Posts by — jasminejaconde

Up in smoke

They look great but that homey glow real fires produce sends heat right up the chimney as the fire sucks warm air from the rest of the house.

“Ninety-five percent of the heat is lost,” said Prof Kevin Eigel, who studies energy use in homes. “The rest of the house gets cold even while it’s warm right around the fireplace.”

Fortunately, homeowners have more options than ever to get more use and heat from the fireplace.

Options range from a simple blower system that costs less than $1,000 to wood-burning inserts that can cost more than $5,000 but can heat an entire home. (more…)

This week, the X Prize Foundation announced a pair of California students won the $25,000 prize for their crazy green idea, an “ultra capacitor” to store energy. This is a new approach to the age-old problem of how to leap forwardin battery design.

The foundation applauded all participants for their innovative ideas including finalist Alan Silva who proposed an off-grid house.
The ideas generated by Silva and more than 130 other participants are being used to help shape a future prize in energy and environment.
A technology consultant and video producer, Silva didn’t have to cast far for an idea. He needed only to look at last summer’s gas- pump prices at $4 a gallon and his own home energy expenses to get his entrepreneurial juices going.
His proposal? Make affordable homes that can provide all of the energy its occupants use. “Being off the grid would save hundreds of billions of dollars in energy costs, promote energy independence and provide energy security,” says Silva.
The nonprofit X foundation fosters “revolution through competition” to benefit humanity and has awarded prizes up to $30 million in space travel, genomics and transportation.”We were all impressed by the sheer number of ideas submitted and their level of sophistication,” said Peter H. Diamandis, the foundation’s chairman and chief executive officer. “It truly demonstrates how important this issue is to the public at large.”

Jet set disaster junkie: Villinski Artist Paul Villinski likes to pop into disaster zones. He fetishises the tools people use in emergencies. His Emergency Response Studio is a solar-powered, mobile artist’s studio, repurposed from a salvaged trailer. (more…)

From big oil to big wave The data centres at the heart of the global Internet may soon all be off-grid. Google has filed a patent for a datacentre that uses wave motion to power on-board computers and the ocean’s water to cool them

The search giant has filed a patent for a ‘floating datacentre’ that uses wave motion to power on-board computers and the ocean’s water to cool them. (more…)

Back to the future

The off-grid population is growing in the Scottish Highlands at an unprecedented rate. �For the first time in a thousand years that there are more people moving into the Highlands than are moving out,� Professor James Hunter told the Financial Times. If the trend continues, the Highland population will be back at 1851 levels within 20 years, says the professor of History. By 2001 the population of the Highlands and Islands had risen to 434,000, compared with 378,000 40 years before. And, according to the Highland and Islands Enterprise Network, more than half of the newcomers are English. In a region that had been a byword for depopulation the turnaround is extraordinary.

A thousand people are on the waiting list of the Crofters Commission, a government agency that establishes whether refugees from the rat-race are in a position to herd cattle. The number of applicants has swollen by a fifth in the past two years, and some people have been waiting 11 years for a croft. Almost half registered are under the age of 40. (more…)

Eco-plumbing – we’re on it!

Do you have any questions about off-grid water management? From boreholes to hot showers, rainwater harvesting to greywater treatment, our resident Drain Brain, Cameron McNiece, can help answer your questions. She was one of the first in America to call herself an eco-plumber, and as well as living off-grid herself, she wants to help others make the change.

Cameron, from Washington DC, trained as a plumber in San Diego, and has worked for many eco-communities across the continent, installing everything from composting bathrooms to hydro power. She is planning to set up an eco-plumbing course in Cambridge, Mass, and she is looking for other plumbers in the area who are similarly interested. (more…)

Welwyn says “Get a rug”

Off-gridders bent on eking out the last of the warm temperatures and living outdoors as much as possible have propelled demand for decorative outdoor rugs. Diehard Astro buffs can still get their retro fix. The biggest seller is made of 100-per-cent Olephin. And it’s now available in a range of shades of green.

Consumers’ refined sensibilities and tastes are forcing designers to get more creative and make outdoor rugs with an edge, says landscape designer Welwyn Wong.

“People are starting to wake up to the idea of outdoor rooms, and rugs help define these outdoor spaces, much the way they do indoors,” says the landscape designer, who steers clients toward hardwood and bamboo products that have been woven together to lie flat and are edged with a fabric border to hide the hard edges.

THINK MOISTURE
It’s important to pay attention to the backing, says Wong. “Consider how much moisture buildup there will be underneath, whether it’s on a wood deck, patio stones, grass or some sort of porous surface. The more porous the surface, the more the rug will deteriorate.”

Ditto for the surface it’s covering.

If you’re into green as a movement rather than a colour, Emma Craig suggests Mad Mats (patioandyard.com). Made of recycled products such as pop bottles and milk cartons, the Mad Mat is proving ideal for sprucing up outdoor rooms, the pool area, apartment balconies and the ground next to camping trailers.

“They’re amazing,” says designer Craig. “We had one in the front of the store for three years and, in spite of all the traffic, it’s still in great condition.”

Mad Mats cost $46 for the popular four-by-six-foot size and $96 for a five-by-eight rug. The rugs are made to be flipped over, showing off a slightly different pattern.

Unlike indoor carpets, which retain dirt in their fibres, Mad Mats repel dirt, are washable and quick-drying. That quick-dry feature means no mildew-related rot to the rug or the wood deck it’s covering.

If you want a greener option, Wong suggests the original green mat: grass.

“When you’re creating your outdoor living room, consider leaving a patch of grass in the middle of the patio.”

Nature’s carpet provides a naturally soft feel underfoot or under hoof, depending on your particular house guest.

INS AND OUTS OF OUTDOOR RUGS:

The following will help you become a clued-in carpet consumer:

- Need no-skid outdoor rug (next to a pool, for example)? Look for a polymer backing.

- Avoid placing the rug in a sunlight-rich area, but if you can’t, look for rugs made of Olefin that’s UV-treated, and therefore more fade-resistant. “Outdoor fabrics are made to withstand a lot of the elements, so their dyes aren’t as unstable as the indoor fabrics,” says landscape designer Welwyn Wong. “What they mean is they’re not going to fade substantially. The darker colours are meant to get the solar exposure, so they’re more resistant to the sun.”

- Even outdoor rugs should be taken indoors for the winter.

- If it doesn’t say so on the tag, ask retailers if the rug you’re considering buying does indeed repel or resist stains, colour-fading, water and mould.

- Setting an indoor rug outdoors does not make it an outdoor rug.

…and if you are tired of walking

Bedouin Paths, an ethical tourism company based in London, is launching quality hiking tours in Sinai, Egypt. With a sustainable future and the local community in mind, Bedouin Paths will be dedicating a large percentage of the profit from its trips to fund English classes for Bedouin children and develop the Wadi huts in the mountains. The hikes begin in early October. (more…)

Wrenches – they’ll never give up

The first test of a new policy to promote off-grid housing in the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire has ended with a defeat for Tony and Jane Wrench who built a roundhouse in a beautiful field ten years ago and have been fighting the planning authorities ever since.

The Pembrokeshire planners decided earlier this month that the hobbit-style home is not suitable for the area, even though it is built entirely of natural materials and uses renewable energy and rainwater. The application for retrospective planning permission was declined on the grounds it could not make a positive environmental contribution and has an adverse impact on the semi-natural habitats in this location. The officers also stated that the development cannot meet the basic needs of the applicants in the long term, because of the yield from the woodland. (more…)