Lately I’ve seen more bamboo home builders popping up. However, just because these homes are available doesn’t mean they’re right for you. There are pros and cons of bamboo houses. We’ll look at some pros first and later discuss some cons. Tomorrow I’ll post some bamboo home builders for you to browse as well.

Bamboo house by home builders Sol Habitat
The benefits of bamboo dwellings:

• Bamboo is better than other woods due to it’s extremely fast growth. According to The Natural House, some bamboo species have been noted as growing as much as three feet in one day. Wow right?
• Bamboo is lovely - depending on the cut, it’s a great wood visually.
• There are no knots in bamboo which makes it an easier wood to work with and you don’t need special tools to cut it.
• Bamboo is sheathed naturally in silica, which makes it durable.
• Bamboo looks delicate but it’s actually a strong wood. A bamboo home when built well can even stand up to natural disasters like tornado.
• Termite proof!
• Bamboo is an easy plant to grow - and it grows well in various climates.

Something cool about bamboo is that it has other benefits beyond building. This wood serves more purposes making it a smart choice for structures because there doesn’t have to be waste involved. Bamboo shoots are edible. Because these trees grow fast they’re a good choice for planting as home privacy screens or wind blockers. Some species can be used to help control soil erosion. Lastly, small pieces can be used to build just about anything - cutting boards, dishes, art, and more. The waste not aspects of this wood are pretty nice.

Learn more about bamboo homes.

Stay tuned for some bamboo home cons.

Wood burning may seem like a weird summer topic, but plenty of folks burn fires at night in the summer, and it’s been on my mind, so let’s take a look at the greenness (or not) of wood for heat.

In Humboldt my family lived in a little house near the beach, in a super small ex-logging town. The homes hadn’t been updated since their initial building, and all the heat we had was a wood stove. While living there, I always wondered if wood heat was green or not. Of course the perk is you’re not using non-renewable energy to heat with - trees will obviously grow again. After some research I found that it’s sort of a two-way street. Wood for heat can be green but it depends on some various factors…

The type of stove or fireplace you burn in. For example, a basic old wood burning open masonry fireplace is just 10 to 20% efficient while a circulating wood stove burns at 40-50% efficient. Basically, a wood stove is going to burn more efficient than a fireplace. See a list of EPA certified wood stoves (pdf).

Where the wood stove is located. You want the stove located in a central area in your home. Wherever the family hangs out most is the best place for a stove.

Size of the stove in relation to your home. If you have a house with many small rooms, one large wood stove is a bad idea. The stove will overheat the room it’s in, but not necessarily spread heat well to other rooms. You’d be better off with two smaller stoves.

What sort of wood you use. Sometimes you’re at the mercy of wood suppliers in your area but if you have a choice choose a wood that burns hotter to conserve. Black birch, hickory, locust, northern red oak, rock elm, and sugar maple are some of the woods that burn well. Cedar, alder, balsam fir, hemlock, and spruce are some woods that burn less hot.

How clean you keep it. You have to keep your wood stove clean or it’s not only a safety hazard, but less eco-friendly.

If you rarely have a fire at home, the greenest log is one of those commercial quick start fireplace logs. They burn cleaner than real wood and are made with waste products (sawdust).

See a huge guide to choosing and using a wood stove.

Off-grid living is a fairly basic premise. Off-grid indicates that your home is self sufficient. vs. dependent, as in you’ve set your home up to be energy producing vs. paying the energy company for power or having your own well vs. paying the water company. Sometimes an off-grid home is referred to as a homestead, although homestead doesn’t exactly mean you’re not dependent on other sources of energy or water.

If you’re living in an off-grid home (or living an off-grid life) you may be doing all or some of the following…

• Gardening vs. buying produce at the store.
• Living in a green, or sustainably built home.
• Composting.
• Producing energy via alternative methods.
• Making your own bio-fuel.
• Cutting out extras (four TVs for example).
• Making homemade cleaners.
• Collecting water via a rain barrel.
• Raising your own food - i.e. chickens.

The list above is super short. To gain more off-grid living ideas and tips visit Off-Grid.

Off-grid living comes in different shades. While most shades of off-grid life are greener than conventional living, not all off-grid homes are 100% self sufficient. Following is great example of an urban off-grid home and their owners. This family is almost entirely self-sufficient, but does rely on public companies for some things (like water). What this video will help you realize is that even more off-grid than not holds both money saving perks and eco-perks.

