Green Homes

It seems like these days, everyone wants to do their part to help save the planet. Well, don’t worry, because there’s plenty of screwed-up environment to go around. But even if you don’t have the resources to patch up the ozone layer or find new homes for deposed polar bears, you can still do your part to give Mother Nature a helping hand. Well, not a helping hand, exactly, because you’ll be too busy holding these various smart gadgets. Companies from around the world have stepped in to make Earth a little cleaner, by helping us reduce our power consumption. Here are seven devices that will help you conserve energy in your home, and maybe even help make our world livable again.

Smart Thermostat

Ok, maybe this isn’t exactly top-of-the-line. After all, thermostats have been in use for decades. However, smart thermostats are something else. A smart thermostat can better regulate your climate, beyond simply maintaining a specific temperature. Are you leaving town? The smart thermostat (and I continue to use the generic term because there are so many different brands available) will automatically reduce power consumption. You won’t have to worry about it shutting down completely and letting your pipes freeze, but you also will have the peace of mind of knowing that at least your power bill won’t end up costing more than it would to take your family to Disney World. It can likewise turn itself down when you go to bed, or at any other time when you might not need direct heat\cold. And if you’re the controlling type, the thermostat can be managed directly from your mobile smart device.

Kill A Watt

Appliances can be some of the most inefficient energy guzzlers in your house. Whether it’s your toaster cramming electricity through a few coils of nichrome wire to produce heat, or your refrigerator using electricity to suck up and contain that heat, the end result is the same: energy consumption. The “Kill A Watt” is a device that allows appliances to be plugged directly into it. It then uses its large LCD display to verify just how much energy the appliance uses. So now you can determine exactly how much you need to resent your kid for leaving the freezer door open all night.

Power Conscience

Of course, if reading displays and calculating kilowatt hours seems like too much work (come on, it’s for the environment, after all), then maybe the “Power Conscience Energy Usage Meter” would be more your style. There are no numbers or anything like that, instead, you just plug the device into a wall outlet, and it will tell you (through brightening or dimming LED lights that form a floral pattern) just how much power your home is using. Of course, it won’t be a specific figure, but at least you’ll know if you fall into the category of “a whole dang lot.” 

iGo Power Smart Tower

Although the word “smart” in this context doesn’t mean the same thing as it would in, say, the word smartphone, these smart power strips (or towers or whatever) help cut down on the amount of electricity your appliances use when they’re not actually even turned on. See, appliances have been known to cause “phantom power drain,” which means that electricity is being used and wasted anytime that an appliance remains plugged in. The “iGo Power Smart Tower” can supposedly reduce standby power by up to 85%. It also features eight outlets and even has two external USB power ports, you know, because technology.

Cyclus Mobile Power Generator

Of course, if you live your life exclusively through mobile devices, you’re going to want more than just a break from phantom power drain. Mobile devices generally need to be recharged at least once a day, and the resulting energy costs can really add up. That’s why the mad geniuses at Yanko Design came up with the “Cyclus.” It looks like a giant plastic light bulb, and its website could stand to have better translated directions (“having a opportunity of an education is vital for incremental change”?), but the idea behind it is actually quite novel. You just plug the Cyclus into your mobile device, twist the bottom a few times, and then make use of the 6.6V 3W of clean, free power it generates. I have no idea how much Angry Birds that translates into, but it sure sounds great.

Sonea Sound to Energy Converter 

One of the great things about the theory of relativity is that it lets us know that pretty much everything is convertible into energy. That’s where this device comes in. No, it’s not an unlicensed portable fusion reactor; it’s something a little bit cooler. “Sonea” actually picks up the vibrations created by sound waves as they travel through the air. That energy can then be used to power anything you like. But remember, if you think you’re going to use it to run your stereo system and then turn it into a perpetual motion machine with the noise it produces, then think again; the laws of thermodynamics still apply. Nice try, though.

Savant

Used in conjunction with a properly decked-out smart home, the “Savant” really is about as top-of-the-line as it gets. It is, in essence, a virtual home automation energy manager. It keeps track of data regarding power consumption, measures energy use in real-time, and permits users to regulate the flow of electricity by designating which specific devices receive power and when. The whole system is run through your iPad, and is designed to allow the user more control over—and understanding of—personal energy consumption. And who knows? Maybe once you’ve mastered the art of electrical energy reduction, you can finally do something for all those polar bears.

 David Glenn is a home improvement expert.  He occasionally freelance writes about home automation and making your home more green. 

Attics can be a huge energy drain if they are not insulated sufficiently. We’ll leave the

heavy lifting for next weekend, but for now look for uneven insulation, base sports, water damage, and anything else that looks out of place.

