Trees Are In The Neighborhood, Breathe Easy

Trees not only look beautiful and inviting to any neighborhood, but they add so much value on so many levels, sustainable designers use the phrase coined by William McDonough design "Like A Tree” as a guideline when approaching their projects.
 
With trees in the neighborhood, you can breathe easy.  Tree-lined streets are a visual testiment to the value they provide to a community, and that is just the beginning of the benefits trees provide to us. 

We all agree that trees are beautiful to look at and provide tranquility.  A view of trees from the hospital window helps us recover quicker from surgery.  On hot days, we run for the wonderful shade and cover a tree provides.

Trees also improve the air around us, help conserve water, provide wildlife habitat.  Because trees sequester, or breathe in so much of the carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, loosing thousands of acres a year is actually contributing to global warming.

It is estimated that 20% of the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide is a result of deforestation.  Global Change states “About one half of the forests that once covered the Earth are gone.  Each year, another 16 million hectares disappear.”

The benefit of a tree’s work can be seen much closer to home.  Let’s take a look trees, rain and runoff. 

With the natural water cycle, rain, ice or snow falls, fills streams, rivers and lakes and then eventually flows back to the oceans.  Here, evaporation occurs and water vapor rises into the clouds.  Then the whole cycle repeats.

In an undisturbed environment, about 50% of that rainwater gets soaked into the ground.  About 40% gets soaked up the plants, and the remaining 10% becomes stormwater runoff.

When we disturb the natural flow of the water cycle and watershedding process, by adding roads, houses, parking lots, sidewalks and driveways, the water doesn’t get soaked into the soil. 

Instead, it is forced to evaporate or run off into our storm drains gathering chemicals, gasoline, salts and litter.  This runoff is polluting to the waterways, our wetlands, our drinking water and is damaging to ecosystems.

The more these watersheds are disturbed, the more runoff there is.  This means that less water gets to penetrate and soak into the soil. 

In large cities and in commercial areas, the majority of water turns into runoff.  Less than 1/3 of the water gets soaked into the ground after development compared to before development. 
 
Treating this runoff in water treatments plants becomes expensive.  Planting trees, however, can protect the water and help the ground soak of the water better.

Here’s the cool part.  With the Arbor Day Foundation Tree Benefit Calculator designed by Davey Tree Expert Company and Casey Trees, this tool can give you a good estimation of the value and benefit you will receive or are receiving from planting a tree.

I  ran the numbers for a coastal redwood sapling I picked up at the State Fair.  Every year, I make sure to get one and after it spends 1-1/2 years planted in a pot on my porch, I transfer this graceful and fast growing tree to the great outdoors, behind my house, of course.

As I look over the back yard, I can see it growing rapidly although it still is a bit skinny. 

With the Tree Benefit Calculator, I was able to see that this free sapling with its 1-inch diameter of a trunk has increased my property value by more than one hundred dollars. 

This little coastal redwood will also intercept over 72 gallons of stormwater this year!  It will conserve 4 kilowatts of electricity in energy use.  Plus, my little darling of a tree is absorbing pollutants!

This skinny rascal sequestered or locked up in its roots, trunk, stems and leaves, almost 2 pounds of carbon dioxide and avoided almost 4 pounds of carbon dioxide.

While this redwood isn’t giving me much shade, at this point, I get a lot of satisfaction noticing its growth spurts.  I feel the tranquility coming over me and I breathe deeply.



To find out how to capture the water in your yard and divert it to better uses, sign up for DIY Greenstyle Tips and slow down the runoff.

Green Interior Design And The Carbon Footprint

As a green interior designer, considering the carbon footprint and health is part of the balance sheet when new projects arrive at my desk waiting to become beautiful spaces. 

Concentrating on sustainable performance of the ingredients and the components that go into the interior spaces of an environment, you can gather knowledge along the way and begin developing a sustainable eco living lifestyle.

There are many reasons to learn more about turning your lifestyle into a sustainable, eco-living lifestyle.  Making good decisions that impact the health, cost, efficiency and beauty of your work, home and play are just some of the reasons.

While there are many places to begin, a good place to start is to understand that there are life cycles that belong to products and materials.  The beginning of these lifecycles are way before the product and material land on the retailer’s shelf ready for you to purchase.

