Green Tip- Lawn Irrigation

OK this post may be a bit strange since we are in the middle of our monsoon season. Last week I attended a meeting where a business friend of mine, Karl Schottler with Paramount Landscaping, spoke about lawn irrigation systems. His company installs and designs irrigation systems and after listening to his presentation I now have a greater understanding of what is entailed in the design and make up of the systems. Paramount looks at each project separately "no two jobs are alike", they take soil samples, shading considerations and type of vegetation and or grass that the system will be serving. All of this makes sense when you sit down and think about it.

I have a personal tale of how shade will affect plants, tree's and such. Just about 12 years ago my wife and I planted four Bradford pear tree's in our yard. There is one tree that has fully shaded roots (due to a privacy fence) another one who's roots are partially shaded and then there are two that get no shade at all. Well the biggest and fullest of them all is the one with full shade, and the two that get full sun (no shade) are drastically smaller. Just goes to show that the way the sun hit the tree roots did affect their growth.

So what does a tree have to do with lawn irrigation, well Karl brought up a great point, lawn irrigation is really more than just throwing a sprinkler and a few hundred feet of hose around your yard. In addition to Paramount taking the above steps that I mentioned, they also use this device called a "Solar Sync." The Solar Sync measures the sun's rays (hence the tree story), air temperature, rain and also the amount of water you are using. The device then can determine if you need the irrigation system to run or not.

This device is definitely something that I would suggest, it seems very affordable and will save some of our earths water from being wasted. I cant tell you how many times I have seen a sprinkler system running while it is raining outside, that sounds a little wasteful to me. Too bad Paramount didn't design those systems!

To find out more about Paramount Landscaping visit their website at www.paramountkc.com  or to check out more on the Solar Sync go to www.hunterindustries.com/Products/Sensors/solarsync.html

James Gallet
www.envirotechks.com

Energy Tip- Laptop vs Desktop

Sometimes you make environmentally wise decisions without even knowing it. This was the case with me about a month ago when I had to replace my wife's work computer. She works a couple days a week at my office and when her work computer died we opted to replace it with a laptop instead of a desktop unit. We did this mainly for convenience on our part; she can now take her laptop with her anywhere she goes, she is also able to get some work done at home and not necessarily come into the office in case an issue would arise. I personally tote a laptop with me everywhere I go and use it daily in my line of work, so I know the benefits of being able to work on a laptop anywhere. I also like the fact that I can still do some work at home, if needed, and still be in the presence of my family and not off in a corner or office by myself while I work.

So why is this "Green" you ask? Well according to a recent article that I ran across, here are some key benefits to replacing your new computer with a laptop or notebook instead of a desktop: Laptops require fewer materials and less energy to produce than desktops and use a fraction of the electricity to run. If you choose a laptop over a desktop, you'll save an average of 220 kilowatts-hours per year and about $20 on your annual electric bill.

If one in twenty-three households made its next computer purchase a laptop instead of a desktop, the energy saved could keep the lights on for every household in the entire State of Rhode Island.

Please share my blog with others and share your energy tips with me.

James Gallet

Energy Tip- Garden Hoses

Well summer is here or at least the signs of summer are here. The grass mowing has started, trees are filling out and flower beds are starting to shape up nicely. There is another sign of summer at my house and that is the garden hose being left out, not rolled up and laying in the yard (wife uses to water flowers). I don't know why the unrolled hose drives me batty but it does. So I am usually winding up a hose on a regular basis through the summer, one bonus is that this year one of the hoses is attached to the rain barrel that we recently installed :)

OK enough about that, my venting is over for now and here is my tip: Install an automatic shutoff, spray nozzle or whatever you use that will shut the water off when it is not in use. People have the tendency to turn on the hose, leave it running, use it for a bit, put it down, reuse it some more, put it back down and then walk to turn it off. During all of this use the water constantly runs out the hose unless you have a shutoff or wand of some sort. If you do this you will save up to 6.5 gallons of water per minute. If just 10 percent of US households attached shut-off nozzles to their hoses and the average reduction in hose usage was just 30 seconds per week, the water saved would fill over 128,000 bathtubs every day, WOW!

