has been pollinated by an industrious honeybee?
Burt Shavitz, co-founder of Burt’s Bees, says “The bees’ survival depends on how we manage and protect our world.” Experts hypothesize that the likely culprits are pesticides, dwindling food supply and a new virus that appears to target the bees’ immune system. The bee die-off, known as colony collapse disorder , continues to alarm and puzzle scientists and beekeepers who fear the honeybee may be a modern-day canary in a coal mine.
Here’s what you can do to help the bees in your own backyard:
1. Replace some of your lawn with flower beds.
2. Plant native plant species which are well-suited for local bee populations.
3. Check out some honeybee resources at www.pollinator.org. You can get a free Pollinator Garden Wheel and a poster depicting North American Bee species.
4. Reduce or eliminate pesticides and insecticides in the garden whenever possible. Visit www.organicgardening.com for eco-friendly alternatives.
5. Choose plants that flower at various stages in the growing season to provide a consistent source of food for pollinators. For a free packet of bee-friendly flower seeds, visit www.burtsbees.com
Get Vanilla Honey Bee, a new Haagen-Dazs flavor launched in conjunction with www.helpthehoneybees.com, Haagen-Dazs’s campaign to raise consumer awareness about bees.
Remember, honeybees don’t just supply honey, the are vital in sustaining our food sources. Be a honey and help the bees!
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