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Every year as temperatures plunge we return to the age-old feat of staying warm. We unearth our familiar woolies, don knitted slippers, and gradually slip into a 6-8 month hibernation period. This year, why not put extra layers on your house as well?
Insulation Types
Choosing a sweater that brings out your eyes is far easier than selecting and installing one or more layers of insulation in your house. So, let’s start with the basics. Natural Resources Canada has compiled an extensive list of different insulation types, how they work, and what their R-values are. The University of Alaska also has an informative at-a-glance chart (pdf) to easily compare your options, while HGTV’s Ecologue’s snappy insulation overview video is sure to warm you up to the idea.
Wondering what other function your toilet could possibly perform? Hand-washing, of course. Not in the bowl, silly! On the lid!
With this Real Goods Toilet Lid Sink, you can cut water consumption by washing your hands in this nifty add-on sink. When you flush, this gadget directs clean water to a sink on the lid of your toilet for hand-washing. Once you’ve washed your hands, the water drains into the toilet tank to complete the flush.
Think of it as a mini-greywater recycling modification to your toilet. According to Real Goods, it installs easily without tools. Each unit is made from porcelain-like plastic and retails for $89 USD.
Since my last post, Chris and I enjoyed a fabulous fall break to Europe. Don’t get all jealous on me now, I’ll have you know that the weather was way nicer in Edmonton than anywhere we were. And, on the one really nice day we had in Rome, we couldn’t even wear shorts because we went to the Vatican! No bare limbs allowed. For real.
Plus, it was England’s wettest summer in 90 years! Anyway, we had a great time, visited with family, and saw some amazing historical architecture. Back to the house.
Here’s a video of us installing, sanding, and staining our reclaimed kitchen flooring. I think you’ll like it. I had way too much fun playing with a couple new video editing features.
We still have yet to put the final finishing coats on - 3 coats so far. If we had used harder wood, I might have considered wax. In any case, the products we used were:
Osmo One Coat Only HS Plus Stain, Oak Colour - It comes in a 375 ml can. We were worried it wouldn’t be enough to cover our area, but it was (by about 3 tablespoons).
AFM Safecoat Low Odor Polyureseal BP Gloss Finish - This stuff is low VOC, formaldehyde-free, and water based. We chose this to achieve a hard, durable finish to compensate for the fact that fir is so soft.
We like the stain a lot. If you use it, my only tip would be to stir the can often and well to ensure that your stain colour stays consistent during the whole application process. As for the finishing coat, we’re not quite done yet. We’ll fill you in once we are.
Over the past season I’ve become intimately acquainted with my right-hand water fixture. Nope, I didn’t have the flu and yep - my pipes are in great shape. Instead of a sickly me hanging over the toilet bowl, a curious me tinkered around with the twoflush toilet conversion kit by Alberta company Aquanotion.
Toilets & Water Conservation
Eco-rhetoric calls on us all to meditate upon the final destination of our sewage post-flush. But there’s only so much meditating one can do without a bit of plumbing experience. Environment Canada tells us that our ‘retro style’ 18 litre toilets slurp up “30 000 litres of clean, fresh water per year just to get rid of 650 litres of body waste” while newer 6 litre models sip only a third of that to do the same job.
To Upgrade or to Retrofit
The water savings alone are enough to make anyone want to dump old faithful for a younger more evolved comparable. And though it was a tough decision, I committed to making it work with my current throne. Just think of all those old toilets piled up in the dumpster. I know what you’re thinking, but sadly not everyone wants a toilet planter in their yard.
This has been a long time coming folks, sorry for the delay!
l’ll let the video do the talking. This was way back in the spring when we were working on our countertop. (It gets better toward the end of the video ) More to come soon!
Where does rubber come from anyway?
Unlike money, rubber actually does grow on trees. That is, naturally occurring latex does. Natural rubber or latex begins its lifecycle when the Para rubber tree is tapped for sap, not unlike how our Quebequois friends bring us maple syrup.
Yet, the majority of rubber products you and I are familiar with are made not from natural latex, but from synthetic rubber. Synthetic rubber is derived from petroleum and other minerals, and is made into tires, gaskets, seals, moldings, carpet backing, bouncing balls, hoses, and wet suits for starters. (IISRP)
But, according to the Minnesota Building Materials Database, synthetic rubber has a high embodied energy. Embodied energy is a measure of the total energy required for sourcing or extracting raw material, material processing, manufacture and even transportation to the end material’s point of use. In a nutshell, look for materials with a lower embodied energy when possible.
What About Recycled Rubber?
Logically, when you cut out the raw material extraction phase of a product’s lifecycle, the energy savings are fantastic: recycling rubber rather than producing it from scratch can yield a 70% energy savings (Mumma, 1995)! While it’s true that collecting, processing, and remanufacturing recyclable materials takes a massive amount of energy, it’s safe to say that the benefits and savings are worthwhile.