Getting familiar with the life cycle of a product will help you make better choices and what better way to learn than from a master.  Watch this video to learn more.

Sign up now to DIY Greenstyle Newsletter and become part of those in the know.  Get the skinny about a robust lifestyle.  

Green Interior Design What It Does

Telling people that I do green interior design I often get a blank stare.  More explanation is always required.  Here's where I use my 30 second commercial.

Interior Design is easily understood, so I have to assume it is the 'green' that throws them off.  It is the green part of what I do that addresses the indoor air quality referred to in the article below.

June 2010


The Missing Piece

Designs that sustain the Earth’s natural resources are no doubt significant, but there is one critical factor tied to green design that the A&D community simply can’t lose sight of: human health.

By Rachel R. Belew

It’s no secret that designing and constructing high-performing, energy-efficient, sustainable buildings and interior spaces is more important today than ever before. Green buildings lead to reduced environmental impact; healthy returns on investment for architects, designers, builders, owners, and product manufacturers; as well as substantial cost savings for end-users.

But in our haste to protect the planet, conserve natural resources, and promote clean outdoor air, one critical piece of the green building puzzle—and, arguably, the most important—is often overlooked: indoor air quality.

“The greatest irony of sustainable design and construction is that, often, the built environments we’re creating don’t sustain human health,” says Henning Bloech, executive director of the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute (GEI). “While sustaining Earth’s natural resources is critical, we can’t lose sight of the underlying goal: keeping people healthy.”

WHAT IS INDOOR AIR QUALITY?

Indoor air quality (IAQ) refers to the quality of air inside built environments as it relates to human health: The better the IAQ, the healthier the air that people breathe. Unfortunately, statistics consistently show that indoor air is two to five times more polluted than the air outside. Even worse, the air in newly constructed and/or renovated interior spaces can be up to 1,000 times more polluted than outdoor air. Why? Because many of the synthetic products and materials we use to design and build these spaces emit a cocktail of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants into the air—things like potential carcinogens, reproductive toxins, odorants, and other irritants, notes Bloech.

Not surprisingly, research has linked poor IAQ to a number of health risks, including asthma and other respiratory ailments; headaches; eyes, nose, and throat irritation; and even cancer. This, in turn, leads to decreased productivity, lower academic performance, and increased absenteeism.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

As architects and designers, you help shape and lead the green building and design industry. The built environments you help create and furnish today—whether they’re homes, schools, hospitals, community centers, or retail spaces—will have enormous health impacts on the people who occupy them tomorrow.

Paradoxically, some of the world’s “greenest” buildings—those that meet strict environmental criteria for energy efficiency, site selection, water conservation, and material selection—fail to account for the quality of indoor air.

“Sure, it’s a great thing when we create interior environments made from renewable resources,” says Bloech. “But, if the adhesives used to hold those renewable resources in place release toxic chemicals into the air, then the building we once thought was sustainable is actually doing more harm to its occupants than good—and that goes against everything green building and design stands for.”

To complicate matters, at the core of green building and design is energy efficiency: saving energy equals saving money equals saving the planet. Yet, the more airtight our built environments are, the more polluted the air inside them becomes (the chemicals that emit from indoor sources get trapped inside). “We may be harming our health without even realizing it,” adds Bloech.

WHAT WE DON'T KNOW MAY HURT US

Four decades ago, you—the world’s leading architects, designers, builders, and manufacturers—helped make it possible to reduce human exposure to lead and asbestos in our built environments … even though these building materials were as commonplace (and as accepted) as hardwood flooring or carpeting. You acknowledged the harmful effects that these materials have on human health, and you acted. As a result, today, the levels of lead in children’s blood across every population are markedly lower.

More recently, you also helped cut back on industry use of formaldehyde, a chemical that emits from common building materials (like engineered wood products or insulation) and is known to cause cancer. Thanks to your actions, today, fewer people are exposed to this hazardous chemical.

But science has shown that more than 12,000 other chemicals emit from the products we use or encounter every day. Many of them are known carcinogens, irritants, or developmental and reproductive toxins. Others we know very little or nothing about. Experts warn that exposing ourselves to these unknown chemicals is like gambling with our health.

