by Mr. Rooter

Mr. Rooter Plumbing uses Wally the Wrench in The Drip Game on Facebook to promote being Water-Wise™ in real life.

The Drip Game is about stopping leaks, which has become a rampant problem in reality. More than 1 trillion gallons of water is wasted from household leaks each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We started the Water-Wise initiative at Mr. Rooter Plumbing to bring attention to the importance of conserving water,” said Mary Kennedy Thompson, president of Mr. Rooter Corporation. “With The Drip Game we can make learning about water conservation more entertaining.”

And entertaining, it is. In the first month of being live, The Drip Game has been played more than 65,000 times. That equals more than 7,500 hours of playtime.

“We’ve been blown away with the attention The Drip Game is getting,” said Fawn Barlow, marketing manager at Mr. Rooter Corporation. “It’s challenging, fun and to be honest, my wrist hurts from playing it so much.”

The Drip Game has three levels: sink, toilet and shower. It also has “powerups” that make the game interesting. While some catch, slow and stop the drips, others multiply the score and lower the clog level.

The Drip Game is available on Mr. Rooter Corporation’s Facebook page at facebook.com/mrrootercorporation. Just click on The Drip Game link in the left side menu.

If you have a leak, check out the Mr. Rooter online drip calculator. It determines the amount of water wasted daily, monthly and yearly based on the number of drips per minute.

It’s easy to use. Just enter the number of drips per minute in the box, and the amount of wasted water is calculated immediately. You can find the drip calculator at www.mrrooter.com/AskTheExpert/Drip Calculator.aspx.

Finding and fixing leaks can save the average household more than 10,000 gallons of water annually, according to the EPA. That’s enough to fill a back yard swimming pool.

About Mr. Rooter^®:

Established in 1970, Mr. Rooter is an all-franchised, full-service plumbing and drain cleaning company with approximately 300 franchises worldwide. Recognized by Entrepreneur magazine among its “Franchise 500” and Franchise Times Top 200, Mr. Rooter franchisees provide services to both residential and commercial customers. Mr. Rooter began franchising in 1974 and is a subsidiary of The Dwyer Group, Inc. For more information or to find the location nearest you, please visit our Web site at www.mrrooter.com and www.mrrooter.ca. Follow us on www.facebook.com/mrrootercorporation and twitter.com/mrrootercorp.

by MeCC Interiors

Based on a new report from the International Furnishings and Design Association (IFDA), houses are getting smaller, living rooms are disappearing altogether, and dining rooms are seeing a renaissance.

One dominant trend, which is already being observed in some areas, are houses — and rooms — of smaller scale.  This is attributable to many things, including an ageing population that is increasingly ready to downsize,  economic uncertainty, and, to a lessor extent, the desire to minimize our eco-footprints.

To complement these smaller spaces, modular furnishings will become increasingly popular and will, in fact, become a necessity to maximize function and comfort.

The use of outdoor rooms and spaces will also become more important, making up for the lack of interior square footage.

Though homes will be smaller, the majority will feature a home office.  In fact, many will contain multiple office spaces, perhaps as a reflection of increasing incidences of telecommuting and home-based businesses.
By 2020, our homes will be “smarter;” more functions will be controlled by electronic devices, including computers and voice activation.

image provided by CinéConsulte

by Zooey Huffington

As our society becomes more environmentally aware, there is a great deal of focus on making our homes green-friendly. One area, however, that doesn’t get nearly enough attention is the garage.

A garage tends to be a problem zone, and many homeowners don’t realize that the garage is adversely affecting their indoor air quality to a great degree as well as having a broader negative environmental impact.

Let’s consider some eco-friendly strategies:

1. Opt for eco-friendly garage doors.

The environmental impact of manufacturing doors for a garage may surprise you. With eco-friendly garage doors, the manufacturer reduces the overall impact on the environment. In addition, these doors have the high-quality weather stripping and other energy-saving features that standard doors do not.

2. Use local green materials.

In order to be as friendly as possible to the greater environment, the materials you or the contractor purchases matter. Buy local and green even if buying local and green requires you to spend a little more money.

