Rechargeable batteries

Last year I switched to a wireless mouse and keyboard, and I am thrilled. They have reduced clutter and the occasional frustration of running out of tether.

But, I am amazed at how quickly the mouse goes through batteries. I've got to be on my 4th set already this year. Which got me thinking about batteries. Everything else I own has an internal battery that gets recharged (Cell phone, Ipod, etc.) Other than the need to test and replace my smoke detector batteries, I had almost forgotten about the concept of disposable batteries.

This is breaking the cardinal rule of eco-responsibility of course. NOT thinking. So today at the store, I saw a rechargeable battery kit. In one simple package it featured the charger, a full range of sizes of rechargeable batteries, and an organizer to keep everything neat and tidy. This made me think about just how many batteries are thrown away each year and their impact to the planet.

Here are some interesting facts:
- Between 1970 and 1990, the number of household batteries disposed of doubled.
- The typical home has at least 10 batteries in use (cell phone, camera, watch, alarm clock, flash light, remote controls and smoke detectors) If you have kids, then that number is likely to double.
- With the exception of California, most states allow you to toss most of your used batteries in the trash.
- Over 3 billion batteries are sold in the US each year.

One way to make an immediate impact is to switch to rechargeable batteries for most of your needs. You can find rechargeable AA, AAA, C, D, 9V batteries and charging systems. When your other batteries can no longer hold their charge, you can turn them into a recycle location. Use this web site to find the nearest location.
Find a battery recycle location
Click on the link called "Find a drop-off ste near you" in the upper left navigation area.

Compact Flourescent Bulbs

If you are looking for an easy first step toward being green, and you just can't stand the thought of reusable grocery bags... then jump on board with compact fluorescent light bulbs. Those spiral looking bulbs that you've been seeing on the end isle display of most home improvement centers are a great way to start.

Like anything, there are positives and negatives to these little energy savers. First, the benefits.

They last a lot longer than conventional bulbs, about 10,000 hours versus only 750 for a traditional incandescent. Yes, they cost more, but you buy only 1 versus 10-15 over the same period of time. So the cash outlay is definitely less over time.

Second, you get significant energy cost savings. The CFL bulbs are far more efficient, so they use less energy. Some studies estimate saving you about 12% off of your utility bill over the course of a year. That is some significant savings to you and that reduced energy usage is passed along to the energy grid meaning less energy to be produced. About 90% of US electricity is produced from fossil fuels or CO2 producing activities. So that is your feel good, sleep better at night achievement.

Of course, I mentioned the trade-offs. There is mercury in these bulbs - and mercury is bad. However, under analysis the benefit outweighs this negative. CF bulbs contain only 4 mg of mercury and this is offset by their energy savings. You see, using CF bulbs actually prevent more mercury from being released into the air by power plants. A power plant emits about 10 mg of mercury to produce the electricity needed to run an incandescent bulb, compared to only 2.4 mg of mercury to run a CF bulb for the same amount of time. So if you hear someone has decided to stick with the old incandescents because of the mercury, let them know they are allowing the power plant to pump mercury into the atmosophere, which falls to Earth in the form of rain, which polutes our streams, enters our fish and contaminates our ground water... Or just keep it to yourself and know that you are not doing anything wrong : )

Should a bulb break, take these simple precautions: First, open nearby windows to disperse any vapor that may escape. Sweep up the fragments (do not use your hands) and wipe the area with a disposable paper towel to pick up all glass fragments. Do not use a vacuum. Place all fragments in a sealed plastic bag and follow your local waste disposal service instructions for mercury containing items.

When a bulb burns out, recycling burned-out CFLs is an option. To find out if there are recycling options near you, call 1-800-CLEAN-UP for an automated hot line or visit earth911.org. (At the top of the earth911.org home page, enter your zip code and press "go." Click on the "Household Hazardous Waste" link, then the "fluorescent bulbs" link. This page will identify the nearest mercury recycling or disposal facilities near you. If the page contains no specific information on CFs, go back and click on the link for "Mercury Containing Items.")

In reality you will get many years of use from CFL bulbs, they will cost you less over their lifetime and help to reduce overall production of greenhouse gasses. You will need to be responsible in the clean-up if one breaks and in the disposal when they burnout.

Finally, a note about brightness. A typical a 13 watt CFL bulb will be equivalent to a 60 watt incandescent when initially turned-on. Over the life of a CFL bulb, they do lose some of their brightness. Importantly, they will lose their brightness faster if only turned-on for short periods of time, like less than 3 minutes. This is a great reason to install motion sensors to activate household lights for you. More on this in my next post!

Did you play frogger as a kid?

