Contraflow Fireplace by Tulikivi

So what is a contraflow fireplace? Who knows how to build one? Not me as of yet. The idea sounds interesting, though. With a huge pile of bricks in my front yard, I started my research.

Turns out the idea, although it carries a very long and distinguished history, dovetails neatly with today’s green revolution. The northern European countries and Russia have been using masonry stoves for years—since the 17th and 18th centuries, when kings in Prussia and Scandinavia ordered their craftsman and architects to produce better wood stove designs.

This concerted effort produced radically new heat-storing masonry stoves, which showed enormous improvement in efficiency and wood conservation.

Contraflow heater by Eric Moshier

Fast-forward to today, when masonry heaters are still in widespread use throughout northern Europe and are highly regarded for their excellent heating abilities, safety, and environmentally positive aspects. Countries such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland use the “kachelofen” or tile stoves, which are so popular that buying one can require a one-year wait.

In North America, our heating traditions unfolded differently, where an abundance of available, relatively cheap fossil fuels led to more widespread use. As a result, gas, oil, and electricity still have the lion’s share of the residential heating market (and the industry marketing budgets spend millions of dollars to keep it that way).

During the North American energy crisis of the 70s, many people turned to wood stoves to cut their heating bills. Environmental and economic concerns of the last decade have forced a critical look at better wood-heating devices. If we’re going to get this right ecologically, the stoves have to be efficient more efficient than typical metal-clad stoves.

How energy efficient are today’s masonry stoves? They are proving to be the cleanest method of burning wood, because the wood burns very hot and quickly, producing little or no smoke, soot, or creosote. When wood burns at 1100ºF, everything that can be burned is consumed. The secondary combustion chambers in masonry stoves reach temperatures of 1400º-1800ºF, and well over that point.

After the quick-burning but intense fire has gone out, the energy stored in the massive bulk of masonry is released slowly into the house over the succeeding 18 to 24 hours. Various forms of biomass heating, including masonry stoves, are getting a lot of attention from ecological architects and designers today.

If you’re considering a masonry stove, you can take one of three approaches: ready-made product, stove kits, or custom design. But first, be prepared for a long-term investment. The better-known soapstone fireplaces from Tulikivi will set you back anywhere from $7,500 to $10,000. Temp-Cast build-it-yourself stove kits start at about $3,500; then add another few thousand for professional installation.

Bread oven by Gulf Island Oven

The Masonry Heater Store in Holland, Ohio designs and installs custom masonry, which is a beautiful way to make the hearth the heart of your home—see photo to the left. In talking with co-owner Nancy Matesz, I learned that business is brisk in their corner of the world. She said, “As the environmental and cost advantages of masonry are becoming more understood, our business is really growing. Whether we’re doing a custom design or installing a Tulikivi, we hear the same message from our customers—they like the security of protecting themselves against skyrocketing fuel costs.”

Like many decisions that support a more sustainable world, an investment in a masonry stove saves money. Then, as a bonus, add a pizza or bread oven to keep your buns warm.

LED Garage Lighting - www.betaLED.com

Even such a simple act as parking the car and walking into the house can be compromised by poor lighting design. Bumping into low shelves, tripping over toys and many other common garage accidents could be avoided with proper lighting.

But how can you achieve that?

The process starts by first recognizing the difference between wattage and illumination. A 100-watt incandescent bulb draws 100 watts of power from the electrical outlet. That’s how the number gets assigned. The bulb consumes 100-watts. That’s only indirectly related to how much light is given off, measured in lumens.

A standard 100-watt bulb gives off about 1,740 lumens. By comparison, a pair of 4-foot 54-watt fluorescent bulbs, the type commonly found in garage lighting fixtures, can provide anywhere between 5,000-8,800 lumens, depending on the design. That’s a considerable difference in efficiency, which is one of the major reasons fluorescent bulbs are so much cheaper to use.

In many garages, that ordinary 2-bulb fluorescent fixture may well be adequate, but usually just barely. Any garage with shelves, corners, or — most especially– a workbench will need much more.

As in any other area of the home, there are three types of lighting: ambient, task and accent. Accent lights are just what they sound like, lights used to highlight some feature, such as a decorative wall painting. Ambient light provides the overall illumination for the room. Task lights are especially important in a garage that is used for anything more than just to store the car.

