Archive for the ‘Sustainability’ category

The Real Deal : Miami’s First True Green House

May 13th, 2010

Last weekend I spent an afternoon at Albert Harum-Alvarez’s home. He’s running for County Commissioner in District 8 in Miami-Dade County. His home is known as the Green House in these neck of the woods for it’s truly sustainable building practices. It’s generated so much buzz that he now hosts weekly open houses for residents to see how anyone of us can make a home sustainable and economical it we just think a little bit more about our surroundings.

The home took one year to build and 7 YEARS TO PERMIT! The fundamental idea was to ‘plant’ a house and integrate it with the natural surroundings. However, when you try to do things slightly different, even if different means logical and responsible, it’s an uphill battle from the beginning. I won’t go into the tragic details of that ordeal, suffice to say there is still a lot of work to be done with our building codes. I will however highlight some of the more compelling aspects of this beautiful home and show you how everyone can have a sustainable domicile.

The house was build east to west length wise so the south side is pretty open & the east and west sides are shaded. This way the house is full of light for the bulk of the day – rises southeast, sets southwest. It’s also built out of concrete with reduced their windstorm insurance dramatically. Where would we be without our Florida hurricanes???

The following photos are only a fraction of the work and planning that went into building this home. All in all his energy bills are a fraction of the average condo, let alone house.

7 types of grass were planted on the premises. Yes, that’s right, SEVEN. The logic was to let them fight it out until the strongest, or perhaps a few of the stronger ones survive in different areas depending on sunlight and moisture. That way they won’t have to be nursed year round and drain water supplies or require fertilizer.

The pool! Heated with solar panels and a manageable size that doesn’t require huge amounts of energy to heat.

This is a computer powered toilet. Why you might ask…low flow water to start and it’s also the shoot to a compost under the house that collects the waste and makes it useful fertilizer!

The pump house where all the water comes from typically hold water around 80-86 degrees because to the heat that is removed from the house. The well is roughly 85 ft below ground.

Stunning cypress tree (I believe) that towered over everyone and probably has equally as impressive roots. Provides great shade and absorbs a lot of water through the trunk and branches. There are maple lychee, and cherry trees in the back yard.

A gargoyle in the ‘basement’ is area under the house…..just because.

Following the ‘cracker’ style of building (really, that’s what it’s called), vents are placed at the top of the rooms to ventilate the hot air out. Air stacks up at 3 different levels, so even the windows are tall to let the hot air our and cool air in. Very popular design from Key West and other areas that didn’t have ac back in the day.

East side of the house with a lovely patio and a path into the garden and pool. Delightful!

Wonderful afternoon with some truly remarkable people. If he is this consciousnesses about his home imagine what he’d be like as a commissioner!

Please check out his website and help Albert fight the good fight against over development and wasteful building/living practices that drain our very, very limited natural resources.

http://facebook.com/electAlbert
http://electAlbert.com

Broward Commission Approves Climate Change Action Plan (browardsblog.blogspot.com)
Green Building Codes and Concrete? A Great Combination! (constructionlawva.com)
Miami-Dade County Approves Contract for TaxSys – Grant Street Group’s Web-Based Tax Collection and Billing System (eon.businesswire.com)
UBC building will be world’s ‘greenest’ (canada.com)

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Posted in Activism, Building, Government, Living, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, energy

Tags: Building code County commission Green building

Measure Your Energy

April 26th, 2010

There are so many ways we can make changes in our energy usage. One way is to utilize products such as our biodegradable bags. This of course can use recyclable resources and has the to key added benefits of biodegrading over time and release methane which is now captured by landfills as energy. That’s great, but how can the typical home user get into the act beyond the obvious biodegradable products?

An interesting place to start is with home energy usage. Home energy savings occurs with newer energy efficient appliances, maybe shutting down your home computer at night, unplugging power adapters which continue to suck energy all the time when not in use, using less air conditioning, and more. all this helps but how much? If you cant measure it does it really happen? the energy management and measurement market will be exploding over the next few years. If people can track the differences in the costs or savings with biodegradable products and energy efficient products, I think we will see definite shifts in usage.

