With the recent purchase of a 1980 built home one of the problems we found during the inspection was a hot mess of an attic – no ducting of the new bath fans installed in the remodel, airflow issues, and just a few inches of insulation.
The CO2 Impact of Meat is Exaggerated
While I love EWG’s information on body care and household products, I think they misrepresent the impact of meat on their meat eaters guide.
The crux of the problem as I see it is they measure CO2 output per kilogram of food. But the need for nutrition isn’t measured in kilograms but rather calories. And lets face facts you’re not getting your fat or protein from a tomato or vitamin c from beef. Once you’ve met your macro-nutrient needs certainly you can exchange an egg for a tomato, but you can’t live on low CO2 tomatoes alone. Continue reading
Solar In Seattle Part 2
After the last post a few questions came up about solar panels and the risks involved in such a large purchase (not just from my wife). So without further ado, here’s some info about warranties, lifespan, durability, and maintenance.
Solar In Seattle Actually Works (On Paper)
I’ve always wanted to do solar but never could in the townhouse, with the pending purchase of a new home it was time to finally look into going solar. What I’ve discovered is solar is a complicated matter but a very fiscally smart move.
Honda Clarity – a PHEV for the family
One of the unfortunate facts of most EVs and PHEVs is they are rather compact and sometimes come with sticker shock when compared to similarly sized gasoline powered cars. Honda Clarity changes the game with a family sedan sized PHEV which after incentives can cost less than an Accord.
Why You Should Replace Your Electric Hot Water Heater Now
Normally people tend to wait until hot water heater failure before replacing a hot water heater. But I’m going to argue if you have an electric hot water heater, you should do it now regardless of age.
If you have an electric hot water heater you know they’re expensive to run – estimates for a common household are about 5000kWh annually which means about $550/year for an average power cost. Electric heat pump water heaters however are about 4-5 times more efficient than a traditional unit. Continue reading
Understanding Power Use (Watts) and Power Cost (kWh)
Recently I upgraded my kitchen lighting from halogen to LED bulbs as the latter have become very inexpensive (especially with PSE instant rebates). But as always I was curious about the value of upgrading bulbs.
As you know lightbulbs show you power consumption in watts, but power bills are in kWh (kilowatt hours). Put simply if you took a 1000 watt device (1kW, like a blow dryer) and ran it for an hour, you’d use a kWh.
Now in the case of a blow dryer the high wattage isn’t much a concern since the time used each day is small (and I shave my head anyway…to save power of course…). But the kitchen lighting for instance had six 75 watt bulbs, which are often on for hours each day in our household. That means 450 watts (.45 kW) and we guessed 2-4 hours of use per day. So assuming 3 hours a day of use that’s 40.5kWh/mo (.45kWh * 3 hours/day * 30 days/mo). I pay 10.5¢/kWh for power so that means $4.25/mo to run the kitchen lights.
In the case of the kitchen I replaced the bulbs with 9.5 watt LEDs, so running for the same 3 hours a day for a month lighting the kitchen costs just 54¢.
Admittedly saving $45/year isn’t a huge deal, but for spending just $13 in new bulbs its not a shabby deal either – if someone offered to trade your $13 in cash in exchange for their $45 in cash, you’d take that offer every time! Even better next year that same person will give you another $45 for nothing!
Not to forget each kWh saved in PSE territory means about a pound of CO2 saved – over a year you’ll save 420lbs of CO2.
Perhaps more than anything the benefit of LEDs is helping to not make new power plants.
Three days with the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid
On a recent business trip to Dallas I needed a rental car (usually I Uber, but Dallas area is just too huge for that to be reasonable) – I got to the Hertz 5 Star row and lo and behold, I see a Sonata Hybrid right in front. Between the fact I’ve never driven one and I knew the car had Android Auto to help me navigate the Dallas sprawl, picking it was an easy choice. Continue reading
The 2017 Eco Friendly Cheapish Cleaning List
You’d think household cleaning products would be rigorously tested for safety, while in fact there’s little regulation of what’s in household cleaners. For example quaternary ammonium compounds are permitted which are known to cause asthma, or 2-butoxyethanol which can absorb through the skin and damage red blood cells.
On the flip side many “green” cleaners aren’t as green as they’d like you to think and many just do a terrible job of cleaning. While you can certainly spend lots of time reviewing EWG’s great site, reading reviews of efficacy, and testing things out – here’s what we’ve found works for us. Continue reading
The Eco Friendly Affordable-ish Baby Guide
When shopping our baby last year we found a lot of guides for eco friendly baby gear at outrageously high prices ($1000+ cribs, etc). But we don’t think you need to spend lavishly to ensure your baby skips offgassing furniture, toxic paints, etc.
As a general rule we’ll favor solid wood over particleboard (due to VOCs), unfinished or non-toxic finishes, avoiding polyurethane foam (also due to VOCs, phthalates), avoiding chemical flame retardants, and favoring polyethylene over vinyl for waterproofing.