For even better results, look up your area’s recommended R-value and determine if you are using the optimal type of insulation. The R-value is a measure of thermal resistance used in the building and construction industry. The ideal R-value will be different based on your geography.

Also, be sure to use proper safety precautions! You’ll need gloves and a mask to go up there because fiberglass insulation can be very harmful.

What do you do if you sense that your household air is not up to snuff?

If you suspect that something in your home is making you sick you may need to engage the services of a professional home inspector.  A variety of parameters can be tested, some with simple instrumentation and others only through expensive laboratory procedures. There is no single magic machine that can test your home for every possible problem so doing a little safe detective work before calling an expert will save time and money and help you to reach an accurate diagnosis.

What the Nose Knows

You already own a sublimely sensitive instrument…your nose is a formidable investigative assistant with an astounding long-term memory. Have you ever re-visited a place after many years absence and noted that the familiar distinct smell of the place piques your memory? The unique smell of burning charcoal in Costa Rica, the aroma of fresh ground coffee in Paris, the acrid waft of steel wheels grinding trolley track in a city metro, these are some of the smells locked in my personal olfactory memory. Many people can smell an incredible one part per million or more. This talent, once a crucial survival tool for our hunter gatherer ancestors is now often dulled by the assaults of modern life. But it is a tool that can be cultivated to your advantage. Many, but not all, problems can be detected through their odor. Volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), some molds, some pesticides, dust and gas leaks all have distinct odors.

Using Common Scents

Upon first entering your home bring awareness to what you smell. If there is an offensive odor see if you can trace its source. For your own safety, do not linger there or start your own demolition. If you suspect a problem inside a wall, you could create a larger problem by breaking through the containment. Provide the area with plentiful fresh air until you can get an expert in.

If the first thing you smell is mothballs, potpourri, air fresheners, tobacco or scented laundry products, you may have already discovered the cause of your ill health. These substances contain a constellation of petrochemical toxins that are harmful when inhaled. They should be eliminated and you will be wasting your money if you call a consultant in while these things are present.  The house must then be well-aired and cleaned before any further nasal investigation can occur.

What the Nose Can’t Know

The nose knows a lot, but it does have its limitations as a diagnostic tool. Once you have been in a space for just a few moments you are no longer able to distinguish smells due to a phenomena called “olfactory fatigue”. Your first few whiffs, each time you enter, are all you’ve got. In addition, many serious indoor air quality problems have no odor whatsoever. These include carbon monoxide, radon, some pesticides and some molds.

Even without a serious hidden defect or blatant use of toxins household air becomes polluted through the daily activities of humans breathing, cooking, bathing and washing clothes. In the absence of mechanical ventilation, airing a home out as a part of regular cleaning routine will get rid of stale air and replace it with fresh vital air. The following chart may help you with your detective work.

*Although do-it-yourself tests may indicate that a problem is present, consultation with a remediation specialist is often required for accurate diagnosis and safe, effective remediation.

Case Study: Jeanne who lives in a small house built in 1918 writes:

“In the spring (primarily), before we open the house for the summer, there is a chemical smell that seems to be coming from the stairs. We don't smell it on the stairs, exactly. but above them and into the upstairs hallway. 

It doesn't smell like cleaning solutions, it isn't mold. (. When we moved in 6 years ago, we sanded the floors throughout the house, but not the stairs or small landings going upstairs)  It smells like a shop chemical. But, we really only smell it when the weather starts to warm.  Any idea on what it might be and how to get rid of it?

Also. with the right nighttime climate in the upstairs bedrooms, we often smell the cigarette smoke from the former owners. Likely from the 60's and the 70's. Can we get that out?”

Jeanne has already done some good detective work. She has described the smells that are bothering her and furthermore she has already noted the conditions where and when these smells are most noticeable.

She notes that the chemical smell is most evident when the house has been closed down due to cold weather and this makes sense because smells dissipate when the indoor air is diluted with fresher outdoor air as the weather permits windows to be opened. It seems to be coming from the stairwell and she suspects that it may be from the floors their which had not been sanded and redone with a healthy finish. Air will tend to rise through a house due to stack affect and the stairwell is often the path of least resistance so it might be from the finish on the stairs and it might not. One way to make that determination would be to place a temporary air barrier over this area and see if the smells dissipate. I don’t know where this home is located or if there is a crawl space under it. For all I know Jeanne has never been in her crawl space and one of the many previous owners may have left open containers of chemicals down there! These smells could waft up into the 2^nd floor and hang out there drawn by the first opened windows as the weather warms.

