Over here at the Robinson/Price-Robinson abode, there has been a standoff concerning the new water heater we need so badly. Ours is likely 20 years old and not very efficient. Our gas bill would go down immensely if we replaced that beast.
But the choices are many. Do we get a new and efficient gas-powered tank model? Or a tankless gas-fired model?
Or, if we are planning to install solar power when the prices of photovoltaic systems are expected to drop by 2010, shouldn't we install either an electric-powered tank model or an electric-powered tankless model? (See a comparison of lifecycle costs.)
Trouble is, with the latter two choices, we need about $1,000 worth of electrical work done to give them the 220 volts of power they require.
I'm the one who wants the electric, tankless, on-demand system. And Bill wants the gas-powered tank system. Thus, a standoff.
But I think we might be getting closer to doing it Bill's way, and that's always so much easier all the way around. Spouses, can you relate?
Part of my thinking about the tankless system is that most of the cool green builders I respect are big, big proponents of the tankless systems. And that means a lot to me.
But I was recently contacted by Wes Harding, a green-leaning builder in Long Beach (Lic. No. 895042) who believes that new, super-efficient tank systems are actually the better way to go.
Wes provided a link to an article about a scientific analysis of all systems, but, he noted: "The only problem I see with the article is efficiency is measured in gas or electricity consumed, not the amount of water used."
Here's a chart from the analysis:
In terms of both water and energy savings, Wes is sold on tank water heaters for these reasons:
1. God forbid, but if we are ever in a major earthquake or disaster, where do we get our water supply from if we have converted to tankless? With a tank system, the water in the tank can be used in an emergency. 2. Water is wasted in a tankless system because it has to be heated through a coil before it reaches the point of use. 3. Tankless systems operate on the volume of water. If you set your faucet to a trickle, the heater won't kick in. This allows for "slugs" or cold spurts between the hot-water delivery as well as more water consumed. 4. A limited number of fixtures can be used at one time. 5. More electrical energy is consumed as the amount of water increases because of the energy it takes to provide water pressure.
See a fast-motion video showing 2.25 kilowatts of Lumeta solar panels installed in 34 minutes.
These will be featured at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference June 24 to 27 in San Francisco. These thin panels are only available for commercial use, not residential, but it shows you the direction we're heading. The company does offer terra cotta-colored S-tiles and panels of flat tiles for residential installation that blend with the existing design of the roof.
I was so excited about this new shower curtain, which was a gift for my husband.
It was at about 35,000 feet, breathing airliner air, when I saw in a magazine this really neat shower curtain. The clear vinyl on the top would allow our dark and narrow shower stall some needed daylight. And the curtain is treated with "the world's strongest industrial antimicrobial and germicidal inhibitor."
And maybe that's why, when it arrived in my mailbox, it had such a chemically odor that I had to leave it outside overnight.
Then I read today that a report released by the Virginia-based Center for Health, Environment & Justice found that vinyl shower curtains "sold at Bed Bath & Beyond, Kmart, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart, among other major retailers, contained high concentrations of chemicals that are linked to liver damage as well as damage to the central nervous, respiratory and reproductive systems." Yikes! And I'm so fond of my central nervous system. Heck, I like all my systems. (Read about the study in the L.A. Times.)
So what do I now? I want to be an eco-consumer and I want to retain my good health. And I'm not even sure if this item is an offender. And our bathroom window is open all the time for natural ventilation. But If I suspected this item was not healthy, how would tossing it, and all its embodied carbon load, into the trash square with my green goals?
In other words, if you discovered you'd made a bad, unhealthy purchase, which do you think would be the greener action: keep it and make use of it, or get it out of your house, dump it in the landfill for future generations to deal with and try again?
Perhaps I shouldn't have bought it. That might be the answer. But what do I do now? What would you do?
A two-bedroom cabin at Tamarack Lodge, overlooking Twin Lakes in the Mammoth Mountain area, has earned silver certification from the LEED green building program.
LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is administered by the U.S. Green Building Council. The silver rating means it adheres to a more strict green-building protocol than a building rated "certified," but less than a gold- or platinum-rated building.
According to a press release, this is the first LEED building in the ski area.
