Spiral Faucet fascinates while it conserves water. - One of the best informational articles I have found this far on grey water use & filtration
- 2000 degree solar oven/death ray/big person's toy. :) How to make one.
- Interesting roof that sucks up air pollution. Despite what the article says, TiO2 has been in use for a while. While target specific application may be good, its not the panacea that it may appear to some.
- Awesome Kitchen of the future is fully integrated. I little too conceptual for me, but has some really great ideas. Worth sincere consideration.
- Here is another take on rigid insulation panels for your windows.
- DIY oven cleaner. We have a friend who swears by this.
- WoBo? Heineken made a beer bottle that could double as a glass brick in the 1960s. The potential is truly awesome.
- How to make your own milk paints.
- Build a DIY wind powered washing machine.
- DIY dish soap
- Personally I cannot think when I would want to use this screw top method for creating a water/air tight container rather a simpler method but it might be just the thing for someone else so we have included it here.
- Economy recycled paper flooring is attractive and uses simple materials.
- Neat and easy to build clay pot refrigerator.
- For these with wood heating, building a holz hausen might help you store your wood.
- Maybe you still want plastic sippy cups for small people because of how often they drop things, but these home made glass versions are much better for the bigger crew. Make one yourself and enjoy.
- Why shred when you can make paper bricks? Personally Im not into this since I think paper is better off becoming new paper rather than being burnt up, but wanted to include this because it might be the right thing for some situations.
- Personally, I love to work with tile and mortar and once you realize how diverse it as a medium, you can start to create with any number of found objects. This back splash is done with bottle caps and beautiful.
- D'Mand Circ is a hot water recirculation system for multi-unit buildings like hotels and large apartment buildings. If you own this type of property, check it out. It looks interesting.
- Plastic bottle houses. Great page that will inspire you with what can and has been done.
- Low Tech solar tube takes village by storm. Probably not suitable for heated spaces, but you can add one to your shed etc.
- Biomimicry uses science to imitate natural processes. The natural world uses wax in many ways. SmartBoard is a drywall that has some useful thermal characteristics because of the inclusion of small beads of wax. We would like to see this product become much greener but feel its an interesting and good idea. Perhaps including the same wax beads in natural plaster?
- Instead on installing a very expensive standing seam metal roof, maybe we should have gone with beer cans? Problem is that neither of us drink much.
- Here is an interesting idea. No scary climbing on the roof. You can buy these solar shutter and once you plug your shutters into an outlet, they feed electricity back into your home through the existing wiring. This is truly solar made easy. We saw them at West Coast Green and they look really sharp.
- We have been wondering what to do about our windows. We have some really spiffy thermal curtains, but what about when you want the window open? I have a few windows that I think I will be making storm windows for.
- We are currently looking into various insulation options for the exterior of our home. We are intrigued by the spray foam insulation. Like most new products they have their advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few of the companies we have been looking at in spray foams: Iceynene, BioBased & Energy Complete. In the end we decided not to go with spay foam because they emit toxic gases in a fire. There are also some end of life concerns and some people feel they are not as green as they present themselves to be. What we did go with is AirKrete. Aikrete has low embodied energy, has no end of life concerns (it can be used as a soil amendment) has the best marks for fire resistance, sound proofing (we live near an airport), thermal mass, air sealing, thermal resistance, pest resistance, mold resistance, cost performance, chemical sensitivity, non-toxicity, and it wont shrink or settle. The only concern with Airkrete is the it can attract moisture and goes in damp so drying time is important. Airkrete was also much less expensive than other plastic based foam products.
- Gregory and I arnt planning on building a bicycled powered washing machine any time soon, but if you are trying to live completely off the grid its a GREAT idea! Maybe in 20 years when our washing machine is beyond repair? More inspirations for pedal powered tools here.
- Here is an idea I can claim credit for! Only it was already in production. There go my millions. Anyway, we are considering what it would take to retrofit under our sinks. Its a pedal that allows you to turn the water on and off without having to turn the faucet on and off and having to readjust the tempature every time. It would be wonderful for face washing and washing dishes. http://www.pedalvalve.com/ and http://www.fisher-mfg.com.
- So, traditionally plywood is used for exterior sheathing of a building. I have no way of doing any sort of scientific comparison, but at least there is an option out there. Gypsum is generally considered to have a high embodied energy but I dont know how it compares to plywood or particle board. DensGlass gypsum sheathing is interesting because it offers better moisture resistance and better thermal mass than plywood.
- Windows: A good double pane window will give you a value of R-4. Serious Windows offers a window with an R-11 Value. Thats almost 3 times the R-Value. Add a thermal covering to that and you are talking some serious Rs.
- Insulating Drywall Alternative: We are considering it for our home. Especially for the northern wall where we have no hope of solar gain. This is from their front page. WEKA insulation panels are made out of sheep's wool and have been proven to increase in-door air quality and to greatly reduce heating and cooling bills. http://www.sheepwoolpanel.com/
- Increase your solar gain in winter. http://www.motherearthnews.com/Hands-On-How-To/Heat-With-A-Heat-Grabber....
- Rain water Storage: For 275 and 330 gallon water totes delivered in the Bay Area call Pete. Pete is a really swell guy. Our tank had non-gmo soy lectin and he organizes his trips to save fuel and time. Something we are very happy about. Call Pete @ 707-328-9888 $150.00 275gal & $175.00 330gal ***Cash Only***
- Household Glass: Super cool! Ron Sundholm reuses broken glass windsheilds from cars to create facinating shower surrounds. http://secondglass.net
- We are really excited about the prospect of solar cooking. We found a great website that seems to be the web site that all other web sites reference. It has a large selection of plans for solar food dehydrators and cookers in a varriety of languages and some people even have posted stats for their cookers and some recipes. Soon we will add a blog article on the our solar cooker thats currently in progress. http://solarcooking.org/plans