As for the second smell she has been able to identify it as stale cigarette smoke. Yuk! But where is it coming from and what is the “right night time climate” when it is most prominent? Perhaps  it smells most when the air is still and humid. Smells are more prominent when there is moisture in the air and, if there is no wind, the good outdoor air that would normally dilute the odor, is not getting in. Most probably, unless this smoker had a very short leash, the whole house will be permeated with smoke particles and so the goal is to get rid of as many of these particles as possible and to keep at it until one day there will be so few enough that they no longer create a bothersome odor.

Here are some of the things Jeannie can do to remove smoke-smell caused by particles that cling to the interior surfaces of her home:

• Ozonate safely. Remove pets and humans, close up the house and let the ozone run. Open the house, don’t breath, shut off the ozinator, open windows and doors…then go outside and take a deep breath. Enter the house when it has thoroughly aired out and there is no smell of ozone.
• Wash all hard surfaces with a mild soapy solution and vinegar, several times
• Remove any soft surfaces that are removable and launder or clean
• HEPA vacuum all non-removable soft surfaces, crevices etc.
• Steam clean carpets
• Try sprinkling baking soda on upholstery, letting it sit for a while and then vacuum
• Steam clean ductwork
• Some essential oils like “Thieves Oil” are known to absorb odors (not mask but actually change them).Although I have allergies to many scents….even natural essential oils, I am fine with Thieves Oil. If  Jeannie finds the oil to be well-tolerated and pleasant smelling she can use a diffuser made for essential oils to distribute it into the air.

Has the smoke permeated into the walls and insulation? Under certain conditions odors in the wall can be drawn out of openings in the wall. The next time the smell becomes strong Jeannie can determine this by sniffing one of her outlets. If she discovers that the source of the odor is within the walls then sealing them better is going to help. Replacing outlets with airtight gasketed ones and caulking behind the baseboards would be a very good start on this project.

Good luck Jeannie!

Do you suspect that your home is causing health issues? Are you doing a renovation or new home and have a health question? Please send your questions to info@econest.com and put Mother Earth News Blog in the subject. Your situation will probably be of interest to other readers too so as time permits I will answer your questions in my blog.

Bio: Paula Baker-Laporte FAIA  is an architect, healthy building consultant, instructor for the International Institute of Building Biology and Ecology and author. She is the principle of EcoNest Architecture. She is primary author of “Prescriptions for a Healthy House” and co-author with husband Robert Laporte of “Econest-Creating Sustainable Sanctuaries of Clay, Straw and Timber”.  www.econesthomes.com

It’s springtime and the weather is getting warm, but that is no excuse for letting money and energy fly out the window every single day. Hopefully you were able to find all the drafts and leaks in your windows last fall (if not, now is just as good a time as any).

Now is time for the execution. If you found a few leaks that are causing indoor air to escape, you can simply caulk and weatherstrip the area around the windows to mitigate this. Make sure there is weatherstripping installed at all movable joints.

If, instead, you found that your windows were generally ineffective at keeping an air and temperature barrier, it can often be a wise investment to install ENERGY STAR-qualified windows. These are generally double-pane windows with high performance glass that can reduce heat loss through the windows by 25 to 50 percent.

Many customers who consult with me on green building profess their dream of living in an off-grid home powered by solar energy.  Since solar technology is now widely available and cheaper than it has ever been, this dream is easier than ever for a homeowner to achieve.

However, solar is still a high-dollar line item on a construction budget or upgrade for an existing home, and whether the concept of an off-grid solar array makes sense for a particular home is a more complicated question.  There are multiple ways to set up a renewable energy system to power your home—with “off-grid” being only one possibility. 

So What Does “Off-Grid” Mean?

“Off-grid” means you are on your own: there is no connection to the power company.  The only way to accomplish this in a setting where you want electricity even when the sun is not shining, is to incorporate batteries into your system.  Thus off-grid homes have no power poles running to them, and draw the power they need from deep cycle battery banks.

Grid-Tied: the Alternative

“Grid-tied,” by contrast, means that your house is connected to the grid, and you are still set up to buy your power from the power company when you need it.  But, when your solar array is producing power, you can either sell that power straight to the grid with the goal of financially offsetting the cost of the power you have purchased, or you use that power yourself first, and sell any extra to the grid.  You may not be using the actual electrons you have produced yourself, but you are still contributing green power to everyone’s benefit.

The Pros and Cons

The advantages of one system over the other come down to cost, comfort and independence. A grid-tied system will cost less because it does not require batteries, which form a significant portion of the cost of an off-grid system.  A grid-tied system for a net-zero home will also cost less because fewer solar panels are needed:  When you are not trying to store your own energy in batteries for later use, you do not need to produce quite as much energy in order to offset your yearly energy use.

