Blog
Healthy Home Tip #3: Filter Your Air
In green building literature, the primary aspect of a healthy home is indoor air quality. How many times have you walked into a home and smelled a peculiar odor? Does your own home have a smell? That can be a sign of an unhealthy home. Many people think that if they...
Healthy Home Tip #2: Filter Your Water
We drink water, water is the main ingredient in many things like coffee, tea, and soups, we bathe and wash clothes in water. Because of water’s omnipresence, I put filtered water at the top of the list of priorities for having a healthy home. We cannot live without...
Healthy Home Tip #1: Awareness
Welcome to Season Two, which ties in with Spring Cleaning! In Season One, we looked at reducing energy and water consumption to save money on our utility bills and, indirectly, improve our health by helping to burn less fossil fuel. Energy and water efficiency are...
Home Efficiency Tip #12: Learn More
The tips I have included for lowering energy and water usage in the home really only scratch the surface. They also only deal with today’s technology, which is changing very rapidly. So how to you keep up with the possibilities? Local Resources For those concerned...
Home Efficiency Tip #11(C ): Pros and Cons of Solar Thermal
Full disclosure: we did not install solar thermal in our home, so I know less about it -- but we did consider it, and I used to work for a company that sold these systems, so I know a enough about it to provide a good overview. Solar thermal basically takes the sun’s...
Home Efficiency Tip #11(B): Pros and Cons of Solar Electric
Next up: Solar Photovoltaics. The first thing that everyone needs to know about solar energy is that there are two basic types of solar panels: those that provide electricity (photovoltaic panels, or PV), and those that provide heat. They are two entirely different...
Home Efficiency Tip #11(A): Pros and Cons of Geothermal
“Geothermal” is a bit of a misnomer, because true geothermal works only in specific geographical places where there are hot spots in the ground. Most people who use this term are referring to ground-source heat pumps, which take the relative heat and cooling from the...
Home Efficiency Tip #11 – Investments in Big Energy Savings: Cost/Benefit Analysis 101
The first ten tips I have offered so far have been relatively easy and inexpensive to implement. This final tip before the last “learn more” tip tackles the bigger things that are not easy and not inexpensive—but in my experience can be totally worth it in the long...
Home Efficiency Tip #10: Small Behavior Changes
I have saved this tip (which is really a group of tips) for one of the later weeks in the quarter, mostly because these are the ones you see in all the other typical “Top Ten Ways to Go Green.” To me, they are the boring, same-old-same-old tips that we saw at the end...
Home Efficiency Tip #9: Rethink that Lawn
Here’s an energy-saving tip--and pollution-saving tip--that some people don’t always consider because it’s been so ingrained in our culture that we must have vast lawns: get rid of some of it! Portions of lawns can be converted to many different things: native...
Home Efficiency Tip #8: 3 Easy Ways to Save Water (and Energy)
This first quarter of the year is supposed to be devoted to tips on home energy savings, but it would not be complete without talking about water. Saving water also saves energy, especially if you are talking about saving hot water, because it takes energy to make it...
Home Efficiency Tip #7: Replace that OLD Refrigerator
You always see that boring reminder on lists of how to go green: buy Energy Star appliances. Does this resonate with anyone? Most appliances have Energy Star Ratings -- you see the little yellow sticker that estimates the number of kilowatt hours per year the...
Photo credit: Paul Crosby