Tree Hugging Family » Sustainable Building

Thames & Kosmos Green Power House for Kids & Adults

Jennifer — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 02:19:13 +0000

Pretty soon here, I’m going to be reviewing Thames & Kosmos Green Power House – a Discovery Store toy. However, this kit is not so much a toy as a full on model home / eco-experiments activity project. There’s a lot to this activity kit though, so before I review I’m going to cover the basics.

Power House provides an introduction to sustainable energy sources and teaches basic concepts and principles in physical science. Using the kit will teach you about, and how to use heat and light energy from the sun, wind power, and electrochemical and plant energy.

The Power House kit allows you to build a model house complete with solar panels, windmill, greenhouse, and desalination system. The experiemnts actually work and were developed by physicist Uwe Wandrey. There are plenty of easy-to-follow activities included in a 96-page full color manual that highlights 70 experiments and 20 building projects, organized into the following nine chapters:

The Heat Trap: Construct and experiment with a greenhouse.
The Sun Collector: Collect the sun’s rays to heat water.
The Sun Burners: Make a solar cooker while learning about the principles of light before you cook rice and bake bread.
The Water Vampire: Desalinate water, plant watercress, produce sauerkraut and make chewing gum.
The Heat Absorbers: Learn how heat of evaporation provides cooling, conduct experiments about air humidity, build a hygrometer and test a refrigerator.
Power Plants: Grow beans, make a potted plant feed a candle, harvest sunflower energy, build an oil press, and assemble an oil lamp.
The Energy Converters: Extract electric current from sunlight and metals in acid, build a light telephone, galvanize a nail and split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The Forces of Magnetism: Generate electric current with magnetic fields. Build a current indicator, electric and solar motors, a transfer switch, and a crane. Lift pencils with the sun and learn about levers. Build an electric car.
Wings in the Wind: Build a sail car and learn how wings and sails transform energy. Learn to sail with the wind, by the wind, and against the wind and examine a mixed energy vehicle.

Who could use this kit…

Homeschoolers
People interested in realistic model building
Folks interested in learning more about sustainable living and green energy
Schools
People who like to do science experiments
And more

With the holidays coming up this might make a great gift too – for the right person. It says that the Power House is for ages 12+ – I’m going to work on it with my son Cedar who is 8 1/2. I figure Cedar loves to build and he loves eco-topics so this is right up his alley, even though he’s a little young. When he saw the kit he almost exploded with excitement so that’s a good sign.

After we take a closer look I’ll post what we think and what ages I think it’s ok for.

The kit contains: foam house and plastic greenhouse parts • frame • base • wood glue • solar panel • compass • wire • LED (light emitting diode) • battery holder • small light bulb and holder • solar motor • magnifying glass • propellers, iron core • ring magnet • thermometer • test tube holder • measuring beaker • sand paper • copper foil • zinc plate • wire mesh • many small parts such as paper clips • screws • clips • lead sinker • washers • wing nuts • iron powder • wires • tubing • rubber bands • yarn • wooden components • cutouts for devices • and full-color, illustrated 96 page Experiment Manual with 70 experiments and 20 building activities.

Look for our review soonish, but until then you can visit the Green Power House page for more details or pick it up at the Discovery Store.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Do you want to live off-grid?

Jennifer — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:43:15 +0000

Lately I’ve had off-grid living on the brain. Probably because I read WAY too many green building / home books, which without fail, contain an abundance of self-sufficient homes to obsess over. I’ve also been thinking about off-grid in an urban context. When I lived in Humboldt and New Mexico I knew plenty of folks who were living off-grid to varying degrees but most of them lived in fairly rural areas so that was my example.

I currently don’t live in a rural area and for various reasons, I won’t be moving to a rural area anytime soon. So the question is, how to manage off-grid in an urban setting. You can, in fact live off-grid and urban at the same time. Here’s one awesome example:

If you haven’t considered off-grid living, you should know that there are plenty of benefits, such as…

It’s green. Of course being a tree hugger makes off-gird living seem fairly seductive. Off-grid life employs many of the green tactics most green heads like anyway; recycling, composting, conserving natural resources, organic gardening, living smaller and on less, re-purposing, and so on. Green living is like the gateway drug to off-grid

Fewer bills in my email inbox! If you could score zero (or much lower) electricity, water, or gas bills why not?