Still, no matter how hard you try you can’t deny the fact that a recycled product retains many of the characteristics from its raw ‘material of origin’. In other words, this recycled content apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Read the rest of this entry »
Think a skylight is nothing more than a rooftop window? Then open your world and your blinds to the many benefits they bestow including exposure to natural light, energy savings thanks to reduced lighting needs, and lower cooling costs (with models that open) via the chimney effect.
Green Living Ideas offers the full story in an interview with American skylight producer Velux. At 15 minutes, it’s a great primer on how skylights can brighten up your life and save you energy at the same time. And, if you’re looking for a Canadian skylight and solar tube producer, meet Skytech Skylights out of Edmonton with dealers from BC to Quebec.
Yet another wondrous eco-invention comes to us via Treehugger, and it brings water conservation to the micro level!
Picture yourself the proud new owner of this umbrella pot, as you complacently harvest the sprinkle from your soggy umbrella for your frizzy tuft of turf, while preventing the sloshy return of the mop bucket.
Have you ever cleaned out your eavestroughs? I haven’t, but it’s on my mind with each and every spring shower we get. I live in a mature neighbourhood where elm-lined boulevards offer plenty of shade, comfort and neighbourhood allure. Chances are, my gutters are caked with elm leaves and debris from, gulp, the past five years.
From a green point of view, proper home maintenance and care is key. When we protect our homes from wear and damage, we make them last longer and delay repair and replacement, both of which require money, energy and new materials to be used. Home maintenance is all about durability, prevention, and quite often, safety. And, it’s always cheaper to maintain something than it is to fix or replace it.
Keeping the Clutter out of Your Gutters
In the vein of prevention, there are ways to keep your eaves troughs from piling up with muck. It’s about working smarter, not harder. Gutter screens or guards are typically made of plastic or metal screening, and install without much hassle. Look for them at your local hardware store, or find a company from the yellow pages. If you lack the time, tools, or the will to do the job yourself, there’s many a local company that will welcome your business.
Greener Gutters in Toronto & Calgary
Our fortunate neighbours in these two cities can now fit their gutters with U.S.-made RainTube, which is simply a corrugated perforated plastic tube that accepts the rain and turfs the rest. Although it does not carry an independent green certification, it is Greenspec listed, made from 100% recycled material, tested to last 100 years and recyclable, say RainTube manufacturers.
Until the product is offered elsewhere in Canada, the rest of us will be left scooping out the sludge or installing typical screens. Business opportunity, anyone?
(NC)-Do you have mystery food items that have been in your freezer for months? What about a second fridge in the basement that holds a couple of pop bottles and a big jar of pickles or a deep freezer with seven months worth of food? Maybe it’s time to downsize. Older, secondary fridges and oversized deep freezers are a big drain on Ontario’s electricity grid and may be costing residents between $120 and $150 on their electricity bills.
“Many people don’t realize just how costly these older, inefficient, secondary fridges are on the electricity system and on their hydro bill,” said Bill Wylie, program manager at the Ontario Power Authority. “It’s important for people to purchase the right size refrigerator to suit their needs. The larger the fridge, the larger its electricity needs.”
Wylie explains that replacing your old refrigerator or freezer with an ENERGY STAR qualified model that fits your household’s needs can help to reduce your electricity bill. When purchasing a new fridge, consider the number of people that will be using it. ENERGY STAR provides the following guidelines as reference for purchasing a new refrigerator:
. One or two people - 12 cubic feet
. Three or four people - 14 to 17 cubic feet
. Each additional person - add 2 cubic feet
To ensure you buy the most energy-efficient fridge, look for the ENERGY STAR symbol and consider the fridge’s design. A fridge with the freezer on top is the most efficient design, followed by bottom freezers. Side-by-side fridge models are least efficient.
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Choose green for your next reno project.
processing, manufacture and even transportation to the end material’s point of use. In a nutshell, look for materials with a lower embodied energy when possible.
shower we get. I live in a mature neighbourhood where elm-lined boulevards offer plenty of shade, comfort and neighbourhood allure. Chances are, my gutters are caked with elm leaves and debris from, gulp, the past five years.
is simply a corrugated perforated plastic tube that accepts the rain and turfs the rest. Although it does not carry an independent green certification, it is 
(NC)-Do you have mystery food items that have been in your freezer for months? What about a second fridge in the basement that holds a couple of pop bottles and a big jar of pickles or a deep freezer with seven months worth of food? Maybe it’s time to downsize. Older, secondary fridges and oversized deep freezers are a big drain on Ontario’s electricity grid and may be costing residents between $120 and $150 on their electricity bills.