3. Maintain adequate ventilation.

Garages are often unfinished and not as ventilated as they should be. If your garage gets quite hot and humid, and smells linger, ventilation is likely an issue. For the long term, you should install proper vents. In the meantime, you can crack windows, or even keep the garage doors open when you’re home.

4. Insulate the garage.

Generally, a finished inner wall and a well-sealed entrance door does well enough to prevent great loss of heat and cooling. Nevertheless, an investment in the garage will pay for itself in time. Insulate the walls and the attic over the garage. Put up sheet rock. Upgrade the weather sealing at all windows and doors.

5. Replace the side door.

Replace the side door with a quality door that has high insulating ability. The generic doors tend to let too much heat and cold escape, and they can greatly cut into any improvements you made in the last step.

6. Don’t use the garage to store chemicals and building materials.

Many chemicals and building materials release volatile organic compounds (VOCs). From the garage, these particles enter the home where they reduce the overall indoor air quality. Storing sealed materials or a little touchup paint is one thing, but don’t store quantities of previously opened materials. Instead, discard them, and when purchasing, opt for low- or no-VOC materials whenever possible.

7. Install light sensors and timers.

The garage can be a problem zone for wasted power, especially if we only use that area of the home when coming and going. Put timers on the main lighting on the exterior of the garage, at the doors and the side entrance. Put sensors on the interior lighting and on all secondary exterior lighting.

8. Consider solar-powered options.

It is possible to install a solar panel for the garage that will power the automatic garage door, the garage lights and even all the outlets.

Unlike buying and installing solar panels to power an entire home, purchasing and installing just for the garage is a relatively simple and inexpensive venture.

With these tips, you’re on your way to lessening your home’s carbon footprint.

by Green Wood USA

As long as there has been wood to burn, man has used it to stay warm. Our ancestors who discovered fire had the edge on a renewable heating source that is not only cost-effective, but also an environmentally friendly way to heat the home.

Still, many of today’s homeowners rely primarily on oil, gas, and propane oil to heat their homes rather than looking to wood. Why? It could be because they don’t have the facts about burning wood efficiently or are unaware of today’s high-efficiency wood-fired home heating appliances.

Here is some information about using wood to heat your home that may surprise you.

1. Wood is environmentally friendly. It may seem that cutting down trees for fuel would be counterproductive to the green movement. However, trees are a renewable resource that, like other biomass, is carbon neutral. While growing, trees absorb carbon dioxide; when they die they release carbon dioxide regardless of whether they burn or decompose. Fossil fuels by comparison are a one-way street, releasing greenhouse gasses in a matter of minutes that have been captured deep in the earth over millions of years.

2. Wood can save money. When burning logs in the new generation of high efficiency hydronic heater (more commonly known as a wood furnace or wood boiler), the heat generated is more intense and little is lost up the chimney. These central-heating furnaces can be used in lieu of standard heating systems featuring gas or oil during the heating months, or as an add-on when homeowners prefer to use other heating sources as their primary method of heating. This reduced need for oil, propane and natural gas means a reduction in monthly heating bills.

3. Wood can be a clean way to provide heat. There are plenty of people who have wrestled with cords of wood to feed wood-burning stoves or fireplaces, only to find that the mess left behind in the way of bark and ashes leaves much to be desired. However, homeowners who use the next generation wood boilers, will find that there is little to no mess involved. That’s because they burn wood at such a high temperature (2000 °F) that no discernible smoke is created. What’s more, because of the high burn temperature, very little ash is generated, meaning the firebox only has to be cleaned once a month rather than once a day. Also, the furnace can be installed indoors or sheltered outside and be set up to heat the entire home, eliminating the need to transport logs through the house.

4. Wood is a safe heating method. Using a wood boiler can be just as safe as any other traditional heating source. Just as with other furnaces, proper operating procedures should be followed.