Even something as simple as storing tools and tool boxes, gardening supplies and the like will benefit greatly from task lights. Imagine going into the garage to pull out the right chemical and grabbing weed killer instead of plant food. That means a trip back to the garage for the right stuff. Grab a flat head screwdriver instead of a Phillips head and you have the same problem.

Good ambient light is still important, though. No one should have to feel their way around the garage to avoid bumping into things. Slips and falls are more common in the garage than they are on indoor floors, even though both are about equally slick. Installing lights that provide good ambient light are a small investment to minimize that risk.

Finally, though it’s not often considered very much, a garage too creates a mood. Compare the dark hole of many home garages to the well lit atmosphere of a professional car dealership garage. Safety is one factor. But having lights to lift the spirits is just as important, especially since many garages have few or no windows.

Design a lighting scheme for the garage with the same attention to goals as you would any other room in the house. If you spend time there, it’s worth lighting right.

A lot of people shop at second-hand furniture and clothing stores to save money and to find interesting items that are no longer available in popular stores. However, the next time you shop at your local second hand shop keep in mind that you are also being an eco-friendly shopper. Furniture manufacturing companies have a huge negative impact on our environment and we would do well to buy less newly manufactured furniture and instead take a look at second-hand shops for alternative choices. On the other hand, there are also several furniture companies who deal with recycled materials, so before you buy your next piece of furniture do your research and look around in second hand stores, you might be surprised by the quality of furniture you’ll find.

Adoption of solar energy has a simple market driving force. If people do not adopt solar energy, the planet will become unfit for human habitation. The fossil fuels are warming the planet at an increasing rate that makes life unsustainable if something does not change.

Global warming drives solar markets. Solar is perceived as the best, perhaps the only widespread solution to global warming. Every large enterprise has adopted a social responsibility strategy that makes a nod toward solving the issues of global warming and embraces renewable energy. Every person in the world is aware of the problems that global warming is bringing.

High growth is forecast for residential solar markets as solar moves to take on a measurable supply of world energy. As penetration from .3% of the world energy supply raises to over 15% in five years, residential uses of solar energy will represent a significant part of the growth. Residential solar energy represents a measure of energy independence for every household, used as hybrid systems independently of, but not completely in place of traditional grid electricity.

It is not economical to put solar generated electricity back on the grid, instead it will be used from batteries where the electricity is stored for later use. Solar systems will initially be used for lighting and charging hybrid and electric vehicles. Traditional grid electricity will only slowly be replaced. Grid hybrid electricity solutions will persist for a long time.

Demand for energy is accelerating as more of the world becomes developed. Developing countries are anticipated to double the worlds demand for energy in the next thirty years. Energy creation is becoming a central environmental issue with air quality, water quality, and flooding because of global warming having implications for the entire world.

Solar energy is a clean, reusable and affordable solution that is increasingly being recognized as the leading alternative energy source for the 21st century. While hybrid solutions are anticipated to evolve with wind, geothermal, and nuclear solutions, evolving as well, solar looks to be a dominant technology. The solar panel size is a tradeoff between the amount of money wanted to invest and the amount of electricity needed to produce. A typical US home uses 13,000kWh per year or 5kWp.

On average, the sun radiates 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of energy onto a square mile of the earth’s surface, and the most suitable way to harvest that light depends on two factors: cost and the available real estate. It does not matter that thin film solar panels are not more than 10% efficient initially, the roof of the home is not doing anything else except sit there. The sides of the home, the back fence can be used to collect solar energy and that energy can be stored for later use in vehicles and lighting.

This market segmentation is anticipated to shift as the thin film solar panels become commercially viable. The thin film solar panels will be used initially in utility applications, but also in residential applications for fueling motor vehicles. The ability to store energy from solar panels makes them a viable alternative to gasoline. The lithium and lithium ion batteries are a very dense energy storage medium providing incentive for people to put in a modest amount of thin film battery banks recharged by solar panels. As people do this, the silicon markets keep growing at a steady pace, due to the decrease in the costs for the silicon raw materials due to increased capacity for manufacturing the raw materials and increased demand for the silicon solar panels.

