Rain Spray Shower Heads

There are a few green products that I simply rave over and our water saving shower heads are one of them. I replaced my existing shower head with one of our Eco-Friendly Rain Spray Showerheads. The flow is stronger and it saves water too! This clever shower head heats the water up in the normal way and then turns the shower head down to “trickle mode” until you are ready to get in the shower. Then pull the chain and the flow of water begins again at full throttle! So no more wasting water while you are busy in the bathroom waiting for your shower water to heat up.

I simply love it! Starting at $59.95.

Starting at $18.99.

http://www.greenandmore.com/led-light-bulbs.html

Starting at $379.99.

http://www.greenandmore.com/tankless-hot-water-heaters.html

Starting at $89.99.

http://www.greenandmore.com/home-soda-pop-seltzer-water-makers.html

Starting at $18.99.

http://www.greenandmore.com/led-light-bulbs.html

LED light bulbs can last 10 to 20 years and have no mercury in them as compared to compact fluorescent light bulbs, and consume a fraction of the energy of a regular incandescent bulb. Imagine cutting your lighting bill by 90%; In my mind that is what energy conservation is all about.

Here’s a quick list of LED light bulb pluses for you to consider:

• LED light bulbs consume 5 times less energy than compact fluorescent light bulbs.
• LED light bulbs contain no hazardous mercury for disposal.
• LED light bulbs do not flicker.
• LED light bulbs are very robust because they are solid state and do not contain filaments.
• The light from an LED bulb comes on immediately with no warm up time.
• Led light bulbs last for 10 to 20 years compared to the average compact fluorescent light bulb found in big box stores, which while rated to last for years, we have often found will only last a few months.

http://www.greenandmore.com/led-light-bulbs.html

http://www.greenandmore.com/greenandmore-blackcat-rechargeable-LED-flashlight.html

Before you rush ahead and install a tankless water heater (starting at $177 for a Mini Tank Heater) in your home you need to do some investigation to decide whether indeed it is the right option for you and your family. Let’s be clear, I am a great fan of tankless water heaters and grew up with them 40 years ago in England and they are the wave of the future, but like every appliance they have their pluses and minuses.

On the Plus Side:

• You never need to worry about a water heater failure and flood while you are out for the day – let alone away on vacation. That peace of mind is worth quite a bit in my book.

• A tankless water heater can easily last 20 years and we have heard of some lasting over 50 years, so over the long haul they can yield enormous replacement water heater cost savings.

• Hot water in a family accounts for about 10-13% of their total energy bill. Using tankless water heaters, an average family can save about $250 a year in energy costs.

• Both federal and state governments are promoting the use of tankless water heaters so you might get as much as $100 credit for purchasing one. We predict that in the future all new homes will have tankless systems in them.

• Hot water on demand is literally endless, so if the unit is properly sized, there is never a possibility of running out of hot water even if everyone in the family is using hot water for showers, dishwashers and laundry at the same time.

On the Minus Side:

• While the cost of the tankless water heater is about the same as a conventional water heater, the installation is often much more expensive with the break even point at five years of more out. So if you are not planning on staying in your house very long this might not be a good choice for you. The plumbing part of installation is quite simple but most home owners will have to spend quite a bit of money on electrical upgrades to their breaker box to bring in several dedicated 220 volt lines. Herein lies the installation cost which can run as much as $500-$1500.

• While tankless water heaters last so much longer than their conventional counterparts, they are not without some maintenance costs every 5 to 7 years. There are electric heating coils inside the water heater and this is its point of failure especially if air gets into the water pipes. This may happen more often than you think because the mains water can get shut off outside when road repairs are taking place and you may or may not get notified that this is taking place. Also if you shut off your water when you are going on vacation then you will have noticed that it “spits and sputters” on your return and you need to let the COLD water run for 5 to 10 minutes before turning on the hot water. The good news is that the element only costs $35 and can be easily replaced by the home owner. This is a spare part that we recommend having put aside somewhere so you never have to be without hot water.

• You need to decide what is the perfect water temperature for your house, which can be a bit difficult if you have bathrooms on 3 different levels. The bathroom on the highest level will always have water which is slightly cooler than downstairs. We all typically run the water hot then mix it with cold to get the perfect temperature. Stands to reason that you do not want to spend money heating up water only to then cool it down afterwards. Relearning that behavior will take some getting used to.

• If you have the kind of furnace which is designed to “free heat” your water heater, then you are only heating up your hot water in the summer months, which would make your payback period much longer and may give you pause to consider whether it is a viable project for you.

This being said I gamely volunteered to be the corporate guinea pig to install a tankless water heater in my house. My conventional water heater was 11 years and due to burst any day, so I was taking a chance in keeping it going. I chose a top of the line Eemax system and opted for external digital controls to regulate my water temperature. I have an oil based system and it was 10 years old and is an accident waiting to happen. My house is 25 years old so I do have a modern circuit breaker panel system but it was too small to accommodate any more breakers.

My Results:

• In all I spent $200 on a circuit breaker upgrade parts and $300 for the labor. Probably not too different than regular water heater installation costs. There were no problems in the installation- it worked perfectly from the get go.

