Top 5 Winter Home Energy Savings Measures
By Andy Mazal
Filed Under Green Living | 1 Comment
Solar panels, carbon credits, wind turbines or remodeling the place you live are some of the most common things we are served up when asked what we can do to begin the process of being more environmentally responsible in our day-to-day living. These options are great if you can afford a $10,000 solar installation or $15,000 for new windows, let alone a $100,000 home renovation, but for most people who really do want to make changes in how they are living, these are simply not realistic options. Yet the fact is that most of us live in structures that were not designed to function in synergy with their environment: they are oriented in the wrong direction, have poor insulation, improperly placed windows, leaks in the duct work, inefficient appliances and generally work against us despite our desire to shift into the green.
Great news: You’ve still got options. There are very viable, relatively inexpensive and simple changes you can make to your home or apartment to increase its energy efficiency and save yourself real money on your energy bills (and help to save the planet, while you’re at it). Because winter is quickly approaching we’ll concentrate on things you can do now to reduce your energy bills during the coming winter. Energy usage in winter is dominated in most parts of North America by heating, we’ll focus on those things you can do to keep that expensive heat inside and keep the cold outside, where it belongs.
Here are five things that you can get started on today to prepare your house for the winter heating season:
1. Get a Home Energy Audit - Before you set out to fix a problem, you first have to identify what that problem is. That’s where an energy audit comes in. An energy audit is performed by a trained and licensed technician using specialized equipment to discover where your house (or apartment, condo, whatever) is wasting energy. The auditor will check your insulation and duct work (if you have ducts) and will scan the various “penetrations” in your house to see where you might be leaking energy. “Penetrations” are such things as your windows and doors, outlets, switches, attic hatches, etc. — basically anywhere that there is a hole in your wall. He or she will look for air leaks that can let heat out (and cold in) so you can take corrective action to plug these leaks. The auditor will also inspect most of the other sources of energy usage in your house such as furnaces and boilers, lighting, appliances, etc. You will be provided with a customized report detailing the auditor’s findings, which usually also includes advice about what you should do to improve your house’s efficiency. Energy audits aren’t that expensive — a few hundred dollars at most — and they yield a treasure trove of good information you can use to fix your house’s energy problems. It’s quite possible that you’ll recover the cost of your audit with the energy you save in the first year.
The US Department of Energy has a decent web site with advice on where to find an energy auditor and what to ask them. Also, be sure to check with your local municipalities to see if they have a subsidized energy audit program; if they do, it could cut the cost of your energy audit in half.
2. Check your attic insulation - If you live in a house or townhouse that is more than a few years old then it’s likely that you could benefit from additional insulation in the attic. Almost all houses built before the 1990s have inadequate insulation, as are many houses from the 1990s and 2000s - even if your attic insulation meets current building codes! That’s because building codes in most of the country are simply inadequate when it comes to insulation. The US Department of Energy recommends that attics in most of the country be insulated to R-49, which is equivalent to about 14-16 inches of blown cellulose insulation or fiberglass batt insulation. So if you have less than that in your attic, have some more insulation added. Of course, insulation in walls is also very important, but adding insulation to walls is generally a much more complicated operation, since your walls are sealed from all sides (i.e., you have to somehow get inside the wall to add insulation). In contrast, most attics are accessible so it’s usually a relatively simple task to beef up attic insulation. So, concentrate on the “low hanging fruit” of your attic first, and we’ll focus on what to do about your walls in a later post.
3. Repair leaks in duct work - Ducts are notorious wasters of energy. It’s not unusual to have half or more of the air flowing through your ducts escape before it gets to its destination because of leaky duct work. Sealing your duct work, therefore, targets a major energy waster by ensuring that your expensive heated (or cooled) air gets to where you want it to go, rather than being leaked into your attic or inside your walls. However, sealing your ducts can be very easy or very difficult, depending on the configuration of your home and where your ducts are located. If you have a one-story house with a unfinished basement and the duct work running along the basement ceiling, it’s easy. If your house is two or more stories with duct work running through the walls, it’s obviously much more complicated. But, you can usually access some of your duct work, particularly near the furnace, and even if you seal just the little bit you can reach you’ll have a positive impact. How do you seal your ducts? NOT with duct tape! There is a saying in the industry that you can use duct tape for just about anything EXCEPT on ducts. Instead, you’ll use duct mastic, a thick, sticky, gooey substance that you brush on the joints of your ducts, where it hardens and completely seals the ducts. It flows into the cracks of the joints and forms a tight, permanent seal. You can find mastic at many hardware or home improvement stores and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) supply stores.