The green elements of the cabin include:
• Materials extracted, processed and manufactured within 500 miles of the site • Environmentally friendly hardwood flooring • Recycled carpeting and decking material • Local masonry rock • Pest-resistant siding • Recycled and local drywall • Energy-efficient windows • Local concrete aggregates • Recycled fiberglass insulation. • Added insulation (exceeds California energy requirements by more than 37%) • Dual-flush toilets that average 33% less water use than standard toilets • Enhanced air ventilation and air-to-air heat exchanger • Timers on bathroom exhaust fans • Documented waste-management practices during construction • Nearby access to a free shuttle
The LEED cabin, one of 34 cabins at Tamarack Lodge, was a collaboration between Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, Woodward Architecture and Boyer Construction (both in Mammoth), and BECx Engineering in Truckee. The cabin will be available as a vacation rental beginning in July.
The worst part about ordering a home-improvement item or sample online is that you know you're going to be receiving catalogs in the mail that you may not want, even if you unclicked the send-me-unlimited-marketing-materials-from-you-and-all-your-partners-from-now-until-eternity button.
And how do you stop the catalog influx once it starts? Do you call the customer no-service number and beep through a series of options until you're pretty sure the human you're finally speaking with has no power to do what you want done?
Or do you gather together an envelope and stamp and mail your request, being even more sure it will do no good whatsoever?
Yes, I have tried all these tactics, but with little success.
Yet I have high hopes for Catalog Choice, a website where you can indicate which catalogs you'd rather not receive. Then, the website people contact the companies on your behalf and tell them: Stop already!
Catalog Choice is a sponsored project of the Ecology Center. It is endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council and funded by the Overbrook Foundation, the Merck Family Fund and the Kendeda Fund.
Here are the catalogs I've requested a stop to during the last month:
Bed, Bath, & Beyond Best Buy Big Dogs Costco Flor Pottery Barn Sky Mall Trader Joe's Westways
I actually really like all these companies. But I do my online shopping online and see all the ads I need in the daily newspaper.
So far, Bed, Bath & Beyond is the only company that has confirmed my request. Yay! I can log into my account on www.catalogchoice.org and keep track of my choices.
All my other requests are marked unconfirmed or pending. I don't have much hope for stopping Westways as I already made several requests on my own to stop this magazine from coming and I was informed that if I had a AAA card, I was required to get this publication. Does that sound right to you?
The Catalog Choice website states that nearly 1 million people have used the service, and have opted out of more than 11.8-million catalogs.
Each year, the Pacific Coast Builders Conference (PCBC) holds a competition for the coolest building products. This year, 125 products were entered into the contest and were voted on by 679 home-building professionals.
Here are the 2008 cool-product winners in the green building category:
1. Rinnai LS Series tankless water heater
Rinnai’s LS Series tankless water heaters, the company says, save 30% to 50% in energy over traditional tank-style units, and offer installation flexibility and low emissions. Read more
2. Eagle Solar Roof (pictured above)
This is a solar-power system that integrates with Eagle's concrete roof tile. Read more
3. Cree LED Lighting Solutions LR6 light bulb
This bulb has a 20-year life span, the manufacturer says, or 50,000 hours under normal use. The LR6 is comfortable to the touch and so could reduce the burden and cost of the air conditioning system. The LR6 uses 85% less energy than a conventional incandescent and less than half that of a comparable fluorescent, the company says. And unlike any fluorescent, the LR6 contains no mercury. Read more
4. Akeena Solar’s Andalay solar panels
These solar panels have a modern, sleek design and feature a built-in rack, allowing panels to lie flat on rooftops and blend into the home’s architectural elements. Each panel is fit with electrical wiring, eliminating the errors that occur with complicated electrical grounding during the installation process, the company says, and the panels have a Lego-like snap-in-place process. Read more
5. GE Profile SmartDispense front-load washer and dryer
Using as little as 10 gallons of water for a small load, the company says, the Energy Star-qualified washer can save more than 5,800 gallons of water per year compared with a typical top-load washer. The new H2ITION technology automatically senses the load and adds just the right amount of water to each load. The washer's SmartDispense pedestals store and automatically dispense detergent and fabric softener based on each load's size, soil level, water hardness and fabric or cycle type. Read more
If you want to stretch your design vocabulary, you might consider attending the Dwell on Design conference this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Put on by the San Francisco-based Dwell magazine folks, the seminar descriptions include sentences like this:
"Not all designers set out to achieve the Platonic ideal in a concept for a chair, but few would argue that the promise of synonymy with a beloved design object does not motivate their process."
