McMansions vs. Small, Functional House Plans
February 15, 2009 by boygreen · 1 Comment
Tightly spaced rows of enormous look-alike homes have been criticized for years, dubbed “McMansions.” With more and more people looking to green their lifestyles, we may see less of these oversized, expensive, energy guzzling homes popping up as they struggle to compete with smaller, more affordable green housing.
It’s no surprise that given the current economic situation, heating, cooling and electrical costs are a factor in the decision making process when it comes to designing a new home. A green “less is more” approach encourages home designers to include creative storage solutions and find unique ways to reduce square footage and energy consumption without reducing functionality. Just a few ideas on how to improve the functionality of a small house plan include:
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Green Your Yard: Solar Landscape Lighting
September 29, 2008 by boygreen · Leave a Comment
Solar landscape lighting has come a long way in the last few years. I recently installed a string of solar LED plant up-lights in my front yard and I’ve been really happy with them. I had installed regular low-volt landscape lights years ago, and when I went to replace the bulbs recently, I noticed that the bulbs had somehow melted into the fixtures. Just guessing that this could be a potential fire hazard, I decided to remove them.
I pulled out the old fixtures and replaced them with high efficiency solar LEDs that don’t require hard wiring. They simply plug into a small solar panel that easily hides behind a plant. The lights stay lit well into the evening - they were still glowing at 2am the other day. My only complaint is that the color of the light is more of a blue-tone vs. the old halogens that were more of a warm yellow tone. If you don’t see them side-by-side, it’s hard to tell the difference though. This is a great project for do-it-yourselfers since you don’t have to worry about messing with the electricity, and my yard looks great without draining energy.
A Bright Idea: Compact Florescent Light Bulbs
September 23, 2008 by boygreen · Leave a Comment
EnergyStar® qualified compact florescent light bulbs use up to 75% less energy than traditional incandescent, or normal, light bulbs. According to energystar.gov, if every home in America changed out just one regular light bulb for a compact florescent bulb, it would save enough energy in one year to to equal the amount of energy used to light over 3 million homes.
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