The Times are Changin' Tuesday 7-29

This evening we found a great article on our local news station about how local commercial builders are beginning to embrace "Green" building practices. Now I have to first go into my personal point of view on the whole "Green" catchphrase; I don't like it. I agree with much of what it implies yes, but the word has lost much of it's punch due in no small part to the mainstreamification of it. Which brings up an odd dichotomy. On the one hand, it's actually quite a good thing that "Green" has become a commonly used word. It means that the general masses are beginning to wake up to the fact that we've lived unsustainably for far too long and that they may have to actually take action in order to get away from the repercussions of that lifestyle. On the other hand turning "Green" into a word that either has, at best, little or no bite or worse yet is dismissed as being one of those nutty "liberal" ideas, takes away from the ideas and actions that are associated with it. I generally choose to use the term Sustainable (or unsustainable as it applies) because I personally feel that it better sums up the problem.

Back to the article. Whether or not they use the term "Green" or not, I believe it does good to have these type of larger local businesses putting themselves out there as role models and highlighting the benefits that come along with building sustainably. The more that businesses begin to see that they can actually realize real $$'s from these type of policies, the more the LEED services will become mainstream and the more it will begin to move into other areas.

It's all about growth. Managed, sustainable, smart growth. Hopefully this is another change for the good.

P~

Earth Day 2008 (post II)

EMy family and I spent the majority of Saturday at a local venue, the Ogden Nature Center to explore, play and learn more about sustainable living. We arrived less than an hour after the event began and were awestruck by the number of people that were there already.
This was the scene in the courtyard where a part of the informational booths were located. I have to say that I was very pleased that the booths at this event were not for retailers of "green products" by and large, but rather were primarily for information and education. We took a few minutes to talk with some nice guys representing the local Sierra club, dropped in on a composting class that had surprisingly few people at it and bought the boys a couple of "earth day necklaces to help support the Center.
One of my favorite parts of the center, and one that was not there the last time I visited on a field trip with one of the kids, was their Straw bale visitor center and Center offices. I really loved everything about it, and got a couple of good ideas to put away in the back of my head for use one day when I design our next home.
The boys were able to get in a little climbing; it's one of their favorite things to do. This is the first time we've been anywhere with a climbing tower that didn't cost an arm and a leg to use, in fact this one was free.

We also got to enjoy some local musicians and a group of kids that have a Celtic dance troupe. We've seen them before and their always fun. Plus we all love the Celtic music.

The last thing that we did was listen to a presentation from the Forest Service about caring for out Riparian habitats. Here in the Mountain West, our rivers and streams are really our life blood. Learning how our actions can have either a positive or negative effect on them is definitely an important thing.
It was a great day and a lot of fun. I hope that through events like this that we can help to get our kids motivated to learn more about being more sustainable. While I was there I was able to hook up with the volunteer coordinator and learned more about being a volunteer at the Center. We may "adopt an area" of the center and make it our own to care for, or even help with some of the projects there. I also offered to share my knowledge and experiences, for what that means, with others. I am certainly passionate about the things I am doing, and think that being involved with a place like this would certainly be a blessing.

I hope you all had a great day yesterday, I'd love to hear about what you did.

Till tomorrow,

P~

Big Congratulations to K~

K~ won first place for his entry in the 5th grade science fair!!

I cannot tell you how proud I am. K~ came up with this project on his own, decided how he wanted to test it, and really had a passion for it all the way through.

The best I can figure, the seed for this project was planted last year when we accidently found an earth sheltered home a couple of towns over; he was fascinated with the idea of why people would build homes covered earth. He wanted to find out in this experiment which home might use less energy and would "Protect the earth better." I helped him to build two identicle homes out of hardboard and MDF, and then he covered one of them in a way similar to a typical earth sheltered home.

After the homes were built, we tested them by taking a base temperature and then putting them under a heat lamp and taking measurements at 1 and 2 hours both inside and outside the homes. We found that the earth sheltered home inside increased to 53% of what the outside temperature was, but the standard house increased to 61% of what the outside temperature was. In other words, even though the earth sheltered home's temperature had a greater gain, the inside maintained a more even temperature throughout the test. This is one of the reasons that this type of home is considered to be one of the most eneergy efficient types of homes that can be built.

Anyway, all details to the side, K~ did an awesome job, and made me very proud. I like to hope that I had a bit of influence in his interests, but I certainly had a great time helping him with the project either way. He's already thinking about improving the project for next year; one teacher that was over the fair singled K~ out to tell him that with a little bit of effort, next year he could easily take this project to the regional competition.

Volunteering.

I went to a meeting tonight at “The Green Building Center” of Salt Lake, I've mentioned this store before when I was talking about different floor finishing options. Next weekend they are hosting a Green Homes Tour throughout the Salt Lake Valley and Park City. The project is the brain child of Ashley Patterson, owner of the GreenBuilding Center, and will highlight a lot of the different possibilities with regard to green home building and sustainable living. The meeting I went to was for volunteers for the tour. A freind of mine and I will be volunteering at one of the locations for 3 hrs that afternoon. Green Building options and alternative energy are a couple of things that I am really very passionate about. As of right now, there is only so many things that I am able to do in my own home, but I want to help share the knowledge that I have with others and learn from them as well. I think that the whole experience will be a real blast, and of course you know there will be a full review and lots of pics when I'm done. Hope you are all doing well. Till later.
P~

You can read more here.

P.S. I saw that I was tapped by Anandadevika to share some random thoughts about myself and to tap others. The thoughts are easy enough, but I need to figure out who too tap. I'll post later with more.

