AttemptGreen.com

We are all getting upset over gas prices and looking for ways improve the outlook for fuel.  A lot of people are looking at the cars they drive, ways they commute, or perhaps even instituting flextime at work or telecommuting.  But have you thought about looking within your home?   Most people don’t think about energy their homes consume when they feel the “pain at the pump”.

According to some stats published by Owens Corning (they cite the Department of Energy, but take it for what it’s worth), 80% of homes built before 1980 are not insulated to government standards and even newer homes are only insulated to the minimum standard.  They also have the following quote on their website:

“Many Americans assume that transportation and industry are the largest consumers of energy in the U.S., but it’s actually buildings,” said Wendy Burt from the U.S. Department of Energy. “The electricity consumed by one single home puts more carbon dioxide into the air than two average cars. The good news is there are simple energy-efficient upgrades we can make, such as adding insulation in the attic and caulking windows and doors that reduce our energy footprint and save us money.”

Owens Corning also offers a Home Report Card Quiz to figure out where your home ranks for energy efficiency.  I took the quiz for my house back in Cleveland (we sold it for those of you following my personal life as well) and it received a grade of B.  We were good with energy efficient appliances, good on the hot water heater, decent on the windows, but we could have improved on sealing up those cracks that temperature controlled air leaks out of.  Now I do realize all this information could be taken as slighted since it all comes from a company that produces insulation.  Even if half of it were true, this is still pretty amazing and they are things we should pay attention to.

Instead of getting mad and support off shore drilling, do something about it.  Add value to your home; conserve the energy you use, by making your home more energy efficient.  Whether it be to insulate your home, or just sealing up cracks around the home where heated and cooled temperatures leak.  While I’m awful at economics, I do know that by not using fuel for heating and cooling, it makes it available for other uses and would lower prices because there is less demand (or something like that).

As most of you know, I recently moved cities and while I’m waiting for my house to sell in Cleveland, I’m renting an apartment in Philly.  I’m not really a fan of apartment living.  I loved being able to change anything I wanted to in my house that I wanted to, especially to be more energy efficient.  But even living in an apartment, I found things that I can do to improve the apartment.

Ever since we moved into the apartment we have been unhappy with the water pressure in the shower.  There seemed to be enough water, but it just wasn’t spraying right.  Finally I had enough and decided to change the showerhead.  I walked over to HomeDepot (it is close enough that I just walked, no need to use the car) and took a look at my options.  My goal was to get a showerhead that would improve the water pressure and not spend a whole lot of money but I ended up getting so much more.

I bought this showerhead.  First off, it accomplished my goal by costing less than $20 and improved the water pressure, dramatically.  So this allows me to rinse the soap off much faster because the water pressure is there.  Still uses the same amount of water, just better water pressure, allowing me to get out the shower faster.  Overall I’m using less water.  Secondly, I found one of the settings to be very useful. I’m not sure what it is called, but I will call it the trickle setting.  This allows the water to still run but holds back most of the water and the water will just trickle out of the showerhead.  How is this useful?  (TMI warning) If you take some time soaping up, you can turn the water down while you get all soapy and then change the setting back when you are ready to rinse off.  Not that useful for me because I typically will rinse my hair out while soaping up, multitasking.  However, I found it very useful while shaving my legs.  I won’t get into the details.

This project took about 5 minutes to do, no exaggeration there.  I realize I’m a bit handy, but I feel confident that just about anyone can do this.  Not everyone would agree with me on the best way to replace a showerhead, but let me give you my tips that I find really work. 

• To remove the old showerhead, you need two things, vice grips and masking tape.  When you look at the showerhead, there is an arm (a pipe that sticks out of the wall) that you want to leave alone.  At the end of the arm, the showerhead is just screwed on.  So what I do is wrap masking tape around the piece of the showerhead that screws on to the arm.  This will prevent any scratching of the metal.  Then use the vice grips to clamp on to where the tape is and twist the showerhead off.
• The new showerhead I installed was plastic, so it did not need any pipe tape.  If you do need it, you simple take the pipe tape (looks like masking tape) and wrap the treads on the arm.  Then screw the new showerhead on.  If it doesn’t seem tight enough, you can wrap the new showerhead with masking tape and use the vice grips to tighten it up.

This is a simple, easy upgrade to make to not only improve the shower, but also reduce the amount of water you use.

