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Remodel Your Kitchen the Green Way
The kitchen is your home's energy hog, what with heating the room, the stove, and the water, lighting all the surfaces, and running all the appliances. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the kitchen's tasks account for 41.5 percent of a home's energy expenditure. So get aggressive if you remodel this room-take a sharp knife to your energy wastefulness. Since the kitchen is a heavy water-use area, installing low-flow aerators on your kitchen faucets should be a priority project. Better yet, getting a pull-out sprayer faucet allows you to better moderate how much water you really need.
Since kitchen users rely on hot water to clean up their dishes, switching to an energy-efficient water heater can make the room a lot greener. Gas-powered heaters are the most efficient, as are tankless heaters that only supply as much water as you need on demand.
Speaking of gas heating, nothing beats a gas stove-they're better for cooking and more energy-efficient than electric stoves. Professional cooks generally prefer gas, which is also widely considered the greener option.
Other appliances also use a lot of energy, so seek out green versions of refrigerators, dishwashers, and vent fans. Look for the ENERGY STAR label, which indicates that the appliance complies with the requirements of the energy-savings program designed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Another way of reducing energy use on appliances is to make sure yours are the right size for your needs. Those with small kitchens or modest needs might think about installing a smaller stove, such as one with a 20" cook top, or mini refrigerator. If your appliances are too big, they use energy to heat or cool space that doesn't need such high-intensity treatment.
While most kitchen-remodelers might not put exterior-wall insulation high on their to-do lists, making sure there the kitchen is well insulated is one of the most important things you can do to improve energy efficiency. This will likely involve blowing fiberglass or natural materials like cellulose and mineral wool into the walls and floor. To make sure you get enough insulation, turn to handy online tools that help you calculate how much you need.
While the kitchen offers many other greening opportunities-a home recycling center or eco-friendly flooring-those listed here are some of the most energy-saving improvements you can make to this most-important room.
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Remodel Your Bathroom the Green Way
Sprin
g is upon us-what better time to give your home a boost with a remodeled bathroom? Remodeling is a great time to make energy-efficiency improvements, which means you can be just as green as the spring that's sprung. So let's run down a few of the most effective ways to give your bathroom the Earth-friendly makeover you desire.
First, water. What's more important to a bathroom than water, especially piping hot water? Heating water accounts for a large amount of energy use in bathrooms, so upgrading to a new water heater is a top priority. Consider a tankless water heater, which only heats the amount of water you need when you need it so no energy is wasted in "stand-by" heating. An intermediary option is the indirect heater, which is more energy-efficient than a tanked heater but easier and cheaper than tankless.
Whether you go with a tankless or tank-encumbered heater, making the switch to natural gas will also be a good move. Gas heaters are considered the most efficient, and if you go with a gas-powered integrated heater, which will heat both your water and your house, you're getting very green indeed.
To get even greener in your water heating, though, consider putting a hot water recirculation pump on the water-using fixture farthest away from the heater, which will cycle the water already in the pipes back to the heater, which keeps the heater from having to expend the energy to heat cold water drawn from outdoors.
Another water-saving measure is the low-flow toilet, since ordinary toilets account for almost a third of the indoor water an average home uses daily. Going to low-flow will reduce an average person's annual water use from 27,300 gallons to 12,500 gallons, a reduction of more than half.
While you're doing these water fixes, consider installing newer-model showerheads and faucets, which can dramatically reduce water use. Low-flow showerheads, for example, cut your water usage but not your water pressure. If you're not replacing your showerhead, faucet and toilet, look for leaks around your old ones, another source of water waste.
Next, materials. An earth-friendly upgrade to think about is installing sustainable materials in your bathroom. Including bamboo, cork, wheat board, eucalyptus wood or local stone in your redesign will save you from installing materials that produce a lot of pollution, are heavy on pesticides, or take a lot of energy to produce.
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Understanding Green Cleaning Product Designations
Because cleaning products often contain highly toxic ingredients that are bad for the environment, many earth-conscious consumers want to buy more eco-friendly cleaners and disinfectants. Here are some pointers to help clear the confusion regarding manufacturer claims, labels, and designations:
• For starters, don't be fooled by marketing and advertising that uses buzzwords to get your attention - but may have little truth and substance. It is easy for anyone to claim that a product is "natural," for example, but that does not necessarily mean that it is good for Mother Nature.
• What you can do is read the small print where the active ingredients are listed. Household cleaners that contain ammonia, for example, are going to be a lot less green than those that contain citric acid made from lemons - so scrutinize labels and use your common sense.
• The EPA provides a designation called Design for the Environment -abbreviated as DfE. While this designation does not guarantee that a product is green, it does signify that it is less harmful to the environment than other chemicals in its same class.
• A "Green Seal" on a label holds products to a much higher standard than DfE, however, and lets you know that products are non-toxic, biodegradable, and free from known carcinogens.
• If product labels indicate that they are classified as organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that ensures that ingredients are radiation and pesticide free, and come from organic, sustainable farms.
• More stringent makers of green products - like the Seventh Generation company - establish their own strict guidelines. The Method brand, for instance, takes additional steps to offset its carbon footprint even during the manufacture of its green cleaning products.
• Some companies also pay attention to not just what goes in the bottle, but the impact of the container itself, which adds an additional layer of eco-awareness. Dr. Bronner's, for example, is among those companies that only use 100 percent recycled plastics to make their bottles.
One way to simplify the consumer research is to rely on retailers to do it for you before they stock their shelves. If you buy household cleaning products in stores that specialize primarily in organic foods and green products, for example, the chances are greater that the selection of cleaners will already be pre-screened to ensure that they meet higher green standards.
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