“Until we learn more about these compounds and their potential impact on human health, it would be prudent to limit our exposure to them as much as possible,” says Marilyn Black, founder of the GEI. “New chemicals are introduced into our environment every day. Do we really want to let ourselves and our children become research guinea pigs?”

HOW YOU CAN HELP TODAY

By doing your part to raise awareness about poor IAQ and its health impacts, you can help gain the political, economic, and social momentum needed to make doing your jobs easier and more cost-effective. You can help ensure strong returns on investment, healthy profits, and increased consumer demand. And you can help transform neighborhoods, communities, cities, nations, and human lives.

“Economic growth, political viability, and social progress all share a common thread: human health,” adds Black. “Once we recognize that human health is the cornerstone of green building and design, we can effect real, positive change on the world.”

The GREENGUARD Environmental Institute (GEI) is an industry-independent, not-for-profit organization that oversees the GREENGUARD Certification programs. As an ANSI-Accredited Standards Developer, GEI establishes acceptable product standards for building materials, interior furnishings, cleaners, electronics, and children’s products. Learn more at www.greenguard.org.

Want to learn more about improving indoor air quality in your home or office?  Click here to find out how and raise your I.Q. consumer buying level.

Energy Saving Tips That Will Put Money In Your Pocket

The most effective and efficient way to save energy for your home is also the most effective way to reduce your energy costs and put money in your pocket. Making the house as efficient as possible is the most effective way to cut energy costs.

Because homes account for more than 20% of all the energy consumption in the United States, saving energy becomes a priority. Here are some energy saving tips that will put you on track to saving energy and money.

How do you do that? If you’re building a new home, start by looking at the size of the home because the simple truth is the larger the home, the more energy it uses.

What if you’re not building a new home and you want to cut your energy consumption and therefore, your energy costs. Here are a few strategies you may want to consider in your next remodeling project.

A good place to start is to look at insulating your home properly because heating and cooling rooms in your home consume 44% of all the energy used in the home. By insulating existing walls of your home, you can reduce that high energy use.

What does insulation do?

Insulation slows the heat flow into and out of your house. It reduces the heat loss and stops air from infiltrating. Insulating your existing walls can reduce your energy bill from 10 to 30%. The U.S. Department of Energy provides a formula you can use to find out just how cost effective insulating your home can be.

There are many types of insulation to choose from because different insulation materials not only slow the heat loss at different rates but they also do different things. It can be a bit confusing. Here’s something to remember. The higher the “R” value of an insulation material, the better it is at slowing the heat loss.

How do you know what “R” value you need? First, take into consideration the type of climate you live in. Green builders almost always insulate well beyond what is minimum requirement particularly if building a Passivhaus where energy savings start by using an “R” value of 60 is used everywhere, including under the slab.

Other Things to Consider

There are many factors that determine which insulation material to use. Cost is always a consideration along with ease of application, moisture resistance, meeting project requirements and environmental impact of the product.

In considering the environmental impact of a product, we want to look at the manufacturing process, how the product is disposed, what it is made of and if it has any effect on indoor air quality.

No matter what the determining factor may be in choosing which insulation to use, bad and sloppy installation will cause problems and can reduce its effectiveness significantly.

Now that you have captured an impressive 10%-30% energy savings on your energy bill, it’s time to turn up the volume on that warm and cozy and add some fun and excitement.

Carve out your own personal space in rooms that are jaw-dropping, vivacious, serene and beautiful expressions of YOU. Our tips and tools can show you how. Click here to discover how a few simple changes can inspire your life.

Bicycles And Future Cities

When you imagine a future city, do you think of a historic machine like the bicycle? Perhaps not, but others have. In fact, Bicycle City, the first of its kind in North America is in the planning stages and to be located in South Carolina.

Imagine that! A city without roads! Without roads for cars, that is. Bicycles are shaping the way we transport ourselves into the future of cities without cars. Of course, the 140 acres of Bicycle City will have green homes to go along with it.

It is no surprise that Germany has already built a bicycle city where over 5,000 residents currently live mostly without cars and that is a tram’s ride away from the town, Freiburg. The cars that are used are parked on the outskirts of town which are, you guessed it, biked to.

