Wind Power at Home

Selsam Small Turbines – Just Right for Residential?

The bloggers at Engadget picked up on the Selsam small wind turbines, which look a lot like one of those amateur ham radio antennas we used to see on houses. This small-scale wind solution is basically a single elongated shaft made of strong carbon fiber. The carbon shaft holds rotors that range in size from 14-18 inches in diameter. Apparently, the more rotors you have on a rod, the better output you get. Invented by Doug Selsam, this 13-rotor small wind turbine can produce roughly 200 watts in 20 mph winds (or more in higher wind speeds). It’s currently being tested and developed in California, so who knows, we may just start seeing stuff like this on top of houses and buildings?

(Courtesy of Jetson Green)

Green homes for regular people.

Written by Chris Schille, courtesy of GreenBuildingElements.com

The iconoclastic owner of the San Jose tract home featured in this article takes exception to the notion that green is expensive. Green, to him, is rooted in conservation of all resources, not the least of them being money.

Frank Schiavo’s compact, tract-built, three-bedroom ranch-style home in a modest San Jose neighborhood demonstrates that remodeling to create a cutting-edge green home is neither difficult nor expensive. Heated with sunlight and cooled by night air, his home is comfortable, quiet and tasteful, filled with light and local art. With only modest investments in a sun room, extra insulation, new windows, a very small array of rooftop photovoltaic and solar hot water panels, his electricity bill for the coldest, cloudiest months of the year averages a few dollars a month. His gas bill is even more modest.

What’s most impressive about Schiavo’s house isn’t that it’s so comfortable and practical for him to own, it’s that it demonstrates that lofty resource conservation goals can be achieved on a modest remodeling budget.

Passive Solar Energy is Inexpensive

Schiavo’s remodel performs so well, and for so little, because it focuses on conservation, not features. San Jose has plenty of sun, so Schiavo’s house exploits passive solar design. First, Schiavo thoroughly insulated. Next, he added heat-collecting thermal mass (in the form of a small sunroom addition) to store heat energy in the winter and stabilize temperatures. In the summer, he stores the cool of the night air. Interior walls sport an unusual finish detail that, at first brush, appears to have been motivated by modernist aesthetics.

Stacks of black, rectangular solids suggestive of consumer electronics protrude from interior walls extending from the floor to chair-rail height. As Schiavo explains, these are actually five gallon metal cans that have been painted black and fitted into steel support racks in key wall sections. The cans are filled with water, which has terrific thermal mass for its weight and volume. Many of these cans are situated in an interior wall that separates the interior from a south-facing sunroom. The water-filled cans store heat in the winter (and the cool of night air in the summer) and release it into the interior of his house.

Passive Solar Heating/Cooling: Operating the House

In the winter and early spring, Schiavo lowers special insulated doors in his sunroom, exposing the water-filled cans. Sun enters the windows of the sunroom and heats the brick-in-sand floor. The warm air in the sunroom then heats the water-filled cans. At night, Schiavo closes the insulated doors, and the water-filled cans radiate heat back into his house. This is an implementation of a passive solar Trombe Wall.

An added benefit of the sunroom space is that it makes an ideal place to hang laundry to dry. Schiavo admits he does use his gas dryer: about a minute or two per load, with no heat, to fluff-up his clothes and remove lint.

Schiavo Himself

A sustainability activist, passive solar design consultant, and retired environmental studies instructor from San Jose State University, Schiavo doesn’t shrink from publicity. A recent article in the San Jose Mercury News (4/5/2008, Is that a lion in the yard? S.J. fence-mural draws second looks) covers the extensive mural in Schiavo’s front and side yards, painted by a friend.

Schiavo first found the public eye in a well-publicized struggle with his local garbage company. Through a combination of disciplined purchasing habits, composting in his yard, and extensive recycling, he has virtually ceased to produce any trash. For years, he continued to pay the local garbage company for a service he wasn’t using. The mayor of San Jose found out and ordered the garbage company to stop billing him. His example led to the City’s composting program, run, incidentally, by a former student.