A grid-tied system is also more flexible, both from a day-to-day use standpoint, and from a down-the-road standpoint.  Since you still buy any excess power from the grid, you won’t suddenly find yourself without electricity if you accidentally leave the lights on all night—although you will have to pay the electric bill for such a mistake.  And since you aren’t tied in to producing all of your own power yourself, you can use a grid-tied system to install as much solar as your budget allows, adding to it down the road as you are able.  Although you can add to an off-grid array down the road as well, if you don’t install enough to meet all of your power needs to begin with, you can’t wait on installing more capacity if you want to have enough power.

Pictured above is a grid-tied solar array installed on this round Deltec home in Virginia.  It produces enough energy to offset ½ of the home’s yearly energy needs, making the home a partial-net-zero home.  Installing the grid-tied array allowed the homeowners to put in as much solar as their budget allowed.

However, for safety reasons, grid-tied systems cannot function when grid power goes down (a live load on the line would present a danger to utility workers coming in to fix power outages), and to many independence-seeking homeowners, that is the biggest drawback of grid-tied systems.  There may be very practical reasons to go off-grid as well, such as a high cost of installing traditional power poles to a remote jobsite or a concern about local grid reliability.  

Pictured, left, is an off-grid array installed by yours truly at Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute in North Carolina  The small research institute had a number of isolated telescope buildings on a high ridge that was prone to summer lightning storms.  Giving each building its own off-grid array made sense to keep this equipment powered even during frequent lightning-induced power outages at the site.

An off-grid system could also be argued to have a lesser environmental footprint than a grid-tied system.  For one thing, it forces you to adopt a more energy-conscious lifestyle, for every decision about electrical usage has consequences for how your system performs.  Additionally, an off-grid system produces its energy on the site where that energy will be used, eliminating the inefficiencies of distribution.  A grid-tied system is typically sized to offset the power consumed at the homesite, but is not often sized to offset the wasted energy from burning a fossil fuel at the power plant level and then distributing that energy.  An off-grid system represents a complete removal of your home from the environmental externalities associated with conventional power production—for some, this is by far the biggest attraction of renewable energy.

Pros and Cons Can Vary by State

How the state in which you live structures its rules and incentives for renewable energy makes a difference to which type of system makes more financial sense.  In general, grid-tied systems can have a dramatically shorter payback period than off-grid systems, as utility incentives for renewable energy or programs to pay homeowners for the power they produce typically speed up the time it takes to recover the up-front investment of solar.  However, in states that have very poorly structured rules for grid-connection, off-grid might be a better way to go solar while avoiding regulatory headaches.

I recently interviewed four Deltec homeowners who have built their homes with solar energy: two who chose to go off-grid, and two who chose to go grid-tied.  For some of these customers, state incentives played a role in their choice.  I compiled their stories into an off-grid fact sheet I use to educate our customers, which you can download from our website here.  

A good place to go to start looking for the rules and incentives in your state is the North Carolina Solar Center’s Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency: http://www.dsireusa.org

If you’d like to start getting a handle on just how much solar you would need and how much it would cost, I have found several online calculators useful for arriving at ballpark figures:

Alt-E’s Off-Grid Solar Calculator: http://www.altestore.com/store/calculators/off_grid_calculator/

Grid-Tied Solar Estimator:

http://www.solar-estimate.org/index.php?page=solar-calculator

Bio:  Leigha Dickens is the Green Building Coordinator and resident building scientist at Deltec Homes, Inc in Asheville, North Carolina.  Deltec manufactures round, energy-efficient, high-quality and highly wind-resistant homes.  Learn more about green building with Deltec Homes at www.deltechomes/green-building/

Our Invitation to MOTHER EARTH NEWS Readers:

In my quest for healthier ways to build I came across Building Biology (www.HBELC.org) a building philosophy and science that originated in Germany in the early 1960’s, as “Bau-Biologie”.  At that time, long before we recognized building-related health problems  in North America, it was becoming alarmingly evident in Europe that a growing segment of their population was chronically unwell from being indoors in the mass produced industrialized housing that went up post WWII. A multi-disciplinary gathering of concerned professionals systematically compared newly constructed “sick buildings” with the solid, often earthen, pre-war building stock. What resulted was a set of scientific standards for evaluating indoor environmental quality and 25 principles for building new homes and workplaces.

In North America our need to build better buildings is of more recent concern. As awareness of human impact on planetary ecology grows it becomes increasingly evident that we need to consume less… and North Americans are notorious for consuming far more than their share of the planet’s resources!  The burgeoning green building movement has focusing on many facets of the ecological impact of our buildings, including the negative impact of conventional building on our health. Many people in the building industry have worked hard to come up with systems for assessing the “greenness” of building. Fortunately these scorecards almost always contain a section on “indoor environmental quality” and require or reward a dependable supply of fresh air and reduction in the use of toxic substances.