In the case of the Greenwood, safety is the company’s primary focus. It was certified for indoor use to strict UL and CSA standards and is as safe as using gas or electric appliances. Very few competing wood furnaces or boilers meet these stringent safety standards. When upgrading your home and heating system this season, make sure you consider the benefits of today’s clean, safe, efficient wood heating appliances like those offered by Greenwood Clean Energy. In fact, many homeowners using a Greenwood system have seen energy bills reduced by up to 80 percent during winter months. One of these heating appliances pays for itself in energy bill savings in just a few years. For more information on Greenwood heating appliances, please visit: www.GreenwoodUSA.com

by Guest

Epoxy garage floor paint is making its mark on the building community as a durable and attractive way to protect both indoor and outdoor surfaces. However, what many homeowners may not know is that epoxy floors are also a “green” building material, offering many environmental benefits over competing products. Here’s the rundown of eco-friendly assets epoxy brings to the table:

• By doing some research, homeowners will see that many epoxy flooring systems  meet the LEED standards for low VOC emissions, making them safe for indoor and outdoor use without the danger of toxic off-gassing that can damage indoor air supply as well as the outdoor environment.

• By applying an epoxy coating to older, damaged floors, homeowners can prolong their use, instead of tearing them away to be replaced with a fresh one. This is a green solution because it takes away the need to clog up landfills with refuse from renovation products, and also saves the materials and energy that would be expended tearing up the old floor and putting in the replacement.

• Floors with an epoxy coating can easily be cleaned without the use of harsh chemicals, and they do not need to be waxed or polished afterwards to protect their surface. This saves on the amount of chemicals a homeowner will need to purchase, that would eventually make their way into local water systems.

• Due to the reflective qualities of lighter epoxy floor coatings, less indoor lighting and energy will be required to illuminate rooms, and rooftop treatments will protect against excess heat absorption during sunny days, making for greener, more energy efficient buildings.

• Because of its fast and efficient installation process, epoxy flooring takes much less time and energy to install than many other flooring options, and require no additional power tools, sanders, polishers, or varnishes to fit them into the space or smooth them into a useable surface.

by Ryan Boots

Part 2: Using landscaping to stay warm over the winter.

When most people think of putting in landscaping, they probably think more in terms of how it can make a home cooler over the summer, which is what I discussed in an earlier post. But people probably don’t think quite as much about how to strategically design landscaping to stay warmer during the winter to reduce energy costs and lower your electricity bills.

Landscaping as a Windbreak

As residents of cold regions know all too well, wind chill can not only drop the temperature outside your home, but can also blow in through the cracks outside your home and drive up heating costs substantially.

So the name of the game with winter weather landscaping is to use it as a windbreak. If properly designed and implemented during the summer months, landscaping can help reduce and redirect wind and modify the micro-climate in the sheltered area.

Proper landscaping windbreak design needs to take several factors into consideration:

• Windbreak height. This is probably the most important factor for determining the size of your sheltered area.  Depending on the density of your windbreak (more on that shortly), wind speed can be reduced on the windward side by a distance of two to five times the height of the windbreak.  But it’s the leeward (downwind) side that you really care about, and that’s where the most dramatic impact can be seen: wind speed can be reduced by a distance of up to 30 times the height. For the sake of comparison, a 10-foot windbreak can reduce winds on the leeward side by 250 feet or more.

• Windbreak density. This plays a major factor in determining the amount of wind speed reduction.  Obviously a low-density windbreak doesn’t do as much to reduce wind speed, but a high-density windbreak isn’t necessarily helpful either: the low pressure that results on the leeward side pulls air coming over the windbreak downward, which raises turbulence and reduces downwind protection.

• Location and construction. Depending on the location of your home and surrounding structures or topography, you will need to put together the right combination of trees and shrubs in the right places to achieve an optimal windbreak.
  • One or more rows of trees and shrubs with low crowns (leaves and branches) to block wind close to the ground
  • Plant low shrubs on the windward side of a windbreak to block snow from blowing next to the home.

Those are the tips for utilizing landscaping as a windbreak for cold weather.  However, sharp-eyed readers will recognize a conundrum: What if you need landscaping to lower your temperatures over the summer and help keep back the cold during the winter?  Obviously there’s no easy answer here, since every home is a bit different.  However, consider the following:

• Plant deciduous trees, which shed their leaves during the winter.  Depending on the type of tree, you should have a good thick canopy for summertime shade, and when it loses its leaves during the winter, enough sunlight should come through to help heat things up over the winter.

