Archive for the 'Going Green' Category
Turn Your Home Office Green
August 6th, 2008 categories: Around the House, Going Green
Home offices present a few challenges when it comes to being eco-friendly, mainly relating to energy and paper. Jennifer Roberts, the author of Good Green Homes, has come up with a few simple ways to save trees, conserve energy, and reduce the carbon footprint of your home office. Here are her seven tips, which were posted on This Old House:
1. Reduce paper use. Print only the emails and documents that you really need, and make double-sided printouts when possible. Subscribe to digital newsletters, opt out of paper billing, and register for online banking. “If you need to transmit a signed document, scan and email it instead of printing and faxing it,” says Roberts.
2. Reuse paper. Hold onto one-sided printouts and use them as notepaper. If you subscribe to magazines or printed newsletters, consider donating them to your local library or passing them on to a local salon or dentist’s office when you’re through with them.
3. Recycle paper. Keep a recycling bin right next to your regular trash container. “And, don’t just recycle—close the loop by buying recycled-content office products,” says Roberts. Recycled paper, envelopes, and packaging material are competitively priced at office supply stores.
4. Buy Energy Star equipment. “If you’re buying new office equipment, look for products with the Energy Star label. They’re designed to save a lot more energy than products without the label,” says Roberts. Keep in mind, that using less energy means your saving money, too.
5. Set your machinery to power-saving modes. According to Energy Star, you can save up to $75 per computer by activating system hibernate features and/or turning the power off on your equipment. Energy Star also suggests hitting the power button on your monitor when it’s not in use: leaving a monitor running with a screensaver activated can burn up to twice as much energy.
6. Use compact fluorescents. When considering options to light your office, choose compact fluorescents over incandescent bulbs. “They use 75% less energy and last 8 to 10 years,” says Roberts. Also, invest in a good task light on your desk so that you can kill the overhead lights when possible.
7. Buy sustainable or used furnishings. “Reusing furniture is a lot easier on the planet than buying new,” says Roberts. Visit FreeCycle.org to view listings posted by people looking to promote reuse by exchanging various goods. If you can’t find anything you like on the used market, go with a sustainable manufacturer. You can find information on sustainable furniture manufacturers at the Sustainable Furniture Council’s website.
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It’s Easy Being Green
June 26th, 2008 categories: Around the House, Going Green
Kermit the Frog may have a hard time being green, but it doesn’t have to be that way for you. Save energy and the environment with these simple ideas provided by HGTV.
Have a barbecue. Outdoor grills use less energy than electric kitchen stoves and also keep heat out of the house, lowering air conditioning costs.
Upgrade your toilet. Today’s low-flow toilets deliver more flush power with less water, trimming around $90 from your annual water costs.
Lose the lawnmower. Switch to an electric mower and replace some of your sod with attractive, more environmentally-friendly alternatives.
Get a flat screen monitor for your computer. An LCD flat panel model uses as little as a third of the electricity of conventional tube-based models.
Buy organic, locally produced food. You can get fresher food and, by buying items grown or produced within 100 miles, reduce the amount of diesel fuel needed to ship food.
Use safer paint. Choose a product low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or, if you don’t mind paint fumes, try recycled paints.
Get a solar-powered water heater. You can install solar panels on your roof that work with your current water heater and reduce the need for conventional water heating by two-thirds.
Buy new light bulbs. Compared to low-end compact fluorescent bulbs, the premium ones cast a pure white or buttery golden light across your interior.
Become an expert in recycling. Review your local recycling guidelines to make sure you’re doing everything right. And don’t put light bulbs, broken glass or bits of food in your bins.
Invite birds, bugs and bats into your yard. Skip the pesticides and get rid of bugs by using other animals like birds, Praying Mantises, bats and toads.
For even more ideas, read the book It’s Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living.
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The Gold Standard of Green
April 29th, 2008 categories: Around the House, Going Green
Here are a few of the “Greatest New Green Products” featured on This Old House:
Velux Skylight — You can now get hot water for free anywhere you can mount a skylight using the turn-key collector kit made by skylight manufacturer Velux. This kit comes with a electronically controlled pump, two collectors encased in the company’s weathertight frames, and a 60-gallon hot-water storage tank.
Fibertech Fencing — Fibertech’s composite fencing is made entirely from recycled materials—plastic and cardboard—destined for landfills. And when the time comes to replace it, it can be ground up and recycled again.
Earth To Air Geothermal — Al Gore Installed the Earth To Air geothermal heat pump in his house, boosting his energy efficiency beyond his greenest dreams. Compressed refrigerant pumps heat into his Tennessee home during the winter months and carries it out in the summer through a circuit of copper piping buried 300 feet in the ground.
Bosch 800-Series Dishwasher — Bosch’s top-of-the-line 800 series dishwashers, the most efficient on the market, use 190 kWh of energy per year. To put that in context, a dishwasher can use up to 330 kWh/year and still get Energy Star certification. Bosch says: “If every American purchased a Bosch dishwasher this year, the water saved would be enough to fill the U.S. Capitol Building 430 times.”
Kohler High-Efficiency Toilet — The old commode is the biggest water consumer in your home, sucking over one fourth of the average home’s H2O down the drain. Kohler’s High-Efficiency toilets, which use only 1.28 gallons per flush, reduce consumption by over 20 percent when compared to the average, 1.6-gpf standard.
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