Greening your home?
Cat:LifestyleForum:10618
Cat:LifestyleForum:10618Discussion:2222510
Green Living
Greening your home?
Discuss how to live an environmentally friendly life
Have you made your home more environmentally-friendly? How?
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Forums » Green Living » Greening your home?
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Greening your home?
posted at 6/22/2008 9:05 AM EDT
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Posts: 104
First: 11/6/2007 Last: 10/14/2009 |
I thought I was with the CLF lamps but now that I've used them and seen that the technology is just NOTHING CLOSE TO WHAT THEY CLAIM TO BE I've decided to rethink the conversion over to them. The ONLY way they are better than the traditional bulb is that they use less power. IN EVERY OTHER ASPECT they are a HUGE NEGATIVE IMPACT on the environment. And I can fix the energy consumption problem of the 100 year old bulb....SHUT IT OFF. |
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Greening your home?
posted at 10/3/2008 9:35 AM EDT
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Posts: 1
First: 10/3/2008 Last: 10/3/2008 |
Marketing has certainly made out CLF lamps to be quite a bit better than they are but they are a hugh leap forward from the old lamps. As much as I try, I have a hard time using the CLF as primary lights. They make the spaces feel tired and depressing and after a long day I need a little more than they have to offer. I have found they work out well in closets and so that's something. I think the reference "green" gets to be used so generally and thoughtlessly through marketing that the untimate goal isn't really considered. With the exception of the building industry, there is no standard for "green". The idea of "greening your home" to me seems to relate to conserving resources and protecting the enviroment and as individuals and consumers we have a lot of choices. I think the obvious is choosing to buy things for our home that are organic or sustainably grown but the less obvious is living and buying in ways that reduce further consuption of materials. There are a lot of things in our life that we buy with the intention of buying agian and it's not necessary- and it's not green. And it's not saticfying. Choosing to shop for clothing, furniture,... of poor quality goes against "green" principles and ultimately short changes your personal enviroment. Your personal space isn't what is could be and the purchases become decisions that you spent time making need to be visited that much sooner. |
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Greening your home?
posted at 2/13/2009 4:21 AM EST
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Posts: 1
First: 2/13/2009 Last: 2/13/2009 |
If you power your home with renewable energy - wind, solar, geothermal, other - please add it to the growing national map at www.buildbabybuild.net/blog/residentialmap |
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Greening your home?
posted at 2/26/2009 6:35 AM EST
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Posts: 2253
First: 5/7/2008 Last: 7/3/2009 |
You can also make sure all your electronics are plugged into a surge protector, so that you can turn off the surge protector before bed and before leaving the house, thus eliminating your "phantom drain". This includes cell phone chargers, which continue to draw electricity even when not charging a phone.
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Re: Greening your home?
posted at 4/11/2009 1:16 AM EDT
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Posts: 11
First: 7/31/2008 Last: 5/3/2009 |
Years ago when I was a kid if we wanted mercury with our tuna fish we had to add it. Then later the tuna came with mercury in the can. It was then said mercury was bad for one's health so a drive was on to get rid of mercury everywhere. Recently I purchased some of those new fangled Green Bulbs and was very surprised they contained mercury. In the fine Russian print that came with the bulbs it advised getting expert advice if one inadvertantly smashed a bulb of this type. Anyone know anything about this? |
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Re: Greening your home?
posted at 4/28/2009 9:39 AM EDT
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Posts: 5173
First: 12/15/2005 Last: 12/18/2009 |
Ruben, we have been worried about this as well. The new bulbs do contain mercury, so we decided to forego them, even though they would save us a bundle. I just don't understand, how these bulbs could pass muster in this day and age. What will you do if you drop and break one? Mercury all over the floor? Does not sound healthy to me. |
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Re: Greening your home?
posted at 4/28/2009 9:46 AM EDT
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Posts: 5534
First: 10/17/2005 Last: 12/18/2009 |
Ruben, we have been worried about this as well. The new bulbs do contain mercury, so we decided to forego them, even though they would save us a bundle. I just don't understand, how these bulbs could pass muster in this day and age. What will you do if you drop and break one? Mercury all over the floor? Does not sound healthy to me. Posted by pingo I didn't know that about our bulbs! Man, does everything have to have a dark side? No pun intended. pingo, did you ever get the Vapo steam cleaner? I clean our sealed wood floors (pine with high gloss poly) with that with no cleaning products. It just stopped working recently, and when I emailed the company I expected to be ignored because it is a few years old, but they promptly responded with a number of potential causes and how to fix them. It was clogged (hard well water), and DH blew it out with the air compressor. Works like new. They didn't even TRY to sell me another one. |
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Re: Greening your home?
posted at 6/11/2009 4:22 PM EDT
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Posts: 1
First: 6/11/2009 Last: 6/11/2009 |
We have done a number of things including increasing our recycling, buy organic foods and cleaning products. For our children (and my baby especially) we are very careful. For example we went with organicKidz stainless steel baby bottles instead of plastic/ glass. We tried glass, but they shattered and we do not trust plastic enough, no matter what they say. The organicKidz bottles are great! They clean easily, are unbreakable and stainless steel is non toxic and recyclable and BPA Free. Best of all I understand that the company is coming out with sippy cup and sports bottle attachments, so we can keep using the bottles and do not have to buy new cups etc as our son gets older! |
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Re: Greening your home?Generators and Electification
posted at 7/14/2009 11:27 PM EDT
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Posts: 748
First: 6/15/2008 Last: 12/2/2009 |
New England has alot of wind and small amounts of sunshine in the winter. Thus your township might consider a windfarm for your heating and refrigeration systems. This way the township could get cost savings and make the real estate prices more attractive and sound which means the money you could save in energy costs could offset the property tax increases. The other alternative for Maine is a tidal power system which would be expensive but unseen. |
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