Green Home!

Archive for May, 2009

The basic gauge of the effectiveness of any insulation is its R-value. Insulation is designed to stop the flow of heat. The more heat the insulation stops, the higher the R-value of that insulation.

When compared to fibreglass batt insulation, spray foam insulation has a higher R-value at a given thickness. In other words, 2 inches of spray foam will insulate your roof better than 2 inches of fibreglass batts.

Cellulose fill, either blown-in or applied by hand, also has a higher R-value than fibreglass batts at the same thickness. But, again, the R-value of spray foam insulation is almost twice as high as cellulose fill insulation of the same thickness.

As important as R-value is in how well insulation works, it is not the only thing to consider when choosing the best roof insulation. Moisture will cause both fibreglass batts and cellulose fill to lose R-value. Even slight moisture, that you can’t see or feel, can reduce the R-value of fibreglass batts.

Neither fibreglass batts or cellulose fill insulation can seal every gap in your roof. Heat can pass through the open gaps and this reduces the R-value of the insulation, although the R-values listed for fibreglass or cellulose do not take this into consideration. In other words, the actual R-value of installed fibreglass batt or cellulose fill roof insulation is lower than the listed R-value.

Spray foam insulation is not affected by moisture. In fact, it can stop minor leaks because, when it is applied, spray foam insulation spreads to fill every gap and seal your roof. Pollutants and other airborne irritants that might get through the gaps left by batts and fill are kept out by spray foam insulation.

Perhaps best of all, insulating your roof with spray foam insulation costs about the same as other insulations.

The spray foam roof insulation specialists at Foam Comfort have the experience you need to get the most from your insulation.

Ornamental grasses have become extremely popular in the past ten years or so, and if you buy them at a garden center they are kind of pricey. Learning how to grow them yourself is actually quite easy. They can be grown from seed, but I won’t pretend to be an expert at that for several reasons. One, I don’t know anything about growing them from seed, and two, I have no desire to propagate them from seed because seedlings require too much care.

The easiest and most effective way to propagate them is through simple division. Of course you will need at least one parent plant of each variety that you would like to grow. If you shop around you might be able to find some 4″ inch pots at a fair price.

One of each variety is good for a start. I find that the best time of the year to divide them is in the spring, just before the new growth emerges. If you buy the stock plants in the early spring, you might be able to divide them right away. If you buy them at any other time of the year, just plant them in your garden or other suitable location, knowing that you are going to dig them up in a few months, or a year or so.

When spring arrives you can divide them at any time as long as they are not well into putting on new growth. The earlier the better. To divide them simply dig up the root mass and start dividing it into pieces. The divisions do not have to be to be very large. It’s difficult to describe, but as long as you have some roots, the new plant is likely to grow.

If you have small young plants you can probably just tear the root mass apart with your hands, but if the root mass is very big then you are going to need some tools. You might need some heavy duty tools!

Last spring I divided several grass plants that had been in my landscape for a few years. When I dug out the root mass it was much larger and more dense than I expected. Using a very good digging spade and some real elbow power I was able to chop the root mass into quarters, and I replanted the quarters back into my landscape. That still left many clumps that I wanted to divide into very small plants that I could pot up in 2 quart containers. The root mass was too dense to tear apart with my hands, so I literally got a hammer and a 4″ wide mason’s chisel and chiseled off pieces. It worked and I now have a couple of hundred beautiful little grass plants in 2 quart containers.

Since then I have talked with a friend of mine who works for a large wholesale grower, and he told me that you never want to let an ornamental grass plant get that big if you intend to divide it. He said they plant small divisions in the field in the spring, and dig them up the following spring and divide them again. He assured me that if you get them just 12 months later, they can be easily torn apart by hand.

That sounds like a lot more fun than what I went through!

Be honest, are you one of those people who has more time than money? Me too. When I wanted to put a new hardwood floor in my house I didn’t rush about and just start throwing tens of thousands of dollars at any contractor that offered their services to me. What I needed to do was put in the hours and find out how people go about getting good deals on their new hardwood floor installation.

1) Look for ‘contractor sales’ at places like Home Depot and Lowe’s. This is a great little tip that we’re able to come up with through a little research. The real question is whether these are really ‘contractor’ sales or whether they are closer to ‘extra inventory’ sales which are used to get people into the stores to buy other products. Guess what? Who cares? Discount sales are your friends no matter how they are labeled. The bigger discount you can get on your new hardwood floors, the better. Use these sales to your advantage and call the stores directly to find out when they are being held. In fact, if you are lucky, you might even be able to convince the store workers to tell you when the next sale is.