Then you might enjoy this version of the game offered with a recycling spin on it. Warning, it can be addictive, just like the original!

Home and Garden Show

I attended our local home and garden show this weekend. It was a great day to be outside - clear blue skies and about 80 degrees. Just the type of day that makes you forget about melting ice caps and disrupted food chains. As I walked the show, I saw the usual vendors offering cabinets & counters, windows & doors, landscapes & pools, and on and on.

And then I found 2 booths that really caught my attention. One was a company called Solar City. They offer a leasing package to get home owners into a complete solar system for $0 down. So I asked what the catch was... and I really couldn't find one. They size the system to cover 100% of your energy needs at peak capacity, typically resulting in a 60% or better reduction in your electric bill. (You've still got power usage at night.)

The clincher to was that the cost savings were greater than the lease cost. I was looking at a savings of 80 dollars per month on a system that would cost me about $70 a month. So I'd be saving money, have no upfront costs, and be using solar power. Wow!

Then, about 10 steps away is another booth with a solar powered pool skimmer. It just powers around the pool on the Suns energy. They show me the guts of the unit and it's design in incredibly simple. The top is a solar panel, the front and back of the unit have little paddle wheels to move the things around and pull any surface debris into the unit.

Then they pull out the tray and the "filter" is a paper towel! No fancy $15 replacement cartridge that I have to special order. Just an ordinary paper towel just lays in the bottom and catches the muck, absorbs the tanning oil, and allows me to replace it quickly, easily and most important -- inexpensively. The solar-breeze was just that.

So now I am as energized as I have been in months to go solar! My roof faces South (good) and now I have a company in my town that is offering an unbelievable lease deal. I just might put in a pool so I can brag on the solar pool skimmer too!

Green is everywhere!!

It seems that I can't watch TV, read an e-mail, or go shopping without a green initiative popping up. Today I saw commercials from Subaru, Mobil and Chevron talking about how green they were. I took my bike out for a ride (OK, kidding - yes I drove my car) and found all of thier stations were still pumping gas and/or idling at the traffic lights as usual.

I guess the marketing folks are just a bit ahead of the curve relative to the guys and gals in engineering.

More and more of my e-mail is coming across with a little message at the bottom: "Please consider the environment before printing" It is a simple, yet effective message. I think I'll be implementing this practice long before I'm recharing the hydrogen cell of my Subaru at the local Chevron or Mobil hyrdogen station.

Even my trip to the grocery store is showing more and more green products. And these are not placed at the bottom corner of the shelf anymore either. These things are getting top billing. Middle of the shelf, right at eye level. There are recycled paper towels and toilet paper. Cleaning products that cut grease with natural ingredients like lemons and oranges. Why we didn't just use these to begin with kinda makes me wonder... I guess the ad agency couldn't get their jingle to rhyme with orange, so they went with ammonia instead.

So it seems this radical, tree-hugger movement is finally happening. Consumers are evaluating their purchases by how they effect the environment and the business community is stepping up. I for one am happy to see the progress.

Living a greener lifestyle is getting easier. I've noticed the change just in this past year. Hopefully the marketing hype will prove to be an honest shift in focus for these companies. Goods and services being produced not simply for the lowest cost and highest profit, but with the lowest impact and highest sustainability. In the long-run, that is the best strategy for a healthy economy AND planet. For my next post we will tackle materials. What options exist for building materials and the trade-offs that exist for each.

A quarterly Recap

Well, I've plowed through quite a few topics so far, and I thought it would be a good idea offer a quick summary. The objective of Babblefrog.org is to share strategies for building more environmentally conscious homes... and along the way make us all a bit more planet-friendly.

The blog posts started with a discussion of home site selection; making decisions on building materials; site orientation and considerations on commute distance/time.

We will move away from these broad discussions and begin to focus more and more on the details on execution and implementation of green living concepts. Coming up in future posts will be discussions on energy efficient appliances, sustainable wood products for floors and cabinets, and an analysis of the various types of insulation materials.

Check-in regularly to learn more.

Cotton, the wolf in sheeps clothing?!

I will make a brief departure from my usual focus on residential construction to mention cotton. When I was growing up, there were no other fabrics that seemed more healthy. Wool was too itchy and polyester was a lightning rod for static electricity.

Recently I learned that cotton crops consume 25% of all pesticides in the US. That is a huge number. When you consider all of the crops, lawns and gardens in the US, 1 in 4 is an amazing number. So I have started looking at other types of fabric which are less susceptible. And guess what I found: Bamboo.

Bamboo is being used to make fabrics that are soft, breathable and best of all come from a renewable source that is robust and resilient. If you have the chance, buy a bamboo shirt. I think you will be surprised by the comfort.