The inspiration for such a project comes from none other than golf. Communities are built up around the golf so why no around cleaner air, less noise, less pollution, doubling up on activities like getting exercise while going to shop?

None other than the bicycle fits that bill.

Of course, tons of questions start to pop into mind. One of the first questions that I had was how would you get food into the city. For the South Carolina site, rail and water will be the transportation modes used to haul all the goods that we use and rely on for daily life.

As I rushed to tell my friend about this concept, more questions came up. What if you have a family to transport around, or what if the weather doesn’t cooperate with your plans?

Being a problem solver, my friend and I came up with lots of ideas to answer these questions. After some thoughtful discussions, we realized that these concerns were opportunities for fun and creativity and maybe even a spark for that entrepreneurial spirit.

Now, what about all that pedaling? That may sound like torture to some and exhilarating to others. At some point or another, we have all wished to get to that easy-breezy status. It’s just the in between parts that seem bring our good intentions to a crashing halt.


The key is to start. After a couple of weeks, your aerobic capacity will build, and you’ll be able to do things you never thought you could. Soon, says expert bike riders, you won’t look back.

Nobody really knows when the bicycle was invented. One school of thought embraces the 1860s as the first bicycle invention by a guy named Ernest Michaux. Others refer to Baron Karl Drais von Sauerbroon as being the first to design a bike-like machine around 1818.


Regardless of the exact date, bicycles and the various models have always been a fascination and a fashion statement, from nostalgic to a throw down that has no chance of getting stolen.

To take a look at the history of bicycle models, click here.  Which one do you like best? Leave your comment.

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Energy Efficient Homes From The Ground Up To Get To Zero

Building a home From The Ground Up is a term associated with a Passivhause or Passive House type of construction whose certification standard is actually measured on the building's performance.  The goal is to get as close to zero energy use as possible. 

From the ground up, a Passivhaus is evaluated totally on its performance that must meet air tight standards for energy efficiency. Of course, you can add other sustainable components to the mix to arrive at a home that I would love to live in. I bet you would, too!

But what all of this means is that, you can build a home in such a way that you don’t need a HVAC system or not much of one. Add a few solar panels, and you have a net zero energy use. Not bad for making sure all the holes are filled.

To achieve this high performance in a house is remarkable and fascinating. Particularly when you consider that the typical new construction standard of today means you may be shoveling snow out of your attic. Not much of a standard there.

In a television reality show, I saw a couple having to do just that. Can you imagine? A new home and you are shoveling snow out of your attic? Hard to believe, isn’t it.

Passivhaus has been around for a couple of decades and is about 20,000 buildings strong in Europe. This building standard is catching on in the United States, and California stepped into the fold.

Here’s a cool video to watch on Passive House design model making:


This building standard is referred often called ‘from the ground up’ because every nook and cranny is considered so that there is no where for air or moisture, for that matter, to get in. Passivhaus has a rigid standard that the home must meet to be certified.

In the past, the square footage and size of a home was very relevant to meeting the air tightness performance test. Today, however, buildings such as schools, multifamily housing and university buildings being built to Passivhaus standards.

Passivhaus concentrates on total energy use including heating water and lighting. The true Passivhaus certification standard seems to be tough to meet for the United States even though the standard has been used in Austria and other places in Europe for over 20 years.

Because the United States has not, until recently, focused enough attention on carbon footprint and energy use, we seem to be behind the curve in developing the materials needed for this type of construction.

I am captivated by this construction standard, as I hope this article will inspire you to be. Many others have been hooked by Passihaus and manufacturers are beginning to notice. So, while the high performance products (windows, in particular) are beginning to hit the market, there are other concerns.

Other concerns like climate differences and retrofitting existing houses make it difficult for places like the United States and Canada to meet the certification standards of Passivhaus.

Those concerns are a good thing because it is becoming a conversation that will, I’m sure, develop into an even better solution. How can we meet zero energy use standards without spending a lot of money, accommodate varying climates and be able to retrofit houses that don’t all face the sun. Any ideas?

Interested in seeing what constructgion From The Ground Up looks like?  Click here to watch some videos.  At Eco Living Design, we pride ourselves on helping you raise your consumer I.Q. so you can arrive at your most brilliant solutions without pollution.