The thin film solar panel technology has yet to mature. It is in this segment where the phenomenal growth occurs. Versatile thin film solar products are based on unique manufacturing processes. Sputtering is used to do thin film solutions for solar cell manufacture based on defining a repeatable process. Solar cell efficiencies are in the 9 to 10% range for sputtering implementations, but roof installations are not sensitive to size restrictions.

Thin film solar sputtering technology achieves physical vapor deposition which takes an ion and accelerates it. In this manner, the sputtering is used to knock out a target, depositing uniform films at high rates.

Residential solar markets at $2.5 billion in 2007 are anticipated to reach $39.3 billion by 2014. Growth is a result of using residential solar systems to power hybrid and all electric vehicles. Units raise from 74 million solar panels in 2007 to 25.6 billion units in 2014. Growth comes not only because solar power is the cheapest power source which it will be in many cases, but because it fulfills a variety of convenience needs, not the least of which is a way to attack global warming. Every large enterprise has adopted a green strategy in response to public demand for better energy solutions.

Increasing awareness and concern over global warming is leading many to seek opportunities to do more to improve environmental conditions and be more responsible and careful consumers of our natural resources. Green living is an option that many are turning to. Trish Riley’s book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Green Living, shows readers the steps they can take to make a difference in the world environment and just what it takes to live green.

Readers will find information on:

• Global warming and environmental degradation of air, water, and soil
• Sustainable living and how to do it
• Cutting down on carbon output with alternative cars and fuels
• Environmentally friendly home and lawn care products

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Green Living
$16.95, September
Author: Trish Riley, Sunrise, FL

Today I came across another great site on building sustainable homes. The site can be found at www.enertia.com Enertia is a company that specializes in building sustainable homes and on their site they stated just a few of the benefits of building a sustainable home. I thought I would share these benefits with you today.

First off, half of fossil fuel use is for heating and cooling buildings, and for the manufacture of building materials. Also, half of the debris in landfills comes from demolished short life buildings. Most homes cannot handle climate change, extreme weather, storms and floods. They rely on mechanical systems just to remain “liveable”. With rising energy prices, the heating and cooling costs may soon exceet house payment.
In contrast, a sustainable home does not use up the earth’s resources, now or in the future. It is self-sufficient and strong enough to survive wind, hail, ice and floods. It is designed and build to LAST, sheltering many generations. Overall, the sustainable home saves more than it costs.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the need to think ahead when building a new home. The climate change issue is just starting to effect the way in which we build our homes. We can no longer rely on the weather patterns of the past to be an indication of the weather in the future.

A new book by John Banta (indoor environmental consultant, with twenty years experience in building biology, building science and indoor environmental quality), Extreme Weather Hits Home, builds on the idea that as global warming continues, nearly 50 percent of North America has a potential for structural damage from shifting moisture in expansive clay soils; a condition that is already costing billions of dollars each year. As well, climate models predict that northern communities are going to become much more humid at certain times of the year, putting buildings in those areas at risk. As the climate changes, and moisture levels adjust, there are a number of proactive steps that can be taken to prevent or lessen expensive repairs.

Some of the areas covered in the book include:

• Risk to your property, due to climate change effects on region and soil
• Extreme weather’s rapid and slow effects
• Site foundation, wall and roof considerations and modifications
• Insurance options
• Anticipated changes for the United States, Canada and Mexico

While what is yet to occur weather-wise is unforeseen, we can take advantage of what scientists have been able to tell us about the years to come. An example of this is water. In many states, rainfall is expected to reduce in the decades ahead; and we’ll see more rain “events” rather than rain periods. This means less rain and what rain does fall will do so in more concentrated bursts.

Given this, many new house will have larger storage tanks and greater roof surface area. Landscaping-wise, it would wise to plant native trees that are the least thirsty of the local species.

The structures should also be strengthened to withstand higher winds than what is required by local regulations. Wind turbines, which weren’t an option before, may become a viable alternative or adjunct to solar panels. Extra expansion joints will be an important feature to cope with extremes in temperature. Even now in some cities; people are reporting huge cracks appearing in brick wall due to drought. Drainage is another important aspect. After a dry spell the ground can be somewhat resistant to soaking up moisture and initial rains can just sit on the surface causing flooding problems.