How to monetize going green

Calculating the cost-benefit of going green is an interesting exercise. I sat down today and made a list of the items that would need to be calculated.

- Cost of the "standard" material/equipment
- Cost of the "green" alternative

This is fairly straight-forward. If the maple hardwood flooring cost $4 per square foot and bamboo was $6 per SP, then the incremental cost is $2/SF.

But consider another product with a corresponding savings. Windows for example. A standard dual pane window might cost $189. But a triple pane low-e window might cost $305. Here you have an incremental cost difference of $116. But the heat gain/loss of the better window will reduce your heating and cooling costs. So that $116 cost difference is being off-set by a monthly energy bill saving.

For the sake of illustration, I will make a few assumptions:
1. The better window is 20% more efficient.
2. The average monthly utility bill is $200.
3. Heating and cooling the house is 50% of this cost.
4. The windows represent 60% of the heat gain/loss.
5. There are 8 windows in the house.

So how much are we saving given these assumptions?

If heating and cooling costs are 50% of the monthly energy usage, then we spend $100/month regulating the temperature of the home.

If the windows represent 60% of the heat gain/loss of the house, that equals $60 per month.

If the better windows are 20% more efficient, then a homeowner can expect to save $12 per month on their energy bill.

That gives us $12 per month in savings, or $144 per year. If the additional incremental cost per window was $116 and there were 8 windows, then the total additional cost was $928. So it will take about 6.5 years to "break-even".

Of course, this ignores the underlying purpose of going green: Reducing our reliance and consumption of non-renewable materials and lowering green-house gas emissions.

I have certainly made some gross assumptions and omitted the time value of money, but my purpose is to illustrate the process rather than demonstrate the actual savings.

My advice is to develop your own numbers with the help of a manufacturers representative.

What is an even more interesting exercise would be to calculate the impact when you sell your home. If we can establish what the annual savings are, $144 in the example above, then how many years do you multiply that by?

How long the average homeowner lives i3 their home?
The length of the mortgage? 15, 20 or 20 years?
The life of the window itself?

Certainly a strong case can be made for an higher home value based on the efficiency of using greener materials. These will offer a cost advantage over another home that lacks the more efficient equipment.

Personally I think 30-years is a fair duration for calculating the savings. At $144 per year that adds over $4300 dollars in value to the home. And to be consistent, I have again ignored both the time value AND the inflationary pressures we are certain to see on energy costs. That $144 per year in savings is likely to be $200 or more in another 5-10 years. And it will continue to go up.

With the proper long-term perspective, almost any investment in greener materials will be cost-justified. As home-buyers become more attuned to these benefits, I think running a comparative cost analysis of utility costs will become the norm during the home-buying process.

LEED, leaders and followers

I have been reading more and more in the news about green building, especially for the residential market. It's great to hear, that people are finally seeking out homes that follow the principles outlined by the LEED certification program. I also think that it is important to recognize the leaders who developed the LEED program. The U.S Green Building Council has created a framework for an architect, engineer, contractor or developer to create housing projects that are more friendly to the environment in both the near-term and the long-term. More importantly, it was the leaders who took the greatest risk and payed the extra cost to develop green projects who deserve the most credit. Putting their own money at risk for the sake of a greener planet is something to be recognized for.

If the early indicators are true, consumers are buying green homes for the extra value, not just for the bragging rights. They see the upside of lower utility costs over time. If the trend is accurate, other builders will follow suite and start building greener and pursuing LEED certification.

But, I think it is important that we recognize the firms who were first. The ones who built these projects when they were risky. When they didn't know if the consumer was ready yet. They took a risk, and as a result there will be others who follow and benefit. So when you go shopping for a green builder or LEED certified neighborhood, make sure you look for the early adopter and not just the Johnny come lately. Saving the planet requires leadership, and that leadership should be rewarded.

Spotlight Company archive 2-08

Offering a broad range of solar power solutions for residential applications, Sunpower, Inc. is our spotlight company of the month. One of the best features of their site is a solar calculator which estimates the utility savings, installation costs, and graphs the relative savings over time. Click on their logo to view the calculator. With many cities and municipalities offering incentives to install alternative energy systems, it makes sense to do your research. The initial cost of these systems can be offset by credits from your utility company, rebates from government agencies, revenue derived from selling excess energy back to your local electric company, and of course the savings accumulated over time by lowering your utility bill. While these systems pay for themselves overtime, they also enhance the re-sale value of your home. After all, would you rather buy the home with a $150 monthly utility bill, or the $30 per month utility bill? View Solar Calculator

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