Self-sufficiency in hard times. If power costs more, if there’s a storm and power goes out, if tomato or egg prices rise, if we run smack out of resources, it matters less if you’re off-grid. Off-grid folks are in a better place to handle the impact of hard eco and economic times.

If you’re into simple living and less materialism, off-grid living is a way of life that allows you to hold these goals or ideals close.

If you do want to live in a rural area, one that’s naturally off the grid, this is a way to do it.

Obviously there are off-grid cons too.

It’s more work, especially at the onset. If you have to install solar panels, start a garden, build a home, dig a well, etc, that’s a lot of time commitment and some upfront costs.
Off-grid living requires a certain amount of ongoing upkeep.
There’s a learning curve. I don’t think off-grid topics are that complicated, but there is a large amount of info out there to digest.

All of the above is just the tip of a much larger off-grid iceberg. If you’re interested in off-grid living here are some resources:

Off-grid net
Off the Grid – a super keen book I love.
Off the Grid
Is Living Off the Grid Right For You?
Brilliant and Bizarre Off-the-Grid Green Designs and Technologies – such a good post!

Maybe soon I’ll post some cool off-grid magazines (there are lots of good ones). For now, tell me about your goals… Is off-grid something you’re already doing or interested in doing?

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

If the nuns are going green, you sure don’t have an excuse not to

Jennifer — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 07:00:45 +0000

There’s a pretty slick read up at the New York Times – Praise the Lord and Green the Roof by Joseph Huff-Hannon.

Trust me, I am not someone who will urge folks to read religious related anything. Religion = fine but not my bag. However, what is possibly my religion would be green, and as you might know, I’m a huge fan of green building and structures in particular. So, in my opinion, if you mix nuns, composting toilets, and green convent planning, you get a religion-related fun article well worth a read.

Go take a look, and learn about the journey of these nuns as they green their building plans – an excellent reading break for today.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Around the Web with Peggy & Jennifer

Jennifer — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:15:05 +0000

So, it’s been awhile since we did one of these round-ups. We’re due. Here’s the green we’ve been writing elsewhere that may interest Tree Hugging Family Readers.

Building, buying, or remodeling your own green home:

Home & Living:

Architecture:

Baby:

Eco friendly baby shirts
Easy ways to go green with your baby
Organic baby clothing
Sweet organic baby tees
Happy summer organic baby finds
Cutest baby babble story ever – note that this is not so green, or even really useful for human parents, but it’s so darn cute I keep spreading it around. Sorry.

Work related:

Miscellaneous stuff:

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Grand Central Terminal Holiday Fair Design Competition

Peggy — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:00:38 +0000

Are you into green design or know someone who is?

The very popular Holiday and Spring Fair events at the Grand Central Terminal in New York are going green. The competition judges — world-renowned designers and architects — are looking for a green design that incorporates and highlights the historic integrity of Vanderbilt Hall.

If you’re a designer, don’t miss the opportunity to be part of this exciting collaborative effort between USGBC New York, leaders at Grand Central and designers like you.

What could be more fun than incorporating something green into something old?

The deadline to enter is May 30, 2008. Go here for more details on entering.

Image via Grand Central Terminal.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Green Around the Web With Peg & Jen

Jennifer — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:15:29 +0000

I HATE when people call me “Jen” I usually won’t answer. I don’t know if Peggy hates being called “Peg” but guess what, my title rhymes! Neat-o. It could almost be a song. Now that would be cool. Actually someone did write a song for me once, and it had stuff about squirrels in it, and bike helmets, so it was a little green I suppose… but I digress.

The reason for the rhyming title is that Peggy and I actually write quite a lot of green articles and blogs, we’re not just green at this blog. In any case, when you write on a lot of green topics, it’s hard to say where you should post – which blog is more deserving, which readers might like what story. It’s actually really hard for me some days to post something at one blog and not another. To solve that little problem, we’re going to start a weekly (maybe every two weeks) deal here, where we feature green writing by us, from other places.

