Carbon Monoxide Detectors

Though building a more environmental friendly home is one our goals, our home owners safety is our priority. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, carbon monoxide poisoning is the leading cause of accidental poisonings deaths in America. Carbon Monoxide is a tasteless, odorless, invisible gas that results from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, such as wood, kerosene, gasoline, charcoal, propane, natural gas and oil. We use a carbon monoxide/smoke detector combination unit that monitors the accumulation of this poisonous gas and sounds an alarm to warn you of the dangerous and potentially deadly levels of carbon monoxide in the home. All of our alarms are equipped with a battery back up in the event of a power failure as an additional safety insurance feature.

Phantom Loads

While working to improve the energy efficiency of our homes we came upon a little known but very common problem, the “phantom load.” A phantom load is, simply put, the amount of electricity an appliance uses when turned OFF. Many of today’s appliances feature remote control operation, clocks, timers or some other convenience we tend to overlook. For instance, your television is ready for you to push the remote control ‘ON’ button and instantly you have a picture. Well that feature uses energy to be ready for that moment. A 27” remote controlled standard television uses about 28 watts of electricity waiting for you to turn it on. That 28 watts is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, equaling 245,280 watts a year or 245 kilowatts of power wasted a year. That is one television in a country where many households have two or more, usually much larger televisions. Our nation wastes about 43 billion kilowatt hours a year on phantom loads, enough power to supply electricity to over 2,300,000 average homes a year. A decrease in the phantom load of only 1% could save the equivalent of about 55 million barrels of oil per year, worth around $1 billion dollars and help reduce green house gas emissions from the coal burning energy facilities. To help reduce your phantom load we suggest unplugging any unused appliances and using switched power strips to turn off electrical equipment not in use, such as televisions, cable boxes, DVD players, computers, game consoles and cell phone chargers. We also suggest using Energy Star appliances whenever and wherever possible. Energy Star appliances have been designed to be energy efficient and minimize the phantom load.

Programmable Thermostat

Using a programmable thermostat can help reduce energy usage. By programming the thermostat to automatically raise and lower temperatures at key times of the day will reduce the amount of time your air conditioner will operate. The thermostat can be set to raise the temperature when the home is empty for long periods of time (a typical workday) and then begin cooling the home back down to the desired temperature before returning home.

Most programmable thermostats have four temperature set points a day. Using the set points would allow a home owner to raise or lower the temperature four different times a day, seven days a week. A typical program consists of the temperature changing in the morning, afternoon, evening and then at night or bed time. Because programmable thermostats are digital they are more accurate than the mercury filled ones that millions of homes still use today. Many homeowners find that using a digital thermostat causes the air conditioner to run less while maintaining the desired comfort level in the home.

User – Friendly Clothes Washer Shutoff Valves

One of the most common claims for insurance industry is washing machine failure. Often times the non-steel braided rubber hose used to connect the washer machine to the valves will fail causing flooding in the home and high water usage. Typical shutoff valves usually require multiple turns of a handle and are not always easily reached. Using a shutoff valve that only requires a 90° turn are much easier to use and when located in a inconvenient location can be accessed with a reaching tool. To help minimize the chances for a hose failure, steel braided hoses should be used, as they help reduce hose swelling. Valves should also be shut off before extended periods of non-use (vacations) and preferably after each use of the washer.

Radiant Barrier

In our search of ways to reduce energy consumption we decided to start at the top, the roof. Using a radiant barrier roof sheathing helps decrease the amount of energy required to cool and heat a home and helps to contribute to a healthier home. Radiant barrier is a reflective material that is installed in the attic. It helps to minimize the heat gain during the summer and minimize the heat loss during the winter.

By minimizing the amount of heat gain in the attic we reduce the amount of work the air conditioner must do to maintain a comfortable indoor air temperature. Because we use radiant barrier roof sheathing instead of the traditional radiant barrier that is stapled up, we minimize the chances of a barrier failure such as tearing or falling down and we maximize the up to 20% average monthly energy cost savings.

