Higher schooling
Back in May, we told you that Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center (CATEC) students were building a house to be certified under LEED standards—the school’s first green building project. Well, we’ve got bad news and good news. The bad: That project ran into some timing troubles and didn’t earn a certification. The good: CATEC is trying again, this time in close consultation with the Gaines Group of architects, and still expects to complete the country’s first high schooler-built, LEED-worthy house by next fall. Recycled-newspaper cellulose insulation, energy-efficient windows and a slew of other features will help qualify the house for the LEED label.
 CATEC students are making a little bit of history: the country’s first LEED-certified, high-schooler-built house. |
Technicalities aside, the real benefits are educational. Charles Hendricks, a staff architect with the Gaines Group, says that starting young builders early on a green agenda holds the promise of real progress. “It’s going to help the industry change,” he says. Plus, “It’s going to give the CATEC student an advantage in getting a job” as green building becomes more prevalent.
For the students, Hendricks says, it’s not a tough sell. “They’re very excited about it, completely on board,” he says. For the rest of us, it’s nice to know that as time passes, it’ll get easier and easier to find a builder who knows what you mean when you say “green.”—Erika Howsare
One-switch wonders
The prospect of millions of Americans walking laps around their houses in order to unplug power-sucking appliances might be a welcome vision for exercise advocates, but entrepreneurial types know that most folks simply won’t make the rounds very faithfully. That’s why they’re introducing a raft of products meant to ease the burden of cutting back on “vampire” power usage (devices that draw electricity even when they’re off).
 Those plugs are sucking energy, but new gadgetry makes it easier to stop the flow. |
You don’t have to walk laps if you have a GreenSwitch, for example—a whole-house wireless system that connects multiple switches and outlets, as well as your thermostat, to a single switch near your house’s main entrance. The basic GreenSwitch package starts at $1125, and the company (greenswitch.tv) says installation takes only an hour.
A couple of other gadgets for powering down: the Smart Strip, a power strip that lets you turn off printers and monitors automatically when you shut down your computer, and the Isolé power strip, which turns devices off when it senses that no one is actually in the room (incredible, no?). You can take off your cross-trainers now.—E.H.
Blogs a-Plenty
Looking for some daily green instruction? Check out Plenty Magazine’s wide collection of themed green blogs, at plentymag.com/blogs.php. We like “Action,” and its myriad of sister blogs, because they give smart, savvy, easy tips without any greener-than-thou attitude mucking things up.
 Think you already read plenty of blogs? Bookmark the Plenty blogs; you’re bound to learn something. |
These blogs speak with the assumption that you always look for a recycling bin over a trash can, try to lower your energy use, and are generally on the carbon-neutral team. So, with any eco-pretension pushed aside, Plenty’s blogs offer up advice about everything from how to find organically grown flowers that aren’t soaked in chemicals to how to use a pro recycler’s eye in all of your grocery store decisions. Plenty’s green gardening blog scopes out ways to grow your own sprouts, squash, and flowers in a smart way, by helping you cut excess wastes like plastic packaging out of your gardening purchases.
And our favorite, “Green House Effect,” zooms out from specifics to general updates from the world of sustainable building. Any blog that links us to a videogame about building a sustainable home gets a big fat ‘A’ in our book.—Lee Vanderwerff
Is your heater a cheater?
Getting out of bed on a cold morning is only made easier by the promise of a steaming hot shower, but your hot water heater could be the culprit hogging energy (and making your utility bills soar) this winter. Making your hot water heater more energy efficient is easy, and doesn’t mean sacrificing your steam-bath mornings.
 Water bursting forth from the faucet at scalding temps? You can save energy by turning the heater down. |
The U.S. Department of Energy recommends, first of all, simply lowering the temperature on your hot water heater. If the hot water coming out of your faucet is so hot that you have to cool it down by turning on the cold water, too, your water temperature is too high. A safe and efficient temperature is 120° F. Turning the dial to that temp (instead of the manufacturer’s standard of 140° F) also helps your pipes last longer by slowing down mineral buildup.
Another energy-saving trick is insulating the heater tank with a specifically designed blanket that can save you 4 to 9 percent on your energy bill. Installing a blanket on an electric heater is fairly simple, but if you have a gas water heater, it’s probably best to call a pro. Look for more energy saving ideas at the Department of Energy’s website, www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/.—L.V.
Effortless
What’s better than a donation to a good cause? How about a donation that costs you nothing? Somehow, somebody talked a whole pack of retailers into forking over cash to charities when their customers buy things, and one of the beneficiaries is our own Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC).
The engine behind the pain-free giving is a website called igive.com, where shoppers register and choose a favorite charity; then, when they’re browsing online stores, a pop-up window informs them what percentage of their purchases will go to that nonprofit. “Now that I have it on my computer and I’ve been doing my Christmas shopping, it keeps popping up everywhere,” says Melissa Wiley with PEC. Indeed, there are 687 places to buy and donate online.
Examples? Register with igive, then shop online at The Container Store, and 2.8 percent of your purchase will go to your chosen charity. Pick up something at Sur La Table, and it’ll be 4 percent. Other local charities you can designate: Shelter for Help in an Emergency (SHE) and the Wildlife Center of Virginia, among others. Suddenly that new set of placemats not only looks good, it does good.—E.H.
By the Numbers
“In 2005, homes in Virginia ranked third highest in the U.S. in the number of bedrooms they have, with 26.5 percent having four or more bedrooms. …House sizes have expanded even as the average number of people in each house has decreased, requiring more energy to heat and cool.”—from a Southern Environmental Law Center report, “New Directions: Land Use, Transportation, and Climate Change in Virginia”