Hint: Wear rubber gloves and old grungy clothes when you’re using this stuff, as it will, for sure, get on you. Also, buy a few of those cheap disposable brushes called “chip brushes” to apply it with because whatever brush you use to apply it will get destroyed. Better to destroy an 89 cent chip brush than a $15 paint brush.
4. Check the weather stripping on your doors and windows - Despite that this is perennially one of the most common pieces of energy saving advice, and one of the easiest to undertake, it’s surprising how many poorly sealed doors and windows still exist out in the wild. For doors, a very simple way to check if you need new or better weather stripping is to stand outside at night and close the door while someone inside shines a lamp or flashlight around the edges of the door. If you can see light leaking around the edge of the door, you have a leak where warm air can escape and cold air can get in. Windows need weather stripping also, though the correct type of product depends on the window type and material - ask your local hardware store for advice. There are literally dozens of weather stripping products you can use to seal the door, from very inexpensive foam rubber tape that might cost you $3.50 to vinyl gaskets to felt strips to copper flashing. Some products are better than others, but suffice it to say that anything is better than nothing. Again, the US Department of Energy has a good web site with advice on weather stripping.
5. Replace or clean the air filters in your furnace - If you don’t have forced air heat or cooling you can ignore this one, but if you do, then do yourself a big favor and either clean or replace your filter often. A clogged furnace filter causes the fan in the furnace to run harder and longer, wasting energy in the process. Most filters are the type you simply change out and throw away, but some are reusable after you clean them (while we’d normally tend towards anything re-usable rather than something disposable, unfortunately the re-usable filters are often not as effective as the disposable ones). In either case, ensuring you have a clean filter can cut $10, $20 or even more from of your energy bills each month, depending on the size of your system. You might be tempted to just yank out the filter altogether, figuring that you can’t have a clogged filter if there’s no filter there to clog. But avoid that temptation! If you do, all that dust will just end up in the delicate mechanisms inside your furnace, which will eventually cause it to wear out and fail. Obviously it’s much cheaper to replace a $5 filter than a $4,000 furnace. Also, note that ASHRAE (The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers) recommends a filter with a Minimum Efficiency Rating Value (MERV rating) of at least 6. As higher MERV rating means that a filter will filter out smaller and smaller particles.
While some of these suggestions might not apply to your situation (i.e., you don’t need to replace the air filter in your furnace if you live in a house with radiator heat) there is probably something in this list that can benefit you this winter. No matter what, you should get an energy audit — that’s your first step, the step that will highlight where you need to focus. From there, it’s as simple as TAKING ACTION on what the audit brings up. If you can’t do what is suggested in the audit yourself, call in a qualified contractor or consultant to do it for you. The savings you realize from improving your home’s energy efficiency will quickly offset any costs you incur by taking these measures, and remember that energy improvements to your home will keep paying you back year after year.
Andy Mazal
Inhabit - Green Building Consulting
www.inhabitconsulting.com
Posted on October 26, 2008 |
Make It Green This Halloween
By Pippa Sorley
Filed Under Arts & Culture, Green Living | Leave a Comment
According to the National Retail Federation, annual Halloween spending has surpassed $5 billion in the United States. With the average person spending the most money on costumes, followed by candy and then decorations, it’s a holiday enjoyed by adults, kids and even pets across the country. Halloween is second only to Christmas in the decorations market. Unity Marketing found that consumption in this area has grown with people’s fascination with ghosts, the supernatural and sci-fi, often prompted by popular cable television shows. However with billions of dollars being spent on a single holiday, what is very real is the environmental impact of our often disposable festive wares.