Go ahead. Look up "Platonic ideal" and "synonymy." I did, and I learned a lot.
You can also see a panel on prefabs that includes prefab guru Michelle Kauffmann. See her speak about her own delicious home:
Interview with Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti Los Angeles LEEDs the way? Nature meets the metropolis L.A. grows up: dealing with density The face of gardens in a densifying city Design developers The inventive spirit Single-family dwellings: green within reason (R)evolution in light, form and materials
Immortality through product Evolving modes of practice Home and away: lessons from the leisure zone Systems building and prefab Sustainable interiors
Plus, the exhibition floor, with 200 exhibitors and a "neighborhood" of prefab homes, is open Thursday through Sunday, and you can get in on the weekend for $50 at the door (though the full conference costs $349, or $149 for students). There are also home tours Saturday and Sunday, but Saturday's tour of Westside single-family homes is sold out. Sunday's tour, of private downtown homes (cost: $85), still has space.
Question: I need a new water heater, and because my home's gas bill is so high, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to get an electric water heater. My husband is not in favor of an on-demand water heater, so I've got to decide between gas or electric with a storage tank. Would putting in an electric water heater be a good move? And what is involved?
Answer: From Pardon Our Dust's "resident builder" Alon Toker:
Going the electric route would be more costly, both in initial costs (you would need to run a dedicated 220V line for it) and in the long run (gas, as expensive as it is, is still a cheaper energy source compared with electricity).
A 220V line, which is needed to power such an electricity-gobbling appliance, could add $500 to $2,500 to the cost of a water heater, depending on several variables: the type of wiring mandated (Romex or conduit) and whether an upgrade to the electrical panel might be needed.
A better idea is to install a high-efficiency gas water heater. But the best choice of all is a tankless gas water heater.
Though more expensive initially, the tankless model would save energy as compared with the tank unit. At my company, we have installed virtually nothing but tankless water heaters for some years with great feedback from clients. These units are more complicated and finicky than tank models, and a water softener should really be considered. But in my opinion, tankless heaters are the way to go.
Alon Toker is president of Mega Builders in Chatsworth. If you have a building-related question, e-mail it to podblog@aol.com and include "Resident Builder" in the subject line.
Pamela Burton & Co. won an Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects for the gardens and hardscape (seen above) at a Malibu beachfront home.
At first, the owner wanted lots of bright green turf. But the designers explained how that would be out of place with the sand and chaparral of the local natural geography and would need gobs of water. Eventually, the design team —Pamela Burton, Stephanie Psomas, Andrea Zurik and Stephen Billings — persuaded the owner to plant a sustainable landscape with sandy trails and low-water-use plants.
In the afternoon, when the sun has finally started to heat up the indoor air, the Jahnkes open the French doors in the kitchen and the afternoon breezes sweep the hot air through the house, up this stairwell . . .
. . . and out through the clerestory windows at the very top of the home. The design for this house (which was rebuilt after a fire) started at the top to make it compatible with solar panels and natural air flow. And then the rest of the design flowed downward from there. See operable skylights in a contemporary Hermosa Beach home that perform the same function.
I'm all for conservation. Really, I am. But what's the real point? Those 70,000 people who could move into the proposed new Tejon Ranch city-sprawl will need some water, and guess who's going to sacrifice for them? Tag, you're it.
The new water-conservation plan calls for fines for watering lawns and washing down sidewalks. And it calls for sending treated wastewater back into the aquifer.
My favorite idea is rewarding homeowners who put in permeable driveways that allow rainwater to percolate down into the aquifer rather than running off into the gutter. We don't yet have a "subway to the sea," but we certainly know how to send our rainwater that way.
L.A. Times readers have even more ideas on how to save water:
— We should all stop eating meat, one reader wrote, as the monumental amount water needed to produce beef is the real culprit. (Another reader said we'd all start eating our pets if the meat was cut off.)
— Control population, another wrote, and heavily tax people who have more than two kids.
— "I'll just dig up my lawn," another reader wrote. "It is not worth all of this."
Engineered right here in Southern California by BMW DesignworksUSA, the sleek Ecopod is a compact recycling center that makes crushing cans fun! Just drop one in the top, step on the lever, and c-r-u-n-c-h, it's all over.
The bottom holds the crushed cans while the top holds other recycling.
At Gaiam.com, the regular price is $348, while the sale price is $169.
Or you could use the good old stomp-it-with-your-foot-and-toss-it-in-a-bucket method of can recycling.