2) Read up on “discount hardwood floors” on the web. A couple fantastic sites to check out are Google.com and Askthebuilder.com. The first being a very powerful search engine and the second being a sort of massive data warehouse for all things related to home building. There are literally a ton of different data options available for people who are looking for discount hardwood floors. In fact, just because something is discount doesn’t necessarily mean that it is of substandard quality. It just means that you are getting a better deal than anyone else. Discount is your friend when shopping for anything including different parts of your house. Make sure you know all about the discount aspect of hardwood floors.

As you walk through the patio and into the observatory of my house, you will notice a three seater metal bench placed just at a tiny corner of the covered patio. Coated in green, how can such a lifeless-looking cold metal structure be providing me with immense satisfaction and joy almost daily?

I remembered its humble origins. I never had this metal bench all the while. It was on a very dark day to begin with that my best friend Peter Duss brought it in to the house. Peter said it was a gift to me, and he carried it onto the patio with his wife during that slightly breezy evening.

That day was one of the darkest days of my life. It was so because I had just returned from the hospital, with news of the results of the blood tests for my son who was diagnosed with almost complete bone marrow failure. There would need to be an international search for a bone marrow donor, as this auto immune disease would quickly wreck his health. I was crying.

Peter told me the metal bench placed on the patio would allow me time to sit there to spend with my son when he would be discharged from the hospital. It would be a great place to bond with my son again, and to enjoy the ambience of the evenings together on the patio, to watch whatever was happening around together and to enjoy the breeze, and the sounds of the night together with my son.

This was exactly what we did.

The metal bench was to be the focus place where father and son would be together for many nights, just being together to face the difficulties ahead.

In the end, after numerous sessions of chemotherapy, and treatment, my son was blessed with a recovery, and the green metal patio bench remained in its place.

It is now 4 years past this episode, and the patio chair is still providing that opportunity to bond with anyone in the family and with friends.

If this real life story touches your heart, and if you ever wish to give a gift to someone dear, to someone you love, consider that a patio chair can give immense meaning and provide opportunities for family bonding.

I know… this green metal patio bench did exactly that, and both the gift and the giver have a special place in my heart.

Whole house air purifiers are stepping stones to a cleaner healthier life that makes your savor every breath you take in its presence. Extremely useful if not critical in areas where pollutant concentration in the air is high, whole house air purifiers have brought in a sea change in the expectations of the average man’s standards of living. Available in a variety of sizes, shapes and features, the whole house air purifier almost puts the elitist ozone club access in the reach of the common man. But before you decided what home air purifier you need, you should understand the capabilities and specifications of these modern day technological marvels.

A significant percentage of our population suffers from breathing disorders, asthma and other allergic reactions to particulate matter in the air they breathe. If you or any other member in your household has been the victim of such trying circumstances, then the whole house air purifier could possibly be the panacea you have been looking for, the one thing that could change your dull day to your brightest day! When it comes to getting rid of undesirable particles in the ambient air, getting rid of the stuff that causes adverse reactions in people with high chemical sensitivity, the whole house air purifier is second to none. Be it the electronic air purifier with activated carbon or be it a specific HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Arresting) air purifier, using it just extended the healthy period of your lifetime!

Understand that a single air purifier will not offer you all the best-of-best air purification features. Some will specifically rid the air of particulate matter like pollen and dust upto 99.5% purity and some will specifically get rid of chemical irritants in the air and odors. Over and above this you have whole house air purifiers that use UV rays to kill microorganisms in the air and make it safer for you to breathe. Therefore the choice of the whole house air purifier is a function of the size of your house (capacity determinant of the air purifier), specific health issues you want to address (allergies to particulate matter vs. chemical sensitivity), the price of the unit and above all the environment of the house itself.

This article was aimed at giving you a brief insight into the wonderful world of whole house air purifiers. We encourage you to specifically learn more about the main types of whole house air purifiers like HEPA filters, Electronic air purifiers, filterless ionic air purifiers, UV air purifiers among the rest. That alone will put you in the best place to make an informed decision on what solution to opt for that best satisfies your needs.

Here is wishing you to breathe clean air and live a longer happier life! Three cheers to whole house air purifiers!