Lets try to conserve our water and install a shut-off or better yet a shut-off and a rain barrel together.

Please share this with friends and keep passing energy tips my way.

James Gallet

Green Tip- Plastic Bags

Over the past weekend my wife and I had a child free night, so what did we do? We went grocery shopping (I know how romantic). Well I ended up turning this adventure into a learning situation for myself. This school year my kids have been learning alot about waste and things we can do to help eliminate landfill waste. One thing that has been addressed was the plastic bags we get at the stores and how many we waste. My wife has recently added two reusable grocery bags to the stuff that is floating around in our family vehicle, you know the ones I am talking about they come in several different colors. Well I had no idea how much one of these bags can hold, each bag probably had equivalent to two or three plastic bags worth of items in it. I also was not aware that some stores will actually give you a credit for using the recycle bags as opposed to using theirs, cha-ching$$$.

These reusable bags got me asking some questions and doing research. I already knew that plastic is bad for landfills and is not biodegradable, but here is what else I learned in doing my research: U.S. households dispose of nearly one hundred billion (that's right 100 Billion) bags annually, millions of which end up littering the environment and harming wildlife (just take a look at the side of the highway next time you are driving and I bet you will see a few). If you reduce your plastic bag consumption by just two bags a week, you would throw away at least 100 fewer bags a year. If everyone in America did this and we tied all of those bags together handle to handle we would make a rope big enough to wrap around the earth 126 times. WOW!

I know that sometimes plastic is great so if you do use plastic bags, please recycle or reuse them somehow. You can take your plastic bags back to many stores where they have recycle bins for them. I propose the new question should be: Paper, Plastic or Reusable?

Please pass this along...James

Green Tip- Rain Barrel

I just recently installed a rain barrel at my home and love the thought of collecting rain water to reuse for gardening and outdoor use. I purchased my rain barrel for less than $90. After seeing how simple the rain barrels are I believe I will look into making my next one or at least pricing out the option of doing it myself.

Last week we recieved less than 1/2 inch of rain and my rain barrel (57 gallons) was full! The type of downspout diverter that came with my rain barrel puts the rainwater back into your gutter system when the barrel fills, this is so the barrel wont overfill. I dont know how long it will take me to recoup my $90 in water savings but I enjoy the feeling that I get knowing I am trying to conserve our earths water and help prevent wasting water. I am not excited enough to start drinking the rain barrel water, but what if I came up with a water purifications system, hmmm? On second thought no thanks, my wife would probably frown on this idea.

Please share your energy savings ideas with me and share mine with your friends.

James Gallet
http://www.envirotechks.com/

Tax Free Holiday On Energy Star Appliances

I am excited to announce that next week, April 19-25, Missouri's 2010 Show-Me Green Sales Tax Holdiay takes place. Homeowners can purchase Energy Star qualified appliances and equipment during the holiday and not have to pay state sales tax on their purchases.

All of our York Heating and Cooling equipment is purchased through a distributor in Missouri so We can offer an additional 5% off the installation of Energy Star labeled furnaces and air conditioners. Not to mention there are other rebates and incentives that can save you thousands on a new home comfort system. If you are in need of a new system give me a call at 913-268-6700 before this deal passes you buy. 

Other items that you can purchase (in Missouri) tax free are:
Washers
Dryers
Dishwashers
Refrigerators
Freezers
Water Heaters
Furnaces
Air Conditioners
Heat Pumps

Energy Tip- Unplug Your Power

Ten percent of the electricity used in your home is burned by communication devices and appliances-when they are turned off! If every household in the U.S. just unplugged it's computers and cell phone chargers when they are not being used-or put them on a power strip-collectively we'd save over $100 million-or enough to provide free health care to every low income child under the age of five in the state of California.