Does this bug you, too? You have a pillow, blanket or other textile that is clearly past its prime and too worn for the Goodwill. But you hate to see it take the slow ride to the dump.
Here's the answer: textiles of certified organic cotton and other materials that are designed to be composted when you're done with them. The company's name is Looolo, and its website explains it takes one year for the cushions, blankets and scarves to break down and go back to the earth.
Of course, you'd never want that to happen as the cushions cost several hundred dollars and the blankets twice that. But hey, this is how great things start, and with mass production based on vast consumer demand, the price will go down.
More on biodegradable goods from the New York Times.
Tuesday's vote by the L.A. City Council to limit home sizes to 3,000 square feet on 5,000-square-foot flatland lots (a little larger on larger lots) was unanimous at 12 to 0.
But the responses by readers were more, shall we say, well rounded.
Are these restrictions a communist plot? Or necessary to preserve neighborhoods?
"It's all about restraining those whose selfishness exceeds their social conscience." — Rocky JS
"The fact of the matter is that these grotesque homes are ugly and that in a few year's time they will fall into disrepair and hasten the decline of the neighborhoods they infest." — Ted Burke
"By the way, even 3,000 square feet is pretty darn large!" — Kirsten
"Awesome. Awesome. Awesome." — Stever R.
Jeers
"It's a sad state of affairs when property rights are considered meaningless, and the government starts taking on the right to limit, regulate, and control every last stitch of our lives." — Sad
"Excuse me!! Who paid for the land???" — Oscar Myer
"Los Angeles is the 2nd largest city of the richest nation on earth — and we're suddenly limiting the size of new homes (teardowns) to 3000 sq ft? This is nuts!" — David in Los Angeles
The ReUse People, a facility where you can buy salvaged and new materials from deconstructed homes and other sources, is holding a grand opening Saturday, May 10 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The warehouse is at 11017 Sutter Ave., Pacoima, two blocks north of Van Nuys Boulevard near the confluence of the 5, 210 and 118 freeways.
During the event, all doors will be sold for $5. And a workshop titled “Tax-Deductible Donations for Used Building Materials” will be held at 11 a.m. with ReUse People founder Ted Reiff. See a flier for the event.
The ReUse People is a nonprofit with other warehouses in Oakland, Calif., and Boulder, Colo. The Pacoima
operation was helped along with grant money from the city of Los Angeles.
The Pacoima warehouse had a soft opening in February, which allowed time to collect used building materials from the area. On hand are appliances, bricks, cabinets, doors, electrical, flooring, garden planters, hardware, lumber, plumbing fixtures, roofing tile, siding and windows.
Three Sub-Zero refrigerators recently found their way to the facility, but are expect to be snapped up quickly.
In addition, the organization certifies contractors as deconstruction specialists trained to take apart buildings so the materials can be salvaged and reused rather than sent to the dump.
According to the organization, TRP-certified contractors deconstructed 116 residences and one commercial building in the Los Angeles area in the past two years, representing about 4,680 tons diverted from local landfills.
Here is an update on materials the Pacoima warehouse has received or will receive:
• All materials from a 2,000-square-foot Chula Vista home, including new bath vanity and office furniture, elegant sconce lights, curio cabinet and fencing
• Maple kitchen cabinets and other select materials from a 2,500 sq-ft remodel in Santa Ana
• Materials from a 1,000-square-foot remodel in Pacific Beach, including never-been-used kitchen cabinets and stainless steel appliances
• All materials from a 2,500-square-foot Brentwood home built in 1933, including oak hardwood floors, raised panel doors, premium lighting fixtures, all kitchen and laundry appliances, quality old-growth lumber and ceramic C-tile roofing
• All materials from a 3,500-square-foot Beverly Hills home built in 1959, with premium lighting fixtures, solid raised panel doors, kitchen cabinets/island with butcher block countertop, Sub-Zero refrigerator and washer/dryer
• All materials from a 1,542-square-foot 1951 Venice home, including oak hardwood flooring, kitchen cabinetry, pedestal sink and Sub-Zero refrigerator/freezer
• All materials from a 1,746-square-foot, two-unit beach cottage in Manhattan Beach built in the 1950s, including oak hardwood floors, kitchen appliances and free-standing iron fireplace, children’s dresser, kitchen cabinets
• Kenmore gas stove and ceiling light fans
New Orleans is the setting for the National Assn. of Home Builders' National Green Building Conference, which runs Sunday through Tuesday, May 11 to 13.