Here’s a list of green articles and posts that you might enjoy from other places around the web (this first list will be bigger than normal because we haven’t done this before – we’ve got some catching up to do – from here on out, we’ll just cover the previous week):

Green home & living issues:

Remodeling Your Home Green Style

50 Sustainable Home Design Features & Resources

Greening Schools: A Worthy Challenge

Rinse laundry detergent bottles

Build A Green Home for Less Money

More Tips for Building A Green Home for Less Money

Get rid of unwanted catalogs with Catalog Choice

Green products:

Ouno Design Vintage Textile Pillows

Best Green Agenda Planners Ever!

Make co-sleeping easier for your family

Green Works

Bamboo Computers – Good Idea or Not?

Burt’s Bees and Clorox

Recyclable File Cabinets

My SIGG bottle

Green media & business:

Garbage Warrior: A Film by Oliver Hodge

Can a company be half green?

Green Business Links of Interest

10 Quick Ways to Green Up Your Office Space

People Don’t Go Green At Work

Who Can Recycle Your Office E-Waste

Green baby:

Natural baby & toddler tooth care

Tips for creating an eco nursery

Eco sprout organic kid clothing – organic spring baby clothing

Safer, greener, baby mattresses

Natural, healthy, & organic baby food

Why use cloth diapers

The mother load of green baby links

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Do You Live In One of the Greenest Cities?

Jennifer — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:52:06 +0000

I don’t know if we’ve ever discussed this – how can you find out if you live in one of the greener cities in the country? How about out of the country? Well, different places have complied lists with varying results. Who you believe depends on if you like their methods, have insider info, or just plain do or don’t trust a source.

That said, here are some places you can look:

America’s 50 Greenest Cities: This list complied in February by Popular Science, used a fair methodology (I’d say), ranking cities on issues like energy methods, transportation, number of building certified green, green spaces available, recycling, and green perspective. The green perspective one is a little funky – is there a test for that, but overall a good list. Bonus they offer six case studies on “How America’s Greenest Cities Got Green.”

15 Green Cities: This list was done by Grist and they explain their findings on a case by case basis. This list spans the globe from Reykjavik, Iceland to San Francisco, California to Vancouver, Canada.

379 Best Green Cities in America: Country Home did this list, although 379 seems random and not very useful of a number to me. Also no methodology listed (um ?) but anyhow this is a big fatty list. Helpful if you really are looking to live in green city # 256 or something.

The 10 Greenest Cities in America: By TreeHugger on MSN City Guides. This is a good detailed report, made cooler by the inclusion of nice pictures and two other reports; 5 Cities That Need Help Getting Green and 5 Cities That Are Greener Than You Think. Although, I do disagree with the writer who notes that Albuquerque is greener than you think. No, it’s really not. Maybe you have to live there to get the full effect but I don’t consider having to fight for recycling rights and living near Sandia really all that green. It’s not the worst city ever, but way not better than you think.

Our own Unplugged Living here at b5media has two world wide informative posts going on; In Terms of Environmental Conditions, Best Place To Live Is… and Cleanest and Greenest Places In The World. Both are good reads.

Now, what do all these lists have in common? My hometown made all of them. Well, except for Noel’s at Unplugged Living (and it doesn’t cover the U.S.). I agree that Portland, Oregon is pretty green. There are some things I’d work on like carpooling, and urban sprawl (rumored to be under control – but I don’t see it) but people’s attitudes are seemingly ok and the recycling programs (including thrift stores) are top notch.

How does your city fare?

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Greening Your Church

Peggy — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:15:33 +0000

Many of the things that are talked about in connection with greening your home can also apply to greening your church — recycling, using green cleaners, practicing green lawn care, eliminating disposable products when possible and making sure the building is energy efficient. Of course, churches are composed of groups of people who may not all agree on every issue, but the first step in greening a church is calling attention to the matter.

Resources for greening your church:

•Get LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. Your church can decide how green it wants to become and pursue the chosen level of certification. A great way to start is to get involved with your local chapter of the US Green Building Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to greening all of our existing buildings and new construction through LEED certification. Several churches have already gained LEED certification.

•Green your Palm Sunday with Eco-Palms. Here’s a New York Times article about them.

•Visit Massachusetts Interfaith Power and Light for some great resources. Some of their suggestions include taking stock of how much energy the church is using, looking at how space is being used and when it is used, and surveying equipment. They offer forms you can download to help with this process.