Bonus link: If you’re interested in off-grid living you’ll love the book Off the Grid.

If you celebrate 4th of July, and you’re here at this blog, there’s a good chance you’d like your celebration to be green. The 4th is a tough one because the mainstay of this holiday, fireworks, have yet to be made eco-friendly, at least not to the general public. Some movies and major events do use a more eco-friendly firework method, but that’s not going to help you at home.

If you want to tackle the firework issue, talk to city officials about shortening the display, which cuts down on some of the air pollution created. You can also skip the home fireworks. Sparklers, poppers, and other home fireworks are not only NOT made green, but come in loads of packaging. You’re better off not lighting any at home.

Fireworks aside, you can green up the holiday in other ways. Here’s how…

Green your barbecue. We’ve already seen many tips about this here before. Read up on the topic at the following posts:

• Throw a green summer picnic
• How to choose the best green grill - eco-friendly barbecue
• Green Barbecue Accessories
• How Earth Friendly is Your Backyard Barbecue?

Use eco-friendly bug spray to ward off nighttime critters. In the early evening, while you’re sitting there watching the fireworks, bugs can attack. Be prepared with some safer, non-toxic bug repellent.

Green your drinks. Water in reusable bottles, real cups at picnics, organic juices, and even organic beer are all ways to drink a little greener on the 4th.

Clean up! The 4th of July creates a trash situation unlike any other. The day after the holiday volunteer to help clean up the community. Pick up wrappers, junk, and water bottles (that the less eco-savvy people left behind), and make sure your community looks like it did before the 4th arrived.

Canadian architect, Bernard Morin and his wife Joyce Labelle have the most luscious container homes I’ve seen in a while. The house, Maison Idekit Home was a quick build, with the containers being installed into the foundation in just half a day and the rest of the home was completed in 10 months.

Amazingly, this 3,000-square-foot dream home cost just $175,000. According to a piece in the CTV, this home is the first of its kind in Quebec.

The house is comprised of shipping containers (as you may have gleamed from the post title). The steel containers are six meters high and 2.5 meters wide and are arranged in a super unconventional design that takes advantage of the natural sloping plot of land the house sits on. It’s awesome to see because most shipping container structures around are cube-like or rectangular in design.

You can learn more about this beautiful house at CVT or at the Mason IDEKIT website.

One of the easiest home spruce-ups is to change your hardware. Benefits?…

• Fast - it doesn’t take long to change some knobs and handles.
• Easy - almost everyone is going to be able to successful tackle this project on their own without any extreme tools.
• Impact - changing the knobs and handles throughout your kitchen or bath, or adding some cool knobs to bedroom furniture can make a huge impact and update your home.
• Inexpensive - some hardware can be costly, but for the most part, it’s not like the costs involved with say, adding a deck or repainting the entire house.
• Eco-friendly - nowadays there are a number of sustainable and recycled hardware options for you to choose from.

ECO-FRIENDLY HARDWARE OPTIONS:

Spectra Decor (shown above) carries some of the most lovely recycled glass and aluminum, cork, eco-resin, fused glass, lead-free pewter and stainless steel hardware you’ll find. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a brand new beautiful Living Green House just opened this last week at the Virginia Living Museum. The home was constructed as a permanent eco-showcase, in order to show people various designs, techniques and materials used in earth-friendly building. According the Baltimore Sun, “The demonstration house is one of the first anywhere in the United States — and the only one of its kind in Virginia.”

[image via Virginia Living Museum]

This gorgeous, 650 sq ft home is an amazing example of green building. Features include the following:

• A small size (and thus small footprint).
• Recycled building materials, including salvaged lumber and wood-like siding made from recycled paper.
• PVC piping alternatives.
• Green roofs.
• Solar aspects a plenty, like solar photovoltaic panels, a solar water heater, passive solar heating and more.
• Rain barrels and cisterns.
• Geothermal heat pump and cooling unit.
• And more…

The Baltimore Sun has an amazing image gallery and article about the house. My favorite image from the Sun is the killer solar-powered water pump below. Read the rest of this entry »

Regular mopping can waste a lot of water and because it’s hard to get a bucket of mop water hot enough to be super efficient, you may be inclined to use harsh cleaners in your mop water. An option beyond a typical mop is a steam cleaning mop. However, there are pros and cons.