I’m getting settled into my new city and finding great things here that I will be writing about.  But today I wanted to talk about something that has been on my mind for awhile, and truthfully I’m quite scared by it.

Back in about early February I read this article about how you should never flush medication (prescription or over-the-counter) down the toilet.  The basic idea is that all this stuff that you flush down the toilet is not being treated at sewage waste treatment facilities.  That means it is entering the environment, including streams, lakes, etc..  There are also tons of studies that show how our drugs are affecting marine life.  There are fish are becoming sterile because of some of the drugs that have entered the water they live in. 

Then if you remember, in March was all the news about medications in our drinking water.  This was followed up that it was also in bottled water.  So it isn’t just marine life, but now it has become full circle and is in the water we drink.  As I said, this really scares me.
So what can I (we) do?  That same article at Earth 911 talks about take-back programs at local pharmacies.  I checked at my local Rite-aid back in February and asked the pharmacist what the best way was to dispose of medications.  He said to flush it.  Sad.  Well since then, there was all the news covering our drinking water in March, and now there are tons of resources on proper disposal. 

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (I found it through the EPA), has some very clear instructions.  They say to take unused, unneeded, or expired prescription drugs out of their original containers and throw them in the trash in an empty can or sealable bag to further ensure drugs are not diverted into the water system.  They do have an exceptions list, so please check out their website.

Also with the popularity of this topic, there are now several regional take-back programs that I’ve found with some searching online.  These were in cities like Seattle, Omaha, and several places in Canada.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find any in Cleveland, Philadelphia, or Phoenix.  But keep your eyes open, they might be coming soon to your area.  If not, reference the Office of National Drug Control Policy instructions to dispose of your prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

I know I haven’t blogged much over the past week or two since my life is being turned all around.  Within the next week we will be moving from the Cleveland area to Philadelphia, which means going away parties and packing.  At some points I don’t know which way is up, with all the changes coming about.  Once I get settled into Philadelphia, more regular blog posts will be coming.  I promise you that.

With moving, I’m coming up with some more green and economical ways of doing things.

• I went to the grocery store and liquor store this morning and didn’t buy anything.  I asked for their boxes that they were going to be throwing away.  This way I’m reusing materials that they would have been tossing into the landfill, and I get free boxes.
• Craigslist.  So I haven’t gone on there yet, but I have a few larger items I need to get rid of and plan to get on craigslist this week and sell some of this stuff.
• I’m looking for a lawn service.  I don’t know what I want or need, other than someone to mow the lawn until the house sells.  I noticed today that my neighbor, who is a bit older, also has a lawn service.  How great would it be if they did my lawn the same time they did her lawn?  Ya, it would be ideal if one of the neighborhood kids would just come do it, but I haven’t established a relationship with too many of my neighbors that have kids old enough.
• Purge, purge, purge.  You may have noticed that many of my posts over the past few months have been about me getting rid of stuff.  This was in anticipation of the move.  The less stuff we have, the less we have to move, and the less the truck is going to weigh.  This means we get a lower moving cost, but also the truck can travel more efficiently without the extra weight.  We also end up having a much neater house, which is great for a sanity check. 

Our lives our moving, but this blog will remain.  I just might be more aware of Philly amenities and big city features when it comes to being more green, but I’ll still try to keep an eye on things going on in Cleveland for all the Ohioans.  Look out for what new things I find.

Do you have chemicals around your house?  Old containers of paint, pesticides, or just random chemicals you just aren’t sure how to dispose of…

I live in Cuyahoga County and this Saturday (May 10th), they are hosting a Household Hazardous Waste Round-Up.  This allows you to bring in all those chemicals that you aren’t sure how to dispose of properly and have the county dispose of these materials in an environmentally friendly way.  They have this event twice a year, and I actually took advantage of the City of Parma’s collection this past weekend.

It is very easy to do this.  All you have to do is put these containers of chemicals in the trunk of your car.  When you pull into the site, they signal to where you need to pull into and then pop your trunk.  The staff will come out to your car and empty the materials out of your car. Then you simply pull away, taking less than five minutes.

If you have hazardous chemicals around your house, take them to be properly disposed of.  It’s not just about disposing of them in an environmentally friendly way, but also to clean out the environment you live in every day of these chemicals.  There is a reason they call them “hazardous” chemicals.  Clean up your environment and be good to the overall environment.