During tight economic times, imagine the impact upon our wallets if at first we chose to buy less and then brought back our creativity and tradition with homemade alternatives to what is mass-produced for the holiday. Curbing consumption has an additional environmental impact if we make different choices in determining what we do purchase for the holiday. From vintage to responsibly produced goods, there are many choices available to the conscious consumer.
Candy is a good place to start in making more mindful decisions. As many Halloween treats are chocolates, look for products that are certified Fair Trade. Why? According to certification organization TransFair, “Fair Trade certification ensures that cocoa farmers receive a fair price for their harvest, creates direct trade links between farmer-owned cooperatives and buyers, and provides access to affordable credit. On Fair Trade farms, slave labor is strictly prohibited and farms are inspected to ensure that Fair Trade standards are being met.” In the spirit of October being Fair Trade month, let’s continue to educate our friends and neighbors! Co-op America has great resources to help spread the word on this issue. You can also order a “Fair Trade Trick or Treat Action Kit” through Global Exchange. Good choices for individually-wrapped Fair Trade chocolates for Halloween include: Sweet Earth Chocolates (skulls) and Divine Chocolate (eyeballs).
What about other goodies? Clif Bar Kids has an organic bar made with whole oats in a ‘smores flavor, complete with spooky packaging. YummyEarth Organic Fruit lollipops are sweetened with cane juice, not corn syrup. National Geographic’s The Green Guide also has an extensive list of healthier and eco-friendly treats. There’s also the idea of passing out non-edibles, like Smencils pencils made from 100% recycled newspapers. For collecting treats, go retro in using your pillowcase or reusable grocery bags also work. Chico bags can hold up to 20 pounds! Halloween is also the perfect time to add items in good condition but no longer needed by your household to your porch offerings. Why not offer quality goods to someone who may need it with all of those extra visitors to your porch on Halloween night (and save the addition to the landfill)?
When choosing costumes avoid the cheaply-made and once-worn costumes that we’re used to seeing with some creativity. Check out your local thrift store or eBay for clothing pieces that can be re-imagined or have a costume swap with friends whose children are different ages, re-using get-ups from previous years. If you’re the crafty sort, Sprig.com just ran a great article of ten homemade costumes with photos and instructions. And if you are short on time, try Sarah’s Silks, costumes made with renewable sources in monitored factories. To complete your child’s costume (or your own!) stay away from traditional makeup kits sold in specialty stores for the holiday, as they may contain hormone-disrupting paraben preservatives and phthalates. Instead, play around with adult’s cosmetics from natural products stores, or even kitchen staples like ketchup.
Decorations are a fun way to make your home an eco-friendly spot for hosting friends or passing out candy. Choose organic pumpkins and buy fewer. We tend to forget that they are a food source in addition to a decoration and that many are simply thrown out at the end of the season. Toast the pumpkin seeds from jack-o-lanterns and use others for eventual cooking and then, compost what’s left over. Squashes also make beautiful decorations until it’s time to cook them. If you’re into the traditional ghosts and ghouls, look for ways to craft spooky décor from recycled goods and things already in the house. Beautiful and kitschy vintage Halloween decorations can also be found online. Set the mood with soy or beeswax candles, or try energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs in Halloween colors.
Let your consideration of your Halloween eco-footprint also promote general mindfulness that includes safety. Environmentally-friendly reflective tape can be found online, and used on bikes, skateboards, even brooms! When your family is kept safe it is also a good reminder of our planet’s interconnectedness. Consider helping your kids to support children in other parts of the world while they are at their trick-or-treating best through a program like UNICEF’s “Make Halloween Count” youth action program.
As your excitement for Halloween grows, take one more step to share an excellent site for environmental news by sending a friend one of Grist.org’s Halloween e-cards. You can also delight in the fact that you’re saving paper and supporting a nonprofit organization.
By Lindsey Wolf, adapted from elephantjournal.com. Elephant Journal is an online resource for stories on sustainability, active citizenship, conscious consumerism and non new-agey spirituality.