•Know your options for clean energy. Visit the US Department of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy as a first step. For more on clean energy, visit the Sierra Club’s articles.

•Visit EarthCare to download comprehensive resource guides about eco-management of churches.

•Be inspired by Boston’s historic Old North Church with its new LED lights. Here’s the CNN article.

If you’ve been involved with helping to green your church, please tell us about it.

flickr Photo Credit: Moreton Church, Dorset

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

This Valentine’s Day: Think About Green Architecture

Jennifer — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:00:50 +0000

I have a nasty flu. Nice Valentine’s Day surprise, huh? I’m not feeling very lovable but green architecture almost always makes me happy – so let’s go there.

Besides this blog, I also write Offbeat Homes for b5media. I write a lot of green architecture posts there that I’m torn about – i.e. should I post it here or at Offbeat. It’s hard when you write something sustainable and have two blogs the post would fit. That said, if it’s about a house, Offbeat almost always wins. Except today. I thought for Valentine’s Day, I’d round up a good bunch of green home posts and bring them here.

Sustainable architecture and design is a key factor in leading a greener life so if you buy, build, or remodel you should absolutely consider the supplies and methods you use. Also, what I hear a lot is that sustainable design is unattractive. Oh no! Green design is almost always beautiful. Plus sustainable design is one of the longest lasting green gifts you can give the planet.

Here are some great posts that focus on green architecture and design:

The Alphabet of Sustainable Building

Grow Your Garden Higher, (Literally) – the advantages of green roof systems

Green Is The New Black

The Solar Decathlon Homes

Amazing Woodland Homes: Not Just for Elves and Gnomes Anymore – a different kind of green home

The Poop House – more for extreme greens

The Honey House

Residential LEED & the mkSolaire – has the new res LEED info you need to be certified green

The Totally Recycled Home

Can You Build A Green McMansion?

Eco-Architecture: Four Great Examples

And a few of my most favorite sustainable homes…

The Remainder House

The Mushroom House

Seriously Lust Worthy Lundberg Design House

I hope everyone has a great Valentine’s Day!

Don’t forget to check out Peggy’s Valentine Day post, 14 Ways You Can Love the Earth.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Evergreen Windbreaks Cut Heat Loss and Conserve Energy

Jennifer — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:30:41 +0000

Today we have a special guest post from Fast Growing Trees Nursery!

According to The Department of Environmental Protection, evergreen windbreaks are the most effective component in cutting winter heat loss. Research indicates that heat energy savings of up to 40 percent are possible resulting from diminished wind velocity and reduced air infiltration into your home. Considering the U.S. average, that could mean a savings of as much as $400 per winter!

Location is the most important factor in effectively planting a windbreak. The evergreens should be planted north and northwest of your home. That will place them perpendicular to the strongest and coldest winter winds. Plant the trees in a “U” or “L” shape to block the wind most effectively. The best zone of wind protection occurs from 2 to 7 times the height of the trees you plant. For example, if the mature height of the evergreens you’re planting is 20 feet, then the zone of maximum protection will occur 40 to 140 feet downwind. Keep this zone in mind when figuring out how close to a structure you’ll need to plant your trees for the greatest effect. Finally, decide how far apart to plant your trees. Plant them more closely to have them grow together quickly. Or plant them farther apart to save money but wait a little longer for them to fill in.

Keep a few things in mind as you plant your evergreen trees. Evergreens like full to partial sun and just about any soil conditions. Dig a hole slightly shallower and about twice the diameter of the root system. Use your shovel to scrape the walls of the planting hole so the roots can easily penetrate the soil as they grow. Then, set each tree in the planting hole and spread out the roots. The bottom of the hole should be firm enough to keep the tree from sinking after it’s planted. The top of the root ball should be about an inch above the surrounding soil. Then make sure the tree is straight up and down in the hole. A level is very helpful for accuracy.

Finally, apply water as you backfill the hole with soil to remove any air pockets. Break up dirt clods and remove any grass, stones or other debris. After the transplant is complete, water each tree again well. To keep the soil moist, it is recommended that you mulch around the tree. Use enough mulch to reach a depth of 2 to 3 inches. This will keep the moisture in and slow down the growth of weeds and grass.

For more detailed info on how to plant evergreen trees, visit Fast-Growing-Trees.com and check out their planting information.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family