But health is just one small subcategory of the green building agenda. The main emphasis, in the green building movement, is to create more energy efficient homes by making “improvements” to the light frame construction techniques that are uniquely prevalent here. Saving the planet from the excessive consumption of human beings is the driving force.

Unfortunately a “green” home certification is not a guarantee that a home will support the health of its occupants.

In contrast the main focus of Building Biology is human health…and achieving deep ecology is a bi-product of this. A central concept of Building Biology is that “there is almost always a direct correlation between the biological compatibility of a building and its ecological performance.”  In other words buildings that deeply nurture every aspect of human health in production, occupation, and post-habitation will also excel as models of sustainability. Why?  … Because the natural environment is the gold standard for human health and the ultimate model of sustainability. The role of our indoor environments is to temper nature’s extremes of temperature and to keep us dry and safe from predators.

Photo at right: Doorway to the original Baubiologie Institute in Germany. Credit Robert Laporte

To the extent that our indoor environments measure up to nature, in terms of air quality, light/color quality, electro-climate etc., they will nurture us.

As I first began to apply the 25 Building Biology principles for health and ecology, I found that it was impossible to obtain optimal results using conventional stick frame construction practices and this lead me to explore alternatives, especially earth-based mass wall construction techniques. You can see some of the results on one of my websites.

I have discovered that, when it comes to our health, our conventional building practices are fundamentally flawed! Understanding the principles gives insight as to why our light-frame methods of building are so fraught with problems that often lead to ill health.

While some of these Building Biology principles parallel and precede criteria used in various green building evaluations, others seem obscure in the context of our common building practices on this side of the pond.

Here are the principles:

1)      Verify that the building site is geologically undisturbed

2)      Place dwellings away from sources of air pollution and noise.

3)      Place dwellings well apart from each other in spaciously planned developments amidst green areas.

4)      Plan homes and developments taking into consideration the needs of the community, families, individuals and the natural ecosystem.

5)      Building activities shall promote health and social well-being

6)      Use natural and unadulterated building materials.

7)      Allow natural self-regulation of indoor air humidity using hygroscopic (moisture buffering) building materials.

8)      Assure low total moisture content and rapid desiccation of wet construction processes in new buildings.

9)      Design for a balance between heat storage and thermal insulation.

10)  Plan for optimal surface and air temperature.

11)  Provide for adequate natural ventilation.

12)  Use thermal radiation for heating buildings employing passive solar energy as much as possible.

13)  Provide ample natural light and use illumination and color in accordance with nature.

14)  Minimize the alteration of vital cosmic and terrestrial radiation.

15)  Minimize man-made electromagnetic and radio frequency exposure.

16)  Avoid building materials that have elevated radioactivity levels.

17)  Provide adequate protection from noise and infrasonic vibration or sound conducted through solids.

18)  Utilize building materials, which have neutral or pleasant natural scents and which do not outgas toxics.

19)  Minimize occurrence of fungi, bacteria, dust and allergens.

20)  Provide the best possible water quality.

21)  Support building activities and production of materials which do not have adverse side effects and which promotes health and social well-being throughout their life-cycle.

22)  Minimize energy consumption utilizing renewable energy as much as possible

23)  Source building materials locally and that do not contribute to the exploitation of scarce or hazardous resources.

24)  Utilize physiological and ergonomic knowledge in furniture and space design.

25)  Consider proportion, harmonic orders, and shapes in design

When the 25 principles are applied it has been my experience that the resulting buildings fill most North Americans with awe and delight and most Europeans with a nostalgic longing for home.

I will elaborate on the application of these principles in upcoming blogs.

Photo above right:Home designed by author using Building Biology principles. Bottom Line: "When you enter your home, why leave nature behind? Credit Laurie Dickson

Do you suspect that your home is causing health issues? Are you doing a renovation or new home and have a health question? Please send your questions to info@econest.com and put Mother Earth News Blog in the subject. Your situation will probably be of interest to other readers too so as time permits I will answer your questions in my blog.

Paula Baker-Laporte FAIA  is an architect, healthy building consultant, instructor for the International Institute of Building Biology and Ecology and author. She is the principle of EcoNest Architecture. She is primary author of “Prescriptions for a Healthy House” and co-author with husband Robert Laporte of “Econest-Creating Sustainable Sanctuaries of Clay, Straw and Timber”.  www.EcoNestHomes.com