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Renters can do plenty to make their homes more eco-friendly

19.08.10

LOS ANGELES - So you're a renter and you shortage to green your space, but your landlord won't splurge on solar panels.</p><p> Don't stew. There are plenty of low-cost ways for apartment dwellers to be eco-thick.</p><p> You can be a green tenant by unplugging appliances or using chemical-disburden products. It's as easy as fixing leaky faucets or installing window treatments to spare heat in the winter and to keep your place cool in the summer without cranking up the air conditioning.</p><p> "There's a untruth that there isn't a lot that renters can do," said Paula Cino, captain of Energy and Environmental Policy with the National Multi Accommodation Council. "Our individual behavior has a huge force on sustainability. The resident has a lot of opportunity to make big differences themselves without any input from the property owner whatsoever."</p><p> Take it from Colin Beavan. The 46-year-old New York novelist embarked on a yearlong experiment to see how much he could shrink his environmental footprint. He cast-off candles instead of electric lights. He gave away his air conditioner. He unplugged his freezer and reduced his stuff and nonsense production. Beavan chronicled his efforts on a blog, No Force Man. In addition to cutting his power bills, he figures he and his household eliminated 4,000 gallons of garbage that would have otherwise ended up in dumps.</p><p> "The trouble for apartment dwellers is that you can't change the infrastructure of the building," he said. "So it comes down to using less."</p><p> Recycling:</p><p> Americans are consumers to the centre, rapidly accumulating and discarding belongings that gobble up dash as they're manufactured, delivered and then eventually dumped into landfills.</p><p> "Many of us have fair-minded been flying through things, purchasing at alarming rates and making no commitment to the things we already have," said Wanda Urbanska, litt of "The Heart of Simple Living." "People have not considered that purchasing all new products involves a grievous carbon cost," she said.</p><p> But the decline stopped some people in their consumerist tracks. Enter immature renters like Leslie Gant, 27.</p><p> "I don't have the budget to get a Prius, so I use all the other pygmy things to make a difference," said Gant, whose airy, split-smooth out condo in L.A.'s Westwood neighborhood is filled with reused and recycled items.</p><p> Her seven-bawling-out dining room set and other furnishings are hand-me-downs or habituated to items plucked from Craigslist, garage sales, even recycling bins. Her stock of clothing comes from thrift shops and clothing swaps.</p><p> "It's not tough at all," said Gant, who shares the 900-cubed-foot space with a roommate. "It's fun for your inner scavenger. Oh, and it gives me cease-fire of mind."</p><p> To preserve trees, she stocks her bathroom with Nautical head tissue made from recycled paper and cleans with old rags. If every household in the state swapped just one roll of traditional toilet wrapping paper for a recycled roll, the effort could save 424,000 trees, according to the Straightforward Resources Defense Council. The environmental group has created a shoppers' usher to recycled paper products.</p><p> For tenants whose buildings don't participate in a recycling program, Terra911.com lists local recycling collection centers.</p><p> </p><p> And if you're mobile, Rent a Green Box of Costa Mesa, Calif., offers packing crates made from recycled impressionable bottles and old cereal boxes.</p><p> </p><p> But reusing materials doesn't have to be a utilitarian endeavor. Fix your music sound sweeter by using sustainable stereo speakers, some of which are made with old sliding door casings. OrigAudio makes a set using recycled newspapers, phone books and pizza boxes, and the Bon Eco Subwoofer 500 is made from old tires and wheat straw fiber.</p><p> Be inconsistent:</p><p> Water requires energy. Lots of it. Pumping it, transporting it, irrigating with it, heating it and treating it absorb billions of kilowatt-hours of electricity in the U.S. each year. Producing all that power creates carbon dioxide, the equivalent of 4million cars, according to the Idiot Resources Defense Council.</p><p> So if you want to save energy and reduce greenhouse gases, use less water around your area.</p><p> For starters, collect your old bath water or dishwater. Known as gray salt water, it can be used to water houseplants or for outdoor irrigation. But you'll poverty to use only natural, biodegradable soap to keep from harming your greenery and to keep chemicals from leaching into the grade table.</p><p> Then there's the toilet. Flushing accounts for about 30 percent of the excessively consumed in an average home, according to the Environmental Blackmail Agency. Gant the recycler flushes sparingly.</p><p> If that's too indelicate for you, try a do used by Sarah Masson, 25, of Los Feliz, Calif. The tube writing assistant placed a 2-liter soda fiasco filled with water in her toilet tank to displace some of the grade, reducing the amount used in each flush-refill cycle. You can also buy a bigger establish ball or adjust the existing one so that it rests closer to the bottom of the tank, shutting off the refill valve earlier.</p><p> Examination monitors such as the ShowerTime from Efergy and the Waterpebble track the amount of heavy water you've used in the shower and set off an alarm when you reach a pre-set limit.</p><p> Or instal faucet aerators and low-flow shower heads to cut back Latin aqua use.</p><p> Electricity:</p><p> Your 700-square-foot pad possibly isn't equipped with solar panels or a wind turbine generator. But chances are your power proprietorship is generating a portion of its electricity with clean sources of vigour. You can tap into those renewables - though it might cost you a little extra.</p><p> That's because clear out power often costs more to generate than electricity from conventional sources such as coal or unexceptional gas. To pay for it, some utilities are offering opt-in programs for ratepayers who wish to shore up clean power investments through a small surcharge on their monthly bills.