The conference includes a tour of green homes, including the one pictured here:
1. The exterior of the charming turn-of-the-last-century cottage. The home is owned by a woman who bought it from her grandmother, so it's been in the family a long time. After the levees failed in 2005, it was flooded with at least 5 feet of water and was nearly a teardown.
2. Contractor Julie Groth (pictured here), of Step by Step Construction, said this was the most damaged house she had ever worked on. Now that it has been restored, however, the house feels new, clean and healthy. Green features include paperless drywall to prevent mold growth in the humid climate, nontoxic paints, Energy Star appliances, a dual-flush toilet, an efficient heating and cooling system and kitchen counters made from heart pine salvaged from the framing of old buildings.
3. The home includes a tankless water heater. Out back is a deck built by women in a construction class (titled Sophie the Riveter) that Julie teaches at Tulane University.
4. The ceiling of the attic is coated with blown-in insulation and is not vented. Whereas vented attics in other climates make sense to allow hot air to escape, in a hot and humid climate like New Orleans, a vented attic will bring in hot and humid air that will condense around the air conditioning unit, causing water damage and future mold and rot problems. Thus, no vented attic for this house.
Rebuilding New Orleans is a monumental task, brought about by the hearts and hands of homeowners, volunteers and local contractors. And here's the amazing part: There is a mindset among many in the area to rebuild New Orleans as the nation's first carbon-neutral green city.
Read a long story about green pioneers, featuring this house, in Gambit Weekly.
To read more about the green building conference, click here.
If you've noticed some houses in your neighborhood being built or remodeled with blue-colored framing lumber, roof trusses and sheathing panels, you may think the Smurfs came in at night and sprayed the place.
Actually, the blue wood is BluWood, building components with a factory-applied treatment to prevent mold and rot in wood and to repel the frisky little critters called termites that come along later to chew up and digest mold-weakened wood.
This blue treatment is gaining interest because highly toxic chemicals once used to preserve wood were recently outlawed. The problem is that much framing lumber is pretty darn wet when it's delivered to the site, and then it might get rained on or absorb more moisture somehow. Then it gets installed in the house and closed in with thermal barriers, radiant barriers, vapor barriers, house wrap, insulation, drywall, wallpaper and so on. So the moisture gets trapped, and when there is lots of water and heat and food (wood), mold has a feast.
The BluWood treatment, the company says, allows existing water to evaporate but prevents new water from coming in. The company gives a limited lifetime warranty against mold and mildew, and the warranty is transferable.
So, if framed houses start looking like they're being built by the Blue Man Group, that's why.
Another jewel in a series of amazing small spaces:
Here's what happens when a native of Japan and a native of the Netherlands, both with architecture degrees, remodel an 807-square-foot houseboat in Seattle.
The floors, cabinets and some of the ceilings are bamboo.
It wasn't a cheap remodel, at $240,000. But there are only 482 houseboats in the city, a story in the Seattle Times says, and people tend to keep them an average of 20 years.
Reader Elise is having problems with her new tankless water heater:
We purchased a tankless a few months ago and have had ongoing problems with low water pressure. The plumber says it is our well, but we had no problems previously, with the exception of running out of hot water, which is why we got the tankless. Every time we flush a toilet, we have no pressure and no cold water in the house.
I'll admit I've been critical of water-saving schemes that conspire to take away my daily baths while the powers-that-be concurrently approve plans for more, more and more new developments in the Southland.
Being blamed are outdated water delivery systems and water-diverting efforts to save endangered species. Those endangered species! They're such whiners! (That's a joke.)
So it looks likely that water rationing will be the new green this summer.
And I wonder: How will you deal with it? Which of these will you embrace?
• Adding flow restrictors to faucets and showers
• Getting rid of some lawn in favor of drought-resistant plants
• Adding a drip watering system to the garden
• Putting in a gray-water system
• Capturing rainwater (another joke, as there is virtually no summer rain here)
And they're slowing going out of style, much to the dismay of fire devotees (and I used to be one).
Last weekend, I visited with a couple who took out their fireplace during a remodel. In this photo, you see a Santa Barbara home that also lost its fireplace during a remodel.
According to a report today from the American Lung Assn., Los Angeles has the second sootiest air in the country, and burning wood is part of the problem. It's not me saying it. It's them.