Posted on October 20, 2008 |
Is Fair Trade Really Fair?
By Anne O'Loughlin
Filed Under News & Reviews, The Big Picture | 1 Comment
With the beginning of October comes the official kick off to Fair Trade Month, a month-long celebration and promotion of Fair Trade certified products. Indeed, the Fair Trade movement has a lot to celebrate this year. According to the Fair Trade Labelling Organization International (FLO), consumers around the world spent more than $3 billion on Fair Trade certified items in 2007, a whopping increase of 47% from the previous year! An increasing amount of diverse products are also entering the Fair Trade market, thus expanding consumers’ options from the traditionally known Fair Trade items such as crafts, coffee, and chocolate to include fruits, wine, flowers and even soccer balls and shoes. This means, that now over 1.5 million producers and workers in approximately 58 developing countries can benefit from increased business due to Fair Trade sales.
It’s been commonly understood that Fair Trade is a preferable, more moral way of conducting business than the conventional ‘top down’ approach of major, multi-national corporations in which sweatshops tend to thrive and the workers on the lowest levels are squeezed. The underlying principles of Fair Trade are to deliver more than just a financial package to the workers, in order to not only guarantee that they are paid a fair rate/wage but also to create a system in which a long-term, sustainable relationship is developed between the buyer and third world producers that will ultimately empower these workers and their community to thrive and succeed in the global marketplace.
In recent months, however, some organizations have doubted the true benefit of Fair Trade and have started to question the validity and impact of the movement. On February 25, Britain’s economic think tank The Adam Smith Institute, a self-proclaimed leading innovator of free-market economic and social policies, published a report by Marc Sidwell entitled “Unfair Trade”. Mr. Sidwell argues that Fair Trade is actually anything but fair and while Fair Trade and its supporters may have positive intentions, it actually does more harm than good.
Sidwell writes that Fair Trade distorts local markets by fixing a high price of goods for only a small percentage of producers (thus hurting the majority of the other farmers producing the same goods at lower costs who are allegedly excluded from Fair Trade business practices). He also argues that Fair Trade is “irrelevant” to large scale poverty relief and does not aid economic development properly, rather it prevents the poor from gaining the proper tools to successfully improve their financial outlook. He goes on to claim that Fair Trade actually prevents farmers from advancing their technologies and efficiencies and the opportunity for diversification, and are thus actually stuck in an unsustainable practice.
Sidwell furthermore asserts that Fair Trade is merely a marketing scheme that rewards inefficient farmers who produce poor quality goods, thus also being unfair to the consumer who allegedly has a wealth of ethical purchasing options available to them without even knowing it due to the overwhelming monopoly of Fair Trade certified goods.
As would be expected, the release of this report caused a backlash of responses from the Fair Trade community and ethical bloggers alike, including a lengthy, evidence-driven press release from The Fairtrade Foundation attempting to discredit Sidwell’s arguments. They angrily write, “Two billion people work extremely hard to earn a living but still earn less than $2 per day and the FAIRTRADE Mark enables consumers to choose products that help address this injustice. As no-one is forced to join a fair trade producer organisation, or to buy Fairtrade products, you would think that free market economists like the Adam Smith Institute would be pleased at the way the public has taken our voluntary label to its heart…”
So how is Fair Trade really affecting the workers of the world and is its global impact truly innovative and revolutionary, or merely smoke and mirrors as Mr. Sidwell points out?
After spending 17 solid pages tearing the Fair Trade mission into pieces, Sidwell’s only suggestion for a viable alternative is to follow the global path of Free Trade. He uses China and India as two examples of how Free Trade has lifted traditionally poverty-stricken countries into more solid financial positions where they very recently have been successfully lobbying for global economic leadership positions. While Sidwell’s examples may offer some element of truth, it certainly does not account for the long list of human rights abuses and exploits both countries have added to their economic repertoires.