• Combine trees with fences where possible.  Trees combined with a fence or wall can help deflect wind over the tops of homes during the winter.  Depending on its location, it can still help provide some shade during the summer.

• Plant bushes and shrubs close to your house.  This offers the best of both: as detailed in the previous post, it will help keep the ground cooler during the summer, and can help block wind and snow during the winter.  (The same goes for crawling vines over a latticework or trellis outside a wall.

Again, there is no straightforward answer, since every situation is different.  And of course, there are plenty of other variables to consider, such as cost, aesthetics and effort involved in planting, among others.  Besides, if you’re looking to reduce your electricity costs, there are other projects you can consider, such as installing sunshades.  But if you’re already looking to do some landscaping on your house, proper design and application can both make your home prettier and more comfortable in all seasons.

by Ryan Boots

Every spring, homeowners far and wide break out the shovels and rakes to do some landscaping.  But far too many homeowners don’t think about how they can strategically implement their landscaping to not just beautify their homes, but save money on electricity bills in the process. Here are some things to keep in mind when you are putting in those bushes and trees.

Using Plants to Lower Temperatures

When people think about using their landscaping to keep cooler, obviously the first place they generally go is using plants – usually trees – for shade.  But one other way plants can help keep their surroundings cooler is through evapotranspiration, which is the process by which a plant moves and gives off water vapor. This process can lower surrounding air temperatures by up to 9 degrees. And because the resulting cooler air directly around the plant settles near the ground, temperatures directly under trees can be as much as 25 degrees cooler.
If you’re planning to plant trees for improved shading of your home, you need to consider the following:

• Regional climate. Homes in areas with hotter summers can obviously use the extra shade during the summer months. But if you are subject to cold winters, the extra tree shade can actually backfire on you, since you’ll end up needing to run your furnace more to stay warm.

• Shading needs. If you need continuous shade, go with evergreen trees and shrubs since they’ll provide a good year-round canopy. If you only want to block solar heat during the summer months, go with a deciduous tree that will let the winter sun through when you need it. Also bear in mind the height of the tree’s crowns (leaves and branches) – this will obviously make a substantial difference in the level of shade the tree will provide.

• Location of trees. This is arguably the most important decision to make for planting trees for extra shade.
  • For summertime roof shading, plant trees with high, wide crowns to the south of your home. However, if you need some solar heat during those cold winters, only plant deciduous trees so you’ll get some sunlight when you need it.
  • If you’re trying to block the lower angles of the sun in the afternoon, plant trees with lower crowns to the west of your home.
  • While you’re trying to protect your home, try to shade your air conditioning unit while you’re at it. All too often the A/C equipment is abandoned to get nice and toasty in the sun. Properly shade that air conditioning unit and you can increase its efficiency by an additional 10 percent.

Other Energy-Efficient Landscaping Ideas

As mentioned above, the natural behavior of plants helps cool the air and ground in their direct vicinity.  As a result, there are several ways to utilize smaller plants to also keep your home cooler in the summer.

• Plant shrubs close to your home to shade the windows and walls.  They’ll establish themselves and start providing shade faster than trees.
• Use shrubs and ground cover to shade the ground and pavement around your home.
• Build a trellis and plant climbing vines.  They tend to be fairly low-maintenance and they grow fast, meaning that with the right size you could shade an entire wall of your home within a year or so.

Obviously, there are other things you can do to lower your electricity bill, such as finding a cheaper electricity company.  But to lower your energy consumption, proper landscaping can make a difference.

Coming up in part two: Using landscaping to stay warm over the winter.

By Mr. Appliance

Save some green and help the earth without ever leaving your laundry room

Wash out your family’s green grass stains and wash in even more green savings. The laundry room can be the busiest room in your house, and if your washer and dryer aren’t performing at their best, it could show up on your energy bill. It may be time to give your family’s laundry habits an energy-saving makeover.