Big things that need to happen, the association states, are protecting the Clean Air Act, cleaning up coal-fired power plants, cleaning up existing diesel engines and requiring ships calling on U.S. ports to burn cleaner fuels.
In the what-can-I-do category, the association makes these suggestions:
• Drive less: Combine trips, walk, bike, carpool or vanpool, and use buses, subways or other alternatives to driving. Vehicle emissions are a major source of air pollution. Support community plans that provide ways to get around that don’t require a car, such as more sidewalks, bike trails and transit systems.
• Don’t burn wood or trash: Burning firewood and trash are among the largest sources of particles in many parts of the country. If you must use a fireplace or stove for heat, convert your woodstoves to natural gas, which has far fewer polluting emissions. Compost and recycle as much as possible and dispose of other waste properly; don’t burn it. Support efforts in your community to ban outdoor burning of construction and yard wastes. Avoid the use of outdoor hydronic heaters, also called outdoor wood boilers, which are often much more polluting than woodstoves.
• Get involved: Participate in your community’s review of its air pollution plans and support state and local efforts to clean up air pollution.
• Use less electricity: Turn out the lights and use energy-efficient appliances. Generating electricity is one of the biggest sources of pollution, particularly in the eastern United States.
• Send a message to decision makers: Send an e-mail or fax to urge Congress to oppose measures that weaken the Clean Air Act. Log on at www.lungusa.org.
Now if your fireplace provides your only heat, or you only use your fireplace for roasting marshmallows on Christmas Eve, well, never mind!
The Solar 2008 convention will be held this weekend, May 3 and 4, at the Town and Country Resort and Convention Center in San Diego. The attendance fee for consumers is $5, with a $1 discount if you take public transportation.
The event is put on by the American Solar Energy Society, among others. And while it's heavily geared toward professionals in the solar industry, there are an impressive number of consumer-oriented seminars. Among them:
Saturday, May 3
10:30 a.m.: Mounting Options for Large Rooftop Arrays 10:30 a.m.: State of the US Solar Industry 11:30 a.m.: Two Decades of German PV Experience – Best Practices Noon: Solar Hot Water For Your Home 2 p.m.: Preparing Your Home to Make the Best Use of Solar Energy 3:30 p.m.: Renewable Energy and Homeowners Associations 4:30 p.m.: Comparing Price to the Value of Solar
10:30 a.m.: Solar PV Systems and the SmartGrid – A View of our Future US Electric Grid 11 a.m.: Issues Affecting PV System Productivity Noon: The California Solar Initiative 1:30 p.m.: Introduction to Small Wind 2:30 p.m.: Portable Solar for Emergency Preparedness 3 p.m.: Aesthetics: Solar Finally Looks Good (with Hidden Collectors) 4: 30 p.m.: Launch your Solar Business
You don't need to share with me the definition of insanity: trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Been there (bought junk), done that (had it fail), still slipping into it.
Specifically, I'm talking about the solar fountain I bought ignorantly and impulsively at Home Depot last October. I paid $225 for this thing, which I was told had been special ordered for another customer who never picked it up. It had no label, no packaging, no instruction manual, and certainly no guarantee.
And worst of all, it had no endorsement from my peers on the Internet. I've come to rely on the "truthiness" of strangers in choosing restaurants, hotels, furniture, my car, you name it. I look at reader reviews on Epinions, Travelosity, The Guide, Edmunds, Consumer Reports, and other websites.
So it came to pass that I abandoned all my good sense and bought this fountain. Once I posted about it, a wise reader mentioned that these things don't usually last too long. But I thought it wouldn't happen to me. Aren't I special? Apparently not. The pump died about a month ago, never to move water again. And it can't be opened up, and it's got no name on it. Pure junk.
So, I've got the panel, which has a built-in battery, and I'm going to see if it can have another life as a laptop charger. But the fountain has been relegated to a bird bath. It's not bad looking. But $225 is a lot to pay for not much benefit. Here's to hoping I end the insanity and stop buying garbage.
Wall Street Journal columnist Nancy Keates is tearing down her house to build a new one in its place. But instead of taking a wrecking ball to the old house, she's having it "unbuilt" so the items and materials can be reused and recycled. It's taking two weeks longer than a wrecking-ball tear-down, and will cost $4,000 more. What do you think? Worth it? Watch the video clip below and read the story.