Is America in a recession? Consumers are feeling the pinch. Borrowing in order to spend our way to economic health isn’t an option, say consumer debt management experts at ClearPoint Financial Solutions, Inc. Their advice: Green your lifestyle by spending less and using your tax refund or May stimulus check from Uncle Sam to pay down debt.

Green budgeting is a new concept for a generation of Americans who are used to satisfaction on demand. The problem of climate change has people thinking of ways to reduce their carbon footprint, but consuming less also keeps “green” in your bank account.

“We can’t continue to live on credit cards,” warned Ann Estes, vice president of counseling delivery at ClearPoint. “Food and gas prices are rising, home values are falling, and credit is less available. The time has come for people to make serious lifestyle changes,” she said.

The certified counselors at ClearPoint, one of the largest 501c3 non-profit credit counseling services in the country, are advising their clients to seriously rethink the way they make financial decisions. “We call it ’greening’ your budget,” said Estes. “For many people, compromise is necessary if they are going to live within their means. For example, with gas prices at record highs, it’s time to organize a carpool,” she said.

In the past five years, consumers have taken on unprecedented levels of debt, but now credit is becoming more expensive and less available. The threat of inflation and already rising costs has people redefining “need”, and making budget cuts in all aspects of their lives. “A child is just as happy on his birthday with a cake and one new toy as he is with a destination party and 20 pieces of plastic made in China,” she said.

“Smart” Houses Sell In Down Market

Home owners hoping to attract buyers in  the midst of a housing slump are “teaching” their homes to save money on energy costs.

“Smart homes can be made even smarter if they are wired to control energy costs as well as water the lawn and arm the alarm system,” says Sheldon Anderson, president of Atlanta Smart Homes Inc.

In a “buyer’s market,” sellers are looking for every advantage and energy consumption is always high on the list according to realtors.

“One of the easiest ways to make a home smarter and more valuable is to reduce the amount of energy wasted each day,” says  Anderson. “If a home owner is going to have a house wired to control surveillance cameras, home theaters, blinds, sprinklers, and so on, they should seriously consider climate and lighting control systems too.”

According to Anderson home owners should install lighting timers and programmable thermostats to run systems. He said they should also consider putting incandescent lights on dimmers so that lights aren’t running at full capacity.  Anderson said that there are a variety of lighting and thermostat control products; dimmers, timers and sensors; fluorescents and LEDs; and other products that homeowners can have installed to save on their energy costs.

“In most homes, lighting accounts for nearly 25 percent of home electricity use,” he explains.  “The average household could cut a third – or even half – of its current energy bill by switching to energy-efficient appliances, equipment and lighting, which use less energy than standard products. An energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) uses at least 60% less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and provides the same amount of lighting.” An automatic timer controls when and how long a light stays on and off. Dimmers enable home owners to adjust the intensity of light in a room manually.

Anderson claims that a programmable thermostat with air cooling set at 78 degrees F can cut cooling costs 15 to 25 percent with the actual savings dependent on climate, home insulation, and utility. For people with varying schedules these thermostats can be programmed for each day of the week or be controlled remotely from a computer or even a cell phone.

Consumers can access to the Energy Wizard that covers a range of topics from conservation and new technologies to generators and tax incentives, among others. Energy related questions can be submitted to energywizard@energywizard.info or go to http://www.energywizard.info/ to read the EnergyWizard columns. For more information about Atlanta Smart Homes Inc. go to http://www.atlantasmarthomes.com/ or call Sheldon Anderson at (404) 638-6791.

A refrigerator made in 1984 had an average annual energy consumption of 1457 kilowatt-hour (kWh) in a year. A refrigerator made in 2004 has an average annual energy consumption of 411 kWh a year. Thus, many advanced features in newer refrigerators will save you a bundle of money.

Just 1 kWh will provide:

• almost 3 minutes of hot water for a shower
• over 16 hours of light from a 60-watt light bulb

If you live in a community where water is metered out and energy costs are high, check out these bonuses:

• 50 kWh saved is enough energy to run a dishwasher 20 times.
• 100 kWh saved is enough energy to run a washing machine 50 times.

An energy and water efficient dishwasher will also conserve water and the energy needed to ehat it. By choosing energy efficient appliances, you can help the environment by cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing smog.

So if you are still using older appliances get rid of them because you are not actually saving yourself any money by keeping your old appliances around.