“Busy schedules and full households can cause lots of wear and tear on laundry room appliances,” said Doug Rogers, president of Mr. Appliance Corp. “Home owners should take special care when using their washer and dryer to make sure they keep working efficiently. The harder an appliance has to work to do its job, the more energy is wasted in the process.”

Follow these simple tips from Mr. Appliance to help your laundry room conserve energy and money.

Washer:

• When appropriate, wash clothes in cold water. This saves the energy needed to heat the water.
• Wash full loads. Washing machines use about the same amount of energy for all load sizes, so fill up the load to avoid wasting energy.
• Use the high-speed spin cycle, to take moisture out of your clothes resulting in less drying time and more energy saved.
• If you have an older top-loading washing machine, consider converting to a front-loading washer, which uses about 70 percent less water.

Dryer:

• Keep the lint filter clean to maximize air circulation, energy efficiency and to help prevent a potential fire.
• Dry full loads and use the moisture sensor setting. Not only does this save energy, it also protects your clothes from heat damage.
• Keep the dryer’s outside exhaust clean to prevent dryer fires and reduce drying time, which saves energy. Keep the dryer at least four inches away from the wall to prevent kinks or tears from forming in the exhaust vent.

These tips are easy for you to do yourself, and can even help prolong the life of your appliances when combined with regular visits from your local appliance repair expert.

For more tips and recipes, follow us on Twitter at @MrApplianceCorp, like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MrApplianceCorp and visit www.mrappliance.com.

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About Mr. Appliance®:

Mr. Appliance is North America’s largest appliance repair franchise system. Established in 1996, its franchises provide full-service residential and light commercial appliance repair. Mr. Appliance has more than 150 locations throughout the United States and Canada and is consistently ranked among the top home service franchises by Entrepreneur magazine and other industry experts. Mr. Appliance is a subsidiary of The Dwyer Group, Inc. For more information, visit www.mrappliance.com.

by Rob Wright

There are many great reasons to be green in your life and lifestyle. The benefits of being green are also well known. You can save money over time, use less energy, have a more comfortable lifestyle, and its good for the environment.

Except when agendas are involved.

What is now happening is that many people are seeing the benefits of being green and wonder why things are not happening faster or do not believe that the changes to date and the planned ones are real.

We are seeing these green issues in the building industry now. One of the ways this is happening are the various programs and materials that are being touted as improved building practices; which are mostly coming from other countries. It is a great thing to have new ideas, but some of these proposed programs and materials do not even meet our current building codes!

The Canadian residential building industry met our Kyoto goals and since that time we have continued to improve our green requirements and will continue to do so. We have always held out our R2000 program as the best in the world and we have continued to improve it. Our minimum building code now is what R2000 used to be in years past.

If you want to see a major impact on the environment and greening, you need to look at our existing housing and building stock. With the majority of these building built in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s you can do a lot of simple things to greatly improve the performance of these buildings. Bring back the federal incentives to improve the efficiency of our homes and add the commercial stock to the program; and you will see a major improvement in the greening of our buildings.

We are also seeing in some jurisdictions, green changes being imposed onto all new projects. This is happening because the industry sometimes says – wait, let’s see what the costs are; what are the benefits; and what is the science of this proposed change. This method has built a world class building code over time. But because this takes time – some are saying these changes must be imposed.

What we are seeing coming at us is that some of these changes do not have enough benefit for the cost and/or the building science of the change will have a negative impact on the home and owner. These negative impacts can include mould growth, moisture damage, and excessive cost increases to install. Some of the building scientists have been questioning the data presented to back up various claims for a while. The legal community has also started to look at the claims. Lawsuits have been filed in the state of New York against a green building organization.

The building codes changes are on a five year cycle where proposed changes are presented. They are then reviewed by industry representatives, scientists at NRC, and other interested parties. By 2012, the code will be equal to today’s Energy Star 80 rating. So the code is changing without additional “help” and no unintended consequences of them.