I really want to wean myself from impulsive purchases of junky household stuff I don't really need and that won't last. One strategy is getting clear on the implications of my actions. If my purchases of junky stuff help foul the earth and exploit its people, but I remain willfully ignorant of that, does it still affect my karma? I believe it does.
If it's a group experience you're after, the movie will be screened tomorrow, Saturday, April 26, 4:30 p.m., at the AltBuild Expo at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. See details here.
Contact info: Lori Derkum, 25422 Trabuco Road, Suite 105-220, Lake Forest, CA 92630, phone: (949) 380-0177, e-mail: lori@dadsconstruction.com or dan@dadsconstruction.com
Years in business: 25-plus
Specialize in: Kitchens, bathrooms, and full interior remodels
Professional memberships: National Assn. of the Remodeling Industry (NARI), National Kitchen and Bath Assn. (NKBA), Western Regional Master Builders Assn. (WRMBA), Building Trades Assn. (BTA), International Code Council (ICC), the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Build It Green (BIG), and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)
Professional certifications: California Licensed General Contractor (No. 802617), Certified Green Building Professional (Build It Green), MBA
Awards: Some of the awards our projects have received:
• 2007 Award of Merit - Pacific Coast Builders Conference Gold Nugget Awards, Best Specialty Project • 2005 Watermark Awards, Builder and Custom Home magazines' "Grand Award" & "Kitchen of the Year" • Lake Forest Homeowners Assn. 2004 House of the Quarter • 2004 Award of Merit - Pacific Coast Builders Conference Gold Nugget Awards, Best Attached Project
How did you get interested in green building? DAD's never "got into green building.” We have always done what is today called "green building”: using exhaust fans in bathrooms, double-glass low-E windows, skylights, insulated water pipes, formaldehyde-free insulation, engineered lumber, low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints, asbestos-free products, florescent lighting, whole-house fans, recycling removed building materials, tankless water heaters.
We strive to build and remodel projects that greatly exceed codes and that will last a lifetime. So how does this help the environment? Tearing out a bathroom over and over again to fix cheap and substandard work generates more waste and more demand for building materials. We want to avoid that. Although the manufacturers may not appreciate this, our customers and the environment do.
I caught up recently with John Park, who, along with his wife Erin, did an addition to their Burbank home and wrote about it at the Park Haus Addition Blog.
Part of the project was adding $14,000 worth of photovoltaics to the addition's rooftop. You can see John here washing off the panels.
John read on the BP Solar website that adding the panels would be like planting an acre of trees, in terms of environmental benefits, and will prevent tons of carbon being released into the atmosphere.
As he wrote on his blog, "It's just the right thing to do."
I want to do the right thing, and need all the encouragement I can get. So I contacted John to find out how it's going:
Pardon Our Dust: How does it feel day to day to have the sun powering your home? Do you forget about it? Do you think about it every day?
John Park: It does feel great to have sun powering the house. We think about it all the time, and talk about it with our kids. Every time we're in the backyard playing we check out the power meter to see how many kilowatt hours we've drawn from the sun that day.
POD: How do you respond to people who don't invest in photovoltaics with the excuse that it would take 20 years to recoup the cost?
JP: I've actually had great, positive response and interest from people who ask about it. They all seem like they're on the edge of getting one and want someone to push them over. I think the cost is lower than ever and going down, thanks to research developments and economies of scale. Given the amount of sun here in Southern California and the rising cost of energy, the recoup equation is quite a bit better than it used to be.
You can read all the couple's postings about their solar panels here.
This wall covering made from tin can tops, as seen in the New York Times, has a certain appeal. But there's something a little creepy about it, as well. Or is it just me?
"Why does a receipt from Lowe's for a single item ($10.95) take almost two feet of paper?"
I wonder that myself. When the cashier at the grocery store gives me a yard-long receipt for one item and asks me if I want the receipt, I have to sift through a series of internal questions:
Should I take the receipt home and recycle it?
If I leave it there will they recycle it?
Is it even recyclable?
Tuesday, when a cashier handed me an Earth Day-themed booklet full of coupons, I kindly handed it back and said "In honor of Earth Day, I'm going to leave this with you."
How many ways are there to greenwash home-improvement products? To make toxic junk sound green? To put lipstick on a pig?
So very many! Here are a few:
• The packaging is made of recycled materials, but the garbage inside is toxic enough to kill a horse.