If you live near San Jose, you can see Schiavo’s house and mural at 1186 Bayard Drive. Look for footprints painted on the sidewalk, position your feet in them, and watch mural, building and landscaping meld into one large piece of art.

Use your tax rebate wisely. Buy Green.

We know that many of us will need to spend our tax rebate check on critical items like food or rent or paying off debt. But just in case you have some of your tax rebate check left and you’re looking for eco-friendly ways to spend the money, we have some ideas we’d like to share with you.

And we’ve geared these tips to supporting the US economy, so you get to do the right thing for the planet and be an eco-patriot at the same time! In coming up with our list of ideas we decided it would be good to recommend ideas that reduce our negative environmental impacts but also support US manufacturers and service providers. So here are five eco-smart ways to use your rebate to support the Earth, the US economy, and save your household money in the long run.

1. Buy a high-efficiency water heater. A high-efficiency water heater can cut your energy use, water use, carbon footprint and even utility bills (over the long run). For most homes you can get the heater itself for $600 – $1,200, but you’ll probably have to spring for installation as well. Models made in the US include the AO Smith Vertex (a storage model that beats the pants off of tankless HW heaters), electric models made by American Tankless Water Heaters, and natural gas tankless heaters made by Rheem (some made in the US). Click here to learn more about making the tankless decision, and click here to find local installers.

2. Upgrade your insulation. If you don’t have insulation (like many older homes in the Southwest), or you only have partial insulation, upgrading your home’s insulation is an excellent way to reduce your energy use (for both heat in the winter and cooling in the summer). It will also make your home more comfortable. Fully insulating your attic and walls will cost a few thousand dollars, but you can do it in installments to cut the cost. Start with the attic — that will run between $700-2,000, depending on the size of your home. Then you can move on to the walls at a later date. The insulation investment will pay for itself in less than five years. And your local utility company very likely offers substantial rebates, so be sure to check with them for incentives. You can also buy great insulation made in the US out of recycled and sustainable materials such as Cocoon cellulose insulation (recycled newspaper), Ultratouch recycled denim insulation, and BioBased insulation (made from soybean oil). Click here to see great insulation recommendations and you can find local insulation installers here.

3. Replace your oldest appliance with an Energy Star model. Old appliances are major energy-wasters and can also use excessive amounts of water as well. Old clothes washers, refrigerators and dishwashers are typically the biggest energy hogs. We highly recommend you upgrade to an Energy Star model — this will save you money in the long run as well. Like with insulation, many local utilities offer great rebates on appliance upgrades. You can find Energy Star appliances here, or you can go directly to the Energy Star site (part of the US EPA) and check the full range of makes and models. Unfortunately, there are few (if any) US appliance manufacturers left …

4. If you irrigate, replace a high-water area with drought-tolerant or native plants. Global warming deserves all of the media attention it gets, but our growing water-shortage crisis doesn’t get enough coverage. If you live in the Southeast or Southwest US, we need to be doing everything we can to reduce our water consumption. Grass lawns are water-hogs and it is a great idea to incorporate native and low-water-use plants into your landscaping. To learn more about native landscaping, click here. Any plants you buy are grown in the US, and you can also use the services of an eco-friendly landscape designer and/or maintenance team– find local landscape services here.

5. Swap out all of your lights and shower heads. Perhaps you’ve been waiting to change your incandescent lights to compact fluorescents or LEDs because the latter are expensive. Now’s the time spend a couple hundred dollars and get really energy-efficient lighting throughout your home– and for outdoors as well. Compact fluorescent lights will last ten times as long as standard bulbs, and LED lights will last 5-10 times longer than the fluorescents. You’ll save money and energy. Also spend $50 to get a few low-water-use shower heads. These shower heads can save you 2,000 to 3,000 gallons of water per person per year. And they work great. You won’t know you’re in a low-flow shower! Most low-cost items like this are made overseas these days, but at least you’ll be supporting your local retailer.

Of course, you might instead be thinking about using that stimulus check for a new flat-screen TV or computer. If so, make sure they’re Energy Star – here are links to the Energy Star pages for TVs and computers.

Posted by Jason Pelletier, Low Impact Living