What is a good start in engaging consumers to make changes? Cool appliances are great and most cities have some form of rebate to use energy efficient devices (although participation rates in most energy-efficiency programs are typically less than 5%). smaller appliances have not really hit the market yet but should be here in the next few years. that includes smart appliances that can “talk” to you. the measurement of the devices is another interesting place to start. Here are a couple of companies working on devices for the home energy consumption market.

Google PowerMeter (www.google.com/powermeter)- Google PowerMeter is a free energy monitoring tool that helps you save energy and money. Using energy information provided by utility smart meters and energy monitoring devices, Google PowerMeter enables you to view your home’s energy consumption from anywhere online.

Opower (www.opower.com) – What they do is compare neighboring households use of energy and report bsck to energy companies and users. Their customer-engagement approach leverages cutting-edge behavioral science, customer data analytics and the latest software to engage millions of utilities customers and gets customers to reduce energy consuption.

EcoFactor (www.ecofactor.com) – they use a communicating thermostat that managed the HVAC. Their residential energy management solution delivers both double-digit energy savings and significantly enhanced demand response, achieving true integrated demand-side management using only a two-way communicating thermostat.

Tendril – Their platform can manage energy using smart technologies. The Tendril Vision lets consumers manage their energy consumption in a familiar, easy to use design that keeps them engaged and participating in energy management programs. The Vision can also provide real time pricing information which motivates customers to reduce consumption even more.

There are many ways consumers can reduce energy and these choices will only expand over the next few years. We just have to take the steps to change our usage patterns.

EcoAdetps Team
www.ecoadepts.com
www.greendoggiebags.com
twitter.com/greendoggiebags
info@ecoadepts.com

Google launches new PowerMeter API (v3.co.uk)
4Home bags $6.8M to automate appliances – and save energy (green.venturebeat.com)
Vision shows you how much energy you’re wasting in real time (dvice.com)
The world’s best renewable source of energy: Efficiency (green.venturebeat.com)
Tendril unveils device to make saving energy run like clockwork (green.venturebeat.com)

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Posted in Living, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, energy

Tags: EcoFactor Efficient energy use energy Google Google PowerMeter Technology

Life and times at landfills

March 29th, 2010

Ok, obviously not what your were expecting me to lead with today, but it’s true. Last week I go to spend the day at South Florida’s largest landfill owned and operated by Waste Management. I wanted to see first hand how landfills actually operate and if my preconceived (misconceived) assumptions about landfills were actually remotely accurate. I’ll start by saying this- it didn’t smell! Unbelievable, I know, but true. Maybe it would have been worse on a hot day, but if you couldn’t see the rectangular grassy hills, you wouldn’t know where you were.

Landfills today are very high tech, sophisticated, efficient operations. They line the landfills so that nothing seeps into our water supply, only have one cell open at a time, harvest the methane, incinerate whatever possible, and clean the fumes so they never enter our atmosphere. Moreover, the people who work there are very serious about protecting the environment and the safety of their fellow co-workers.

All that being said, these landfills are huge and that’s our fault. We as a country produce such an obscene amount of garbage it’s truly baffling where it’s all going to go. The landfills are brilliant, but things end up there because we haven’t found a better solution. I’m glad our bags are going to help chip away at the problem.

I could go on and on, but her are a few shots from my excellent field trip…

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Posted in Landfills, Living, Sustainability, Waste, energy

Tags: Business environment Landfill Methane Solid Waste Waste Management

No More Wire Hangers?

March 17th, 2010

Image by Solange C via Flickr

Don’t you hate when you go to the cleaners and you get the hanger marks in your clothes? Well in Canada they are moving away from that with biodegradable hangers. As a way to help promote green jobs and promote green awareness, a company in Canada is providing these recycled paper hangers free of charge to dry cleaners, hotels, retail stores and fitness centers. (http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/50998/)

Once again, this everyday used item is another small movement to slowly helping in conserving our natural resources, but will business use this source of advertising to help this company survive. The concept is a great concept but with the economic downturn, businesses are not spending advertising dollars. Something so little can make a huge impact on reducing the carbon footprint by just the elimination of 1 wire hanger.