In with the new

Well, so far so good! We spent the majority of last weekend working on finishing the front room and upstairs landing with the Red Oak flooring that we have. You can see the difference between the original kitchen entry on the left after we had ripped out the old carpeting and the new interlaced (that was a pain in the butt by the way) flooring on the right. I have to say that we had the flooring angels on our side during this weekends work. Although we did get a much later start than we had hoped too, somehow all of the corners and vents and walls seemed to land dead on in line with a plank seam. Had this not happened, I would have had to find some creative way of ripping the boards and lining them up correctly so that the rest of the floor wasn't crooked. Any way we made good progress, A~ and I haven't had a good home remodel project to work on since the recycled concrete work we did this spring and we always enjoy working together; this time was no different!
Here's another before and after. This is our front sitting room. Mainly it serves as a landing strip for our boys when they hurl themselves down the stairs which you might have noticed are not finnished yet. This will be my project for the next week or so. I fear that it will be slow going; I could by all of the finished bull-nose stair peices but at $40.00 per 5' piece, I think I'll be putting the old table saw to use thank you very much! I have been successfull in finishing off the entry ways to the bedrooms over the last couple of days, so I am not to worried about the stairs. Measure twice cut once right Dad? (It took a long time to learn that lesson I'll tell you!) Below is a picture of the finished bedroom entries. I have to say I'm pretty proud of the work I did, seeing as how I've never done it.

We still haven't decided on how we are going to ifnish the flooring. We are leaning towards the Tried and True product that I reviewed HERE, but we just aren't sure. It has to be durable, and waterproof, but we would like to avoid the polyurethanes if possible. Notice on the first before and after picture of the kitchen entry; the yellowing that can happen after just a couple of years. PolyUrethane is photo sensitive and will do that. Oil and wax penetrating sealants won't, or at least that is my understanding.

I was curious, it seemed there was a bit of interest in the wood flooring when I first posted it, is there any questions about the installation process that I can adress for any of you while they might be fresh in my mind. I know Phelan at Homesteading neophyte just did some nice wood flooring in her place, anyone else planning on it?

P~

SLC Green Building Center

Saturday we went down to Salt Lake city to go to "The Green Building Center" our local supply center for environmentally friendly and more natural building products. We came to look for alternatives to polyurethane finish for the hard wood flooring that we are preparing to put in.

In addition to replacing the carpeting in our home with hardwood flooring, we are painting all of the common areas. This is something that we had planned already, and since we are doing it primarily to improve the health of our living environment, we have taken time to research some alternative products to the standard ones available at Lowes/Home Depot.

The main product that I wanted to look into was OSMO's Polyx oil.

"Ingredients 50-60 % solids (High Solid) Base: natural vegetables oils and waxes (sunflower oil, soy- bean oil, thistle oil, - carnauba and candellila wax), paraffines. Additives: siccatives (drying agents) and water-repellent additives. Solvents: disaromatized white spirit (benzenefree - in compliance with purity demands of the European pharmacopoeia)."

This product from what I gather is sort of the cadillac of the natural penetrating sealers. It is a German product and passes the very rigorous German standards for water repelling and saliva fastness. (This last bit was an unusual one for me, but essentially it means that little ones drooling or biting on the product won't degrade it or harm the child. ) I like what I have read about the product but have a couple of issues. One is that it's a foreign product; I'd like to keep my dollars here if at all possible. The other is that it has a longer drying time. 18-24 hrs between coats, and is a little funky smelling. We will be living in the home while we area finishing the floors, this is one reason that we want to keep away from the high odor treatments also, and it will be hard to avoid our stair for 24 hours while it drys.

Another product that I was shown was one called "Tried and True".

"Tried & True Original Wood Finish is made from highly refined, highly Polymerized Linseed Oil and pure Beeswax. This product is 100% solids, and has no solvents or heavy metal driers. The recipe for this finish is adapted from a Shaker finish and an English Arts and Crafts technique."

This was the product that I came away likeing the most. I initally thought that it was not meant for wood flooring, after later looking into it further I found that their website had a complete separate section describing it's use and benefits as related to hardwood flooring. I liked this product for the simplicity of it's ingredients. Lindseed oil and beeswax. Also because one of the other things I have found was a recipe to make a DIY foor polish based on beeswax and I think they would be more compatible. It also takes about 24 hours to cure, but smells much more pleasant. This is also a USA product and is manufactured in NY. It covers about the same amount of space, but also costs considerably less ($59.00/gal compared to $94.00/2.5 L)

On another note. An added benefit to using this type of oil/wax sealants is that when the floor or even just the heavy traffic areas need refinishing, you don't need to strip and sand the entire floor to do it because otherwise the old and new wouldn't match. This type of finish allows you to merely burnish and clean the worn area, and apply locally a new coat of finish. Much less trouble and much less cost.

We also purchased our interior paint here; a product called American Pride.
This is a ZERO VOC paint. Yep, no chemical nasties here. Not low VOC. ZERO. We think we are going to be very happy with this product; not only is it much healthier (it has a slightly yeasty smell rather that the typical plastic bag smell of paint.) but we spot tested it when we got home to check the color and it covers very well. Oh yeah, and at $29.00/gal it's about the same or less than many conventional products out there.

I hope I've been able to give you a better idea of some options that are out there. I'll be doing some more research and possible calling some of the companies. When I know for sure I'll let you know and give a review of the performance.

The Green Building Center

Tried & True Wood Finishes

OSMO Polyx

American Pride zero VOC paint