Photo Information:  The Stanton House in Urbana, Illinois, built in 2008, has 2,200 ft2 of floor space (as calculated in PHPP), R-64 walls, R-87 roof, R-51 sub-slab insulation, and triple-glazed windows rated at U-0.17 (0.96 W/m2K) as shown on http://www.buildinggreen.com/

Chemicals And Consumers Recycling Earth Day Memories

An Earth Day documentary caused me to recycle my earth day memories 40 years ago, which turned out to be about chemicals and consumers.

We have forgotten some of what it was like back then. For those who weren’t around or who weren’t aware, here’s a picture to imagine.

Get a hose about fire hose size and turn it on. It takes a couple of people to hold the hose and direct it so maybe a few colleagues can help. This hose is for a mega size job because the spray produces opaque clouds about 4’ to 6’ high.

You are on a mission to get every nook and crannie, so make rather large circles with the hose and get this opaque cloud of chemicals everywhere. I’m not sure what exactly was the target. Perhaps it was some pesky invisible flying thingies.

But wait, there’s more. You’re out doing your job just about the time a bunch of school kids are eating lunch. It’s a nice day, so they’re outside eating on picnic tables. You’re out there, too, with your huge hose swinging it around trying to get every little creature that may ever be a bother.

Even though it’s pesky creatures that you’re after, the kids are there. That doesn’t stop you, oh no. The chemical companies that have created this toxic brew probably haven’t tested in on humans, but no worry. No one seems to have fallen over dead from a spray yet.

So spray on. Spray over and around the kids.

As you move to the swimming pool, do the same thing. Oh, there are people swimming in that pool. No worries. No one seems to have fallen over dead from a spray yet. So spray right on and over them because it’s those pesky little rascals you’re after.

Finally, when the bald eagle was down to its last dying breath, someone decided to do something about it.

Unless you are able to remember back to those scenes, Earth Day may have seemed like some cause that some weird radical decided to put together to start a revolution or something like that.

Or, maybe we were so wrapped up in getting and having ‘stuff’ and it being as convenient as it could possibly be that we didn’t even notice. Why I had conveniently forgotten some of those things myself. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I do remember having to step into a foot bath on our way out to the pool. Whatever was in that footbath it was strong enough to kill something by merely stepping into it and stepping out as you walked toward the pool. Transdermal wasn’t as common a word as it is now.

Earth Day really is about how we share the earth we live on and in celebration, here are some facts I’ve turned up from The Green Guide, The Footprint Network, The Mayo Clinic and the Earth Day site.

If everyone lived like us Americans, we would need 5, count them, five planets to accommodate us.

It takes 1,799 gallons of water to bring 1 pound of beef to our table where it takes 468 gallons for 1 pound of chicken.

It takes 2,900 gallons to produce 1 pair of blue jeans.

2.5% of the earth’s water is fresh water, and with most of that frozen. So, we’re left with 1% to divvy up between agriculture, industry, energy generation and drinking water. Guess which takes the most.

The average American uses about 100 gallons a day, more than 15 times the water used in developing countries.

Consuming 8 cups of water a day, generally replaces the water that you have lost via sweating, breathing and other through regular (hopefully) body functions.

The Institute of Medicine advises that men drink about 13 cups of water a day and women should drink about 9 cups of water a day.

Plastic bottles labeled #4, #2 and #5 are found to not transmit harmful chemicals into your food and drink.

Here’s a great video that talks about bottled water, another curious phenomena. This video will shine a light and provide an insight that isn’t usually discussed explaining some reasons for the addiction to drinking water from plastic bottles.



Not everything you put in your recycle can to be picked up by the city is recycled.

Plastic can be made from some plants like potatoes, corn and sugar cane through a process that creates PLA (polylactic acid) polymers.

Thirst is not a measure of how much water to drink. When you are thirsty, you are already somewhere around 2-3% dehydrated. Drinking water should be done throughout the day whether or not you’re thirsty.

Earth Day will soon be 40 years old, While it’s fun to celebrate Earth Day, shouldn’t Earth Day everyday?

So, did you ever wonder why it takes so much water to make a pair of jeans? Click here to find out why. Want to increase your consumer I.Q. and learn how to arrive at your most brilliant solution without pollution.