During some R&R in North Dakota a couple weeks ago I read this book by Dan Chiras about passive solar homes. The read really inspired me to makes some changes in my home and REALLY think about a number of design aspects in any future dwelling I build (like the garage maybe).
Much of the guidance you could chaulk up as common sense; insulation, air penetration, internal heat gain, but hearing about it in such detail really hammered home some things. And it also prompted me to buy an infrared thermometer so that I could understand where there are weaknesses and opportunities.
The book also made me much more aware of how the house and layout behaved during the cooling season. Ideas such as lighter color paint on the west, or best coverage of western windows constantly pops into mind. I also realized my southern overhang is overhung enough as its not protecting my southern windows during this cooling season. Also subtly frustrated with some of the non-insulative decisions we made on the original part of the house.
All in all, it’s one of the more thought provoking books I’ve read and has really motivated me to do better next time. And maybe next time is the garage, which we’re starting to discuss right now.
Since passive house design has that sense of being from the 70’s, I’m also trying to follow the guys at 100khouse.com to see if I can learn anything from them on their current passive house German standards design.
In an attempt to further reduce our waste going to the landfill, I purchased a composting bin from Sam’s club. The quality of the product has left a little something to be desired, but what could i expect from Sam’s for $62?
I haven’t added any accelerators yet, but thought about picking up some worms to get the party started. Really hoping that when progress begins, I don’t have a smell or insect problem. It’s bad enough w/ the giant bin next to my rain barrel, but you have to make sacrifices, that’s what I tell my wife.
For my birthday last year my parents sent me a rain barrel. The barrel was a pretty ugly orange and I always got grief about it from my wife. Not long after we moved into the finished house, I altered the gutter and put the rain barrel into action.
From the first rain fall til today, I’ve never needed to use tap water on the yard plants. The 60 gallons has been sufficient thus far. There was a dry spell where I went thru all of the water and got worried, but soon after we had a light rain and I was back in business.
One alteration I had to make was the exterior color. As I mentioned, my wife didn’t like the orange and neighbors frequently asked what the orange barrel was (I’m painting the gutter too btw).
My next modification is to buy another rain barrel to catch the overflow of this first one and give myself 120 gallons. The River des Peres Watershed Coalition offers rain barrels for $60/each. They’re made from old Pepsi syrup containers and are fitted w/ all the hardware. I just need to submit my order form.
My conclusion thus far is that everyone should have a rain barrel, as this could significantly cut down on using good tap water for outdoor plants/lawns. Even if you don’t like the look of mine, retailers offer better looking ones such as this one at Sam’s Club which looks like a giant Terracota pot.
I have so many free t-shirts from different events, races, volunteer opportunities and none of them are comfortable. They’re the heavy, rigid cotton that doesn’t breathe.
So in looking for some new summer-time t-shirts I wanted something comfortable, organic and unique. This led me to Skreened where I could get all 3 of these features, provided I bring the uniqueness. Skreened is one of those ‘make your own t-shirt’ outfits on the internet. They’re angle however includes organic t-shirts from American Apparel made here in the U.S. Plus, they have alot of philanthropic and sustainable initiatives that most ‘make your own t-shirt’ providers don’t have.
One for example is the biodegradable shipping back. See my bag which arrived several days ago with my new t-shirt. Maybe one day all of our plastic bags will be compostable, wouldn’t that be neat?
I must say that I’ve never liked a city as much as I liked Portland. It really felt like a place that i could live, granted I wasn’t there for 6 cloudy/rainy months either. The ethos of the city though is very much in line w/ mine. The bike cultural, the voluntary adoption of mass transit, the sustainable building practices, the artisan like community, the hybrid cars out the ying/yang, the dual flush toilets in many of the commercial buildings, the urban growth boundary, locally sourced foods, etc. etc.
A few specific examples of what I saw:
LEED certification – There were so many buildings that were LEED certified that it made no sense to take pics of them all. I read in this NYC report that Portland had 63 LEED certified buildings. The Ikea we went to was LEED certified, so was the REI, our hotel and even a winery we visited.
Locally sourced food was available/promoted at all of the restaurants (it was a foodie town). Even Burgerville, which I initially laughed at, uses sustainable locally produced food. I mean, have you ever seen a burger chain’s website with wind power, bicyclers and kayaker’s on it??
Though Burgerville was a chain, it was a local enterprise. This theme was very prevalent in Portland and they appeared to be very supportive of their independent businesses. Another example of this is the downtown Portland food campers. These are groups of 10 campers on a single parking lot selling really good food for a decent price. (see pic below)
lastly and not least is that Portland favorite non-microbrew beer appears to be PBR. A city after my own heart. I never drank one though, because with over 50 microbrews in town, why drink something I can get from my local store for less than $.50/can.
While in Portland for the first time recently, I learned how infused biking is into their culture. It’s a phenomenon that any city would be envious of, especially when combined w/ their public transit system.
For our Portland bicycle education we went with Todd owner of Pedal Bike Tours just northwest of downtown. He offers a range of tours from brewery and coffee cycle tours to old neighborhood and green tours. We opted for the ‘historic hoods’ tour because we were interested in portland’s old neighborhoods. We rode around for 3 hours and Todd explained each neighborhood and pointed out all of the unique bicycle friendly features. Throughout the whole tour i was completely amazed by how friendly, tolerant, whatever you want to call it, that the drivers were.
If you follow biking or bicycle advocacy seriously, none of this is new to you. Portland actually obtained Platinum status last year from the League of American Cyclists last year for being the largest bike friendly metro in the U.S.
Needless to say, they have alot of things going for them here that we can’t pull off in St Louis. Nice weather, hippy culture, better mass transit to tie in w/ biking and nice weather. Even with all of that, there are still things we can do in St Louis it make biking for common. Just need to figure out what that is.
lastly and not least is that Portland favorite non-microbrew beer appears to be PBR. A city after my own heart. I never drank one though, because with over 50 microbrews in town, why drink something I can get from my local store for less than $.50/can.