With a debate like this, we have to stop and ask ourselves…is the explosive growth of China and India truly having a proper ‘trickle down’ effect? That is, are the workers of the world, the people at the lowest level, the people that bear the grunt of globalization on their backs really feeling any kind of financial relief or reward from the macro economic improvements of their nations? And what about the workers living in countries that are not advantageously growing with globalization, such as Peru, Argentina, Ethiopia, Haiti…the list goes on? Do they have no opportunity for growth…or can the Fair Trade market act as an outlet for these workers to exit the fringes and become active players in the global marketplace? Perhaps what the world needs is a harmonious balance between Free and Fair Trade in which poor nations on a macro level and lower class workers on a micro level can all flourish together. After all, with a happy, healthy workforce comes increased loyalty, ownership and productivity which ultimately trickles up to the overall economic growth of the nation as a whole.
Regardless of anyone’s argument, I can tell you that after personally experiencing close contact with real people in the developing world, doing business under Fair Trade principles is a rewarding and effective method of trade. It provides wonderful opportunity to meet, get to know, and partner directly with the people that are actually making our products. I see firsthand how our business effects and improves their lives, the lives of their families and their community. And I hear the passion, excitement and pride in their voices when they receive a new order. Maybe I missed something…but to us, this is what Fair Trade is all about.
Posted on October 12, 2008 |
Simple Nature: The Art of Andy Goldsworthy
By Melissa Vest
Filed Under Arts & Culture | 3 Comments
In a world that is ever buzzing, growing, moving, and consuming there is an underlying push toward the opposite. There lies in each of us a need for stillness, contemplation, and closeness to nature. We look for ways to balance our needs. Even within the environmental movement, we are continuously striving to balance our desires for more. We’re always looking for ways to make our day-to-day lives simpler. And in turn, we ask ourselves what can do to save this precious planet? We recycle; we buy LED light bulbs, we shop consciously, and we tote around our PVC-free yoga mats. However, the question remains: are we really connecting with the earth on a deeper level while on our quest to save it?
Sometimes art can help us tap into our universal connection to nature. The work of U.K. based environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy does just that. His work is an exquisite reminder of why we buy organic clothing, why we take five-minute showers, why we use scratchy toilet paper, and why we continue to strive to do more. Through his unique medium of environmental art, Goldsworthy succeeds in transporting us to the core of nature’s beauty and strength.
Goldsworthy creates a myriad of environmental art projects, some built indoors and others built outdoors. Indoors, his artwork can look as if they were laid there by a swift wind, and outdoors they represent human interpretations of nature itself. In any setting, they are a single moment’s perfection. They seem to be suspended in time, and are left to simply wash away, crumble, ruin, or break down from the elements. Like in nature, his installations are created to age and weather, and to only last for short amounts of time. According to Goldsworthy, “My sculpture can last for days or a few seconds — what is important to me is the experience of making. I leave most of my work outside and often return to watch it decay.”
Each piece is created using as many natural tools as possible. For example, when Goldsworthy strings together long chains of leaves, he uses his own spit. He also uses thorns to string together wonderfully fascinating layers of branches. The use of natural materials lends itself to simplicity, and ultimately a human perspective of nature at its finest. Goldsworthy sees each element of his art as part of nature itself, “My art is an attempt to reach beyond the surface appearance. I want to see growth in wood, time in stone, nature in a city…”
Goldsworthy’s work is mostly documented through photography, which preserves it in a single instance. His use of natural materials ranges from ice and snow to leaves, twigs, clay, and rocks. Some are completed through the use of volunteers, and others are an individual creation. From twigs seemingly “growing” out of the water, to bright circular mandalas made of orange and yellow leaves, each work is unique.
Sometimes on this journey towards sustainability we need a reminder of why we sink our hearts into such a cause. Each work by Goldsworthy gives us a pause, an opportunity to silently meditate. Everyone will see something different, but if you look close enough and long enough you just might not need that yoga mat after all.
Enjoy more about Goldsworthy’s Work:
- Watch a clip of the artist’s movie: Rivers and Tides.
- Purchase Enclosure, a book by Goldsworthy.
- Explore Artisan Cam featuring interactive media, video, and more.
Posted on October 6, 2008 |
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