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About the Author

Rob Wright has grown up around construction and in the mid 1990’s, Rob joined and took over Citadel Renovations in Ottawa. Rob has presented seminars at the local home shows on various renovations subjects and is a contributor to the Home Renovation Guide. Rob has been active in the Greater Ottawa Home Builders Association for many years and previously served as the Renovation Council Chair. For more information, visit CitadelRenovations.com.

by George Rollins

The U.S. Department of Energy reports that, on average, 45% of a household utility bill can be attributed to heating or cooling the home. In addition to the cost to homeowners, traditional approaches to cooling a house create byproducts that contribute to global warming and other environmental hazards. Particularly in areas of the country that have warmer climates, utilizing some green building techniques can help reduce energy costs and the harmful effects on the environment. So, as temperatures rise as we head toward the summer months, consider these ideas for your next construction project, or think about how some of these strategies could be incorporated into your existing home.

Alternatives to Traditional Wood Frames

Today, residential construction is dominated by the stick-frame method, which uses wood beams to form the side and roof frames of a house. While various strategies can be employed to improve the energy efficiency of this conventional wood frame approach, several alternatives have emerged in recent years. One popular alternative is insulated concrete forms, which uses foam forms that are filled with concrete to create the frame of a house. By today’s construction standards, you likely can’t find a more structurally sound frame, but homes built in this way also have the potential for huge energy savings as well. Rather than having a layer of siding, plywood, wood beams and drywall between you and the outdoors, as with traditional construction methods, insulated concrete form construction creates a thick barrier of concrete and insulated foam. Outdoor heat is much less likely to penetrate a home constructed in this way, thus making interior temperature regulation much easier and less costly.

Windows Selection, Positioning and Shading

Most window manufacturers offer various product models, some of which contain more insulating potential and are therefore more energy efficient. Selecting the more energy efficient options, even though they may be more expensive, can contribute to a long-term savings in your energy bills. In addition, during the design phase of your home, avoiding placing numerous windows in areas of the home that have maximum sun exposure can help avoid solar heat absorption into the house. Installing functional shutters can also enable homeowners to add another layer of protection against the hot summer sun.

Caulking and Painting

Contractors must finish off a home’s thermal envelope with thorough caulking around the house to seal off areas where cool interior air could escape or hot outside air could enter. In addition, selecting lighter exterior colors can result in a more energy efficient home, as lighter colors tend to reflect solar heat while darker hues tend to absorb it.

Fans, Fans and More Fans

Whole house fans, typically installed in a home’s attic space, function like an exhaust system by forcing hot air from the building. Though whole house fans work best when the outdoor temperature is mild, rather than hot, they can rapidly ventilate and regulate a home’s temperature. In addition, generous installation of ceiling fans throughout the home can allow homeowners to take temperature regulation in their own hands. Indeed, running fans uses much less energy than operating an air conditioner.

Radiant Barrier

Because solar heat can penetrate the roof covering of a home, radiant barriers can reflect that heat away from the house so it does not infiltrate the living space. Radiant barriers are typically placed directly underneath the roof sheathing, thereby blocking further transfer of warm air into the house. Some studies suggest that radiant barriers can save 10% to 15% in energy costs.

Landscaping

Strategically using landscaping to make your home more energy efficient is perhaps the greenest of all green building concepts. Positioning lush trees and shrubs so they shade areas of the house prone to intense sunlight can help maintain a comfortable interior temperature.

Air Conditioners

If these alternative methods to cool your house are insufficient to help you maintain a comfortable temperature within, using the air conditioner is not necessarily completely off limits. Unfortunately, most Americans rely solely on the air conditioner and use it when other, less expensive methods that pose less risk to the environment are readily available. When used wisely, the air conditioner can be part of a responsible approach to cooling a home. For example, regularly change filters, and turn down (or off) units in areas of the house that aren’t being used can reduce costs and unnecessary harm to the environment. In addition, installing programmable thermostats, which are designed to automatically adjust temperatures according to specified settings, can help avoid overuse and waste.

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About the Author

George Rollins is a home enthusiast at FurnaceCompare.com, a site that has extensive information on brands and models of furnaces, boilers, air conditioners and heat pumps. FurnaceCompare also publishes consumer reviews and tips on choosing HVAC contractors. George has a passion for educating consumers on home improvements, as he feels that the right information can help consumers choose more wisely.