• The product is not so toxic, but the packaging is bulky enough to choke a landfill. (Costco, are you listening?)
• While the product is grown or made in the U.S., it's shipped to China for packaging.
• The wood product is from a "managed" forest. But what that really means is they managed to clear-cut the forest.
• The label says "ingredients from the earth." Well, guess what, everything on the planet is from the earth (unless it's made of asteroids).
• The label says "contains organic ingredients." But what percentage? Perhaps 000000.1%?
• The product is made of sustainable materials, and the packaging is minimal, and it's made locally, but . . . the factory where it's made has no natural light, bad air and wastes water and electricity.
• The product is made from recycled glass, but the energy used to melt down the glass would power a fleet of Hummers.
In other words, as greewashing proliferates, certification systems like GreenGuard and the Forest Stewardship Council become ever more important for those of us who really want to make a difference with our dollars.
Also, see the Six Sins of Greenwashing by TerraChoice, which found that 99% of 1,018 common consumer products randomly surveyed for a study were guilty of greenwashing.
Here's a clever idea, seen in a Santa Monica garden, for paths in your own patch of paradise. You can reuse old bricks, garden tools, tiles, terra cotta pot bottoms and whatnot to make your green journey a little more interesting.
I guess my friend and co-author Kitty Bartholomew is a visionary. For many years, long before it was eco-hip, she was finding new uses for old things that have served their purpose well and that deserve more than a slow ride to the landfill.
Old leather belts are a case in point. Consider how much service a nice leather belt has given, with countless wearings and outings until one day the belt is either worn at the buckle or too wide or narrow for current styles or simply the wrong color.
Next, consider a wooden chair that has lost its cane or leather seat to wear and old age. While the chair and the belt might ride in the same trash truck to their final resting place, it takes a creative mind to say, hey, why don't you two get together and make something new?
And so I bring you Kitty's belt chair, pictured here.
What you need is a wooden chair with or without a seat. You lay out the belts on top horizontally and vertically, then weave them together and buckle them on the bottom. The nice part about old belts is that the buckle area wears out, not the back, and this is the part that will end up on your chair seat. The smaller the chair, the easier it will be to find belts long enough.
You can find belts really cheap at yard sales and thrift shops. Plus, if you have the unpleasant task of clearing out the house of a loved one who has passed away, and you find a collection of belts, making a belt chair for your home is a way of keeping a connection with that person and his or her life.
Also, hanging on the back of this chair is a quilt made of used men's suits. Did you know that quilting is the latest craze? Combine quilting with reuse of quality fabrics and the hipness level goes off the charts. Happy Earth Day!
The expo is at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, 1855 Main St., from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, and it's free. You can check out 150 exhibits featuring manufacturers of green building materials, landscape and water conservation products, retailers, interior design products and furnishings, utility companies, nonprofits and city and state agencies.
Plus, there are green seminars throughout the day. Check out the schedule of speakers. Quite impressive.
Workshops include:
• Back to the Future: Design Buildings Now So You Can Add Solar Later: presented by the U.S. Green Building Council's L.A. chapter, Friday, 4:30 p.m.
• Permaculture Presentation: by Larry Santoyo, Saturday, 10:30 a.m.
• Certification Comparison Panel: comparing LEED (USGBC), GreenPoint Rated (Build It Green) and California Green Builder, Saturday, 4:30 p.m.
Beazer Homes, one of the country's 10 biggest home builders, announced that all new homes it builds will include features that contribute to water and energy savings, as well as occupant health and comfort.
The package of features is called eSmart by Beazer Homes and has been included in the company's San Antonio, Texas, homes for several years. It will now be included in all new Beazer homes with no bump in the price to home buyers.
The eSmart features include:
• Honeywell FocusPRO programmable thermostats • GE EnergySmart compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) • GE Energy Star dishwashers • Moen water-saving bathroom faucets and showerheads • Air filters with a higher minimum efficiency rating value (MERV) • Carpets, paints and finishes that emit lower volatile organic compounds (VOCs) • Low-maintenance DuraPerm materials, re-engineered woods, fiber cement siding and synthetic trim • Air barriers to prevent energy loss behind fireplaces, bathtubs and vaulted ceiling
Over here at the Robinson/Price-Robinson abode, there has been a standoff concerning the new water heater we need so badly. Ours is likely 20 years old and not very efficient. Our gas bill would go down immensely if we replaced that beast.