Pros of steam cleaning mops:

• Use less water than traditional mops.
• Because the steamy water cleans well, you won’t need chemical cleaners. Just your mop and H2O.
• No messy wringing out.
• Can be used to clean tiles, wood, marble, slate, and more.

Cons of steam cleaning mops:

• Take more resources to make than a small traditional mop.
• Very few are made with recycled materials.
• Most have ongoing costs - such as the replaceable pads that go on the mop’s end.

How to choose a more eco-friendly steam mop:

1. Look for the lightest model you can without sacrificing strength (fewer materials). The steam mop should heat water in 60 seconds or less and have a good warranty.
2. If you can, look for a steam mop made with eco-friendly or recycled materials and one that’s made by a company with eco-ethics. There are a few like this, see below.
3. Skip the pads that most companies sell and use a reusable, washable microfiber cloth or other washable towel as the mop instead.

Steam mops to consider:

• Bissell Steam Mop - chemical free cleaning (hot steam only), reusable, washable microfiber pads, and packaging made from a minimum of 75% recycled materials.
• HAAN SI35 Upright Slim Steam Mop
• Shark Steam Mop - read a review.

We’ve already discussed the eco pros and cons of landlines vs. mobile phones here, and mobiles clearly come out ahead. However, mobile phones do have some eco-downsides as well, and we could green our use of them even more. Here’s how:

Always unplug your charger when you’re not actually charging your phone. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, anything left plugged in is drinking down energy (slower than an item in use, but it’s still using energy). Better yet, skip electricity use and snag a cool HyMini Wind + Solar Hybrid Charger for cell phones, iPod, iPhone.

Buy the greenest phone possible. Right now there are very few eco-minded mobiles on the market, but if consumers buy them and ask mobile phone makers for them, more eco-minded cells will launch to meet demand. Right now some better green phone options include:

• Samsung solar powered phone
• Sony Green Heart
• Blue Earth - coming soon
• See a list of the seven best eco-friendly phones

Only buy a new phone when you actually need one. You don’t need a new one, with new gadets each year. Use it up and then recycle it when it’s life span is over. If you do buy a new one before your old one’s prime, donate your phone to a local non-profit or recycle it.

Try an eco-friendly mobile carrier - like the phones, there are few, but Credo and Earth Tones are two to consider.

Get some cool green applications for your phone. There are plenty of apps out now that can help you go or stay green. See the best green mobile apps.

How are you greening your mobile use?

One of the greenest things you can do is purchase long-lasting products and then find ways to re-purpose them once they’ve served their usefulness. After re-purposing, there’s recycling. However, if you’re creative, you can first find new uses for almost anything before recycling. Here are ten ideas…

[image via Sprig]

Re-purpose coffee cans: Use old larger cans to make amazingly lovely planters. See how! See even more Recycled Garden Containers at Mother Earth’s Garden.

Re-purpose that old spice rack: You know those sit-on-the-counter spinning spice racks? Most folks don’t want those anymore because they take up valuable kitchen real estate. I know that many folks have switched to in-cupboard or wall mounted spice storage which means there’s a ton of these spinning spice racks hanging around. You can re-purpose yours to hold beads, sewing odds and ends, stickers for the kiddos, rock collections, little kid hair supplies (barrettes, rubber bands), and more.

Re-purpose bubble wrap: Obviously, you can reuse bubble wrap to send new packages, but you can also use it in your fridge veggie and fruit drawers as a liner to prevent tossed in produce from becoming bruised.

Re-purpose a tablecloth: Vinyl or oilcloth tablecloths aren’t so eco-friendly, but if you’ve moved to cloth tablecloths, how do you re-purpose your old ones? By making a lunch bag of course. Or make three or four for the whole family - also makes a great gift.

Re-purpose a leaky old garden hose: Into a much better, more eco-friendly, soaker hose.

Re-purpose old bedsheets: I like the idea of making a body pillow, because they’re cozy, but you can also use them to save energy in the summer if you live in a humid area. Take your old sheet, dip the whole thing in water, wring out so it’s not drippy, and hang across your window in the early morning. The air coming through the cool, damp sheet will take the sting out of summer heat and maybe allow you to turn down the AC. See 20 more ways to use old bedsheets.

You also might like… How to reuse toilet paper tubes - handy reuse tips for kids, criminals, and more - not completely a household item, but I bet you’ve got lots.

What are some of your best ideas for re-purposing household items?