Dual Flush Water Closets

As many Florida residents know our state has the potential to go through a long drought season every year, which heavily taxes our water supplies. Because our fresh water supply is so limited and so precious to our lives we started to look for ways to reduce water consumption in our homes. Through some research we found one of the most wasteful systems in the home is the water closet. A standard water closet sold today uses an average of 1.6 gallons of water per flush. With some further research we found a water closet system popular in Europe which uses a dual flush system approach. The system looks like a standard water closet but has a two stage flushing mechanism. With a single push of the button the first stage uses less than a gallon of water for flushing liquids and with a full depression of the button the second stage uses the full 1.6 gallons for solids. Using this system the average family of four could save up to 6000 gallons of water a year. If a family is on public water and sewer the savings is even greater because your sewage bill is directly related to how much water is consumed.

Invasive Exotic Tree and Plant Species

Natural species and plants are crucial to our local environment. They have the ability to with stand the long seasons of drought with little or no watering which helps preserve our precious drinking water supply. Often exotic invasive plants are found on home sites and must be eliminated. These plants usually require more watering than a native plant, crowd out native species and can even be dangerous to our safety and environment. They can contribute to beach erosion, decreased wildlife nesting, displacement of wildlife, respiratory irritation and large trees can lose braches or even topple over in high winds.

Non – HCFC Equipment

Living in our tropical climate the use of air conditioning is almost a necessity rather than a luxury. Most of the air conditioning systems currently installed in today’s home use a HCFC (hydro chlorofluorocarbon) refrigerant which has been linked to ozone depleting green house gases. A restricted use allows for a gradual ‘phase out’ of the refrigerant starting in the year 2010 and its use will no longer be permitted by a mandated ban that takes effect January 1st, 2015. With an air conditioner life expectancy of 10-12 years in Florida, a conventional unit installed today may not be able to be serviced in the future and will have to be replaced with a system that meets the new stringent requirements. Working with our air conditioning contractor, we use an air conditioning system that not only use an environmentally friendly refrigerant but complies with the 2015 mandated phase out of the HCFC refrigerant, which means you will be able to have your system serviced in the future with out worry.

VOC’s

With today’s tight building construction; volatile organic compounds, otherwise known as VOC’s are more prevalent than ever before. VOC’s include a variety of chemicals and are emitted in products numbering in the thousands. With common organic pollutants being 2 to 5 times higher inside the home than outside, completely eliminating VOC’s is practically impossible. Striving towards reducing VOC’s, we found one of the major contributors to VOC’s is the interior paint finish. Working closely with Sherwin Williams we have selected a paint line that has a low VOC content while still offering over 1400 standard colors. Our indoor air quality (IAQ) process has also helped reduce VOC gases and other indoor pollution.

Indoor Air Quality

Today’s homes are much more energy efficient than homes built just ten years ago. One of the ways we made our homes more efficient was by making them tighter, which means allowing less air leakage from the outside to the inside of the home. The drawback to less ‘leakage’ is that there is less outside or fresh air entering the home. The indoor air quality (IAQ) is diminished and becomes polluted.

We recognized this issue early in the design of our homes and took steps to help improve the indoor air quality. One of our first steps was to research several materials and select the products that have minimal or no off gassing VOC’s (volatile organic compounds). VOC’s contribute to poor indoor air quality.

We next decided to bring in outside fresh air so that there is an air exchange with the home and at the same time the home is put in a ‘positive pressure’. The purpose of a positive pressure is to push the air outward which helps prevent unfiltered pollutants and moisture from entering the home. The outside or fresh air is passed through the HVAC high efficiency air filter which is equipped with a 6” deep pleated filter media and filters all the air of the home capturing particles as small as 5 microns, the human hair being about 100-150 microns thick. Next, all of the air passes through the air handler which is equipped with a UV light. The UV light will kill most microbial spores and improve indoor air quality.