</p><p> The adventitious cost is worth it to Tracy Hepler. The 26-year-old come to nothing of the online sustainable living magazine YourDailyThread.com paid an in addition $9.39 every two months at her one-bedroom Fairfax-neighborhood apartment to tolerate the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's green animation program. She's planning to sign up for a similar program at her new Santa Monica, Calif., apartment.</p><p> More than 750 utilities across the mountains now offer similar options, according to the U.S. Department of Vigour.</p><p> Another tactic: Find out which appliances are the biggest power consumers in your apartment with an drive audit, which public utilities usually offer unaffected by (hint: refrigerators are major energy hogs) and under consideration replacing them with energy-efficient models, even if your landlord won't front the swap.</p><p> Even when they're switched off, most home appliances and electronic devices pick up drawing a little bit of power as long as they're plugged in. These "vampires" account for an estimated 10 percent of residential animation use in the U.S.</p><p> Shedding these leeches is easy. Simply unplug the makings you don't use most of the time. Make it easy on yourself by plugging clusters of devices into a solitary power strip that can be switched on and off.</p><p> </p><p> Some "power towers" automatically intelligence voltage dips when attached devices go into sleep wise and adjust output accordingly, lowering standby power use by up to 85 percent.</p><p> </p><p> Wiser yet, recharge your gadgets with a solar-powered charger.</p><p> And you don't distress to own the roof over your head to install solar panels. Companies like Veranda Solar are developing panels that can lynch from your window ledge or clip on to gutters and balconies. The systems are smaller and more portable than usual installations and, at less than $1,000, a tiny fraction of the price.</p><p> Even easier, put back burned-out incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, which use about 75 percent less force.</p><p> Dealing with the landlord:</p><p> Now that you've done what you can to green your measure out, here comes the hard part: greening your landlord.</p><p> Apartment owners these days are in penny-pinching vogue and aren't likely to spring for environmental improvements - unless you can show them how they too can guard money by doing it.</p><p> "That's something they're very responsive to," Cino said.</p><p> Some tenants are now pushing for so-called leafy leases - a contract that would lay out how renters and apartment owners split the cost of eco-pally upgrades.</p><p> Ask your complex to swap out inefficient outside lights with ones activated by motion sensors, connect timers for sprinklers and replace old appliances with Energy The leading part-rated products. Persuade your landlord to caulk and touch up windows and add programmable thermostats to get the most out of air conditioning and heaters.</p><p> And home up a barrel to catch rainwater from gutters and downspouts isn't enigmatical.</p><p> </p><p> The city of Los Angeles is considering expanding a predominant program from last year that installed free 55-gallon barrels.</p><p> </p><p> Focal eco-upgrades to a 900-square-foot apartment can outlay just $150, said Doug Walker, chief vice president of UDR Inc., a Colorado-based multifamily genuine estate investment trust. Chemical-free paints and adhesives now fetch no more than their traditional competitors, he said.</p><p> </p><p> Managers at the Greensward La Brea apartments are overhauling the decades-old property with low-emission dishwater heaters, recycled nylon carpet and drought-catholic landscaping. They painted the roof of one building white to display sunlight and help keep the upper floors cool.</p><p> They're now weighing the payment of installing solar panels and retrofitting laundry rooms to away wastewater for irrigation.</p><p> "It's a challenge with an older complex in Los Angeles that's slit stabilized," general manager Ron Bowdoin said. "The facility to pass costs on to residents is very limited."</p><p> </p><p> In a antiquated of high vacancy rates, landlords are also more inclined to hand over their tenants happy, said Annie Argento, the Southern California chief honcho for sustainability consulting firm Brightworks.</p><p> "There is trade payback here in the form of tenant retention, quicker sublease out-up rates, etc.," she said. "It's just looking at the equation from a broader lookout."</p><p> </p><p> GREEN TIPS FOR RENTERS</p><p> Living fresh is possible even if you rent. Here are some ways to make an apartment eco-affectionate:</p><p> Use biodegradable trash bags.</p><p> Run the dishwasher full, then air-dry the dishes.</p><p> Put aerators on faucets to scrimp water.</p><p> Buy chemical-free cleaning supplies. Or manage your own. Use vinegar and old newspapers to shine windows. Scrub countertops with baking soda.</p><p> Servants your refrigerator stay cool by cleaning the coils regularly and locating it far from the stove.</p><p> Luxuriate your own fruit and vegetables in a window box or in pots.</p><p> Unplug baby appliances when they're not in use.</p><p> Chuck coffee grounds and vegetable and fruit scraps into a composter.

Source: Kansas City Star

KitchenAid Announces Student Design Competition Winners

24.08.10

Since the introduction of its noteworthy stand mixer in 1919 and first dishwasher in 1949,

KitchenAid has built on the legacy of these icons to spawn a complete line of products designed for cooks.  Over 90 years later, the KitchenAid maker now offers virtually every essential for the well-equipped kitchen with a gleaning that includes everything from countertop appliances to cookware, ranges to refrigerators, and whisks to wine cellars.  To learn why chefs select KitchenAid for their homes more than any other brand*, visit www.KitchenAid.com .

*Based on a 2010 measure, KitchenAid was found to be the home kitchen appliance brand chosen most often by members of the Global Association of Culinary Professionals when asked about refrigerators, ovens, cooktops, ranges, dishwashers, microwave ovens, electrifying mixers, blenders, food processors, kitchen gadgets and toasters.

Source: PR Newswire (press release)