• The wonderful thing that I found about the tankless system, is that whether it is for a long hot soak in the bath or prolonged shower, which I do twice a day to loosen up my back. Guess what? The hot water never runs out!

• I found that the hot water takes about 10-12 seconds more to run hot than my conventional hot water heater, but not enough to be annoying. And then the water can really be as hot as I want.

• We have had some very frigid weather in the Northeast this winter and it was so nice not to worry about frozen or burst pipes when we were away on vacation.

• In winter, my oil heating system partially heats my hot water, but nevertheless my electricity bill was $15 less in the first full month of use. In the summer months, the savings will be much larger as I will not be using my oil furnace at all. I reckon I will save $15 each month for 9 months and then a minimum of $100 in oil over the summer for a total annual savings of $235 in energy savings in the first year. Given that a tankless hot water heater can last 20 years ,it will not be long before I am ahead of the game.

Starting at $177.99

http://www.greenandmore.com/tankless-hot-water-heaters.html

• Ants. We had ants late summer, everywhere. I destroyed the ants’ nests outside on the patio with the steam cleaner, and blew some steam down some crevices where I could see they were crawling into the house as well as hunting them down on the floor. This was a much healthier, non-toxic alternative to spraying RAID which my husband decided to do one day.

• Weeds in Patio. Also this last Fall, I tackled weeds in the crevices in our patio by applying steam to them. If my neighbors had seen me, no doubt they would have thought me crazy- but it works nicely without spraying chemicals all over the place.

• Cleaning the Outdoor Grill. It takes a flare up before my husband decides to clean our grill, which we use both summer and winter but under pressure he cleans the grill, and then gets quite obsessive about it and the tough brush kit of the LadyBug works fabulously well.

• Stained Throw. I have a very beautiful Siamese Blue Point cat named Truffles who blotted his copy book one day by searching out my silk and velvet throw by Kumi Kokoon and throwing up all over it. Using some Formula 212 Spot Cleaner (starting at $39.95 and included with the purchase of a Ladybug) and some very low level gentle steaming had the throw look like new again, and Truffles lived to see another day.

• Drain Odor. The drain odor in our kitchen was really fierce last Fall. Apart from cleaning the drain gasket, I used the steamer to really blast out the disposal, and then ground up a lemon in the disposal. I got brownie points in our house for solving that one.

• Stain on Neighbor’s Couch. I spent one not so lazy Sunday afternoon helping a fairly hysterical friend and neighbor whose husband had just spilled red wine all over their couch, cushions and carpet the night before. Using the Formula 212 spot cleaner to presoak the wine split areas which were very extensive, the Ladybug came to the rescue with a towel and the triangular brush. My neighbor was simply astonished as the velvet couch came back as good as new, and her husband was profoundly grateful for saving his you know what.

• Rust Stains on Patio. News travels fast in our neighborhood and I was asked if the LadyBug steam cleaner could take the rust stains off a neighbor’s patio. This time I declined to do the job for him and instead showed him how to do it with a tough brush kit and pre-spray with non toxic concrete cleaner. Since patio tiles are porous this was a very tough task but 90% of the stain was removed and my neighbor was thrilled.

• Odor in Carpet. We own rental property, and we got a call from a new tenant demanding a new carpet because of dog odor from the last renter. Then the tenant next door to her, thinking her neighbor was about to get a new carpet said that hers was stained as well and she wanted a new one! I told my husband, who thought we should pay about $5K-$6K in new carpet for them, to send our handyman in with the Ladybug steam cleaner. For about $300 in labor we now have happy tenants once more thanks the LadyBug for saving me money.

  http://www.greenandmore.com/ladybug-steam-cleaners.html

Pluses

• After griping that my office had not sent me home with a manual, I found that Air-O-Swiss 7144 had thoughtfully put operating instructions inside the humidifier in an easy to view spot. Great for those who lose the paper manual anyway. I did figure out most of it, and got it operational without the manual, and I am not very handy, but the actual instructions were a nice bonus!

• I found the size and the shape of the humidifier made it the easiest of machines that I have ever tested. It still fills up from the bottom, but even when it was full, it was a cinch to carry and did not ask for assistance from my spouse. Actually, I did request his help once, but that was more from being annoyed at the hours of him imitating a couch potato when I was doing all the housework!

• This humidifier is almost completely silent, most people will think it is totally silent, but I hesitate to say that for 100% since there is always someone outside the norm. However, I defy you to hear it from the other side of your bedroom from your bed.

• The 7144 humidifier gave forth a satisfying amount of mist, and the humidity in my room increased quite quickly. It was not a fair test however, since my Siamese cats kept walking in an out of the bedroom.

• I confess to really liking the styling, and the silver/black color fitted nicely and unobtrusively with the bedroom décor.

Minuses

• If there was one minor thing to pick on, it was how the digital read out of humidity levels seemed to take a bit of time to settle down and give an accurate reading. I did check the levels against a hygrometer I had and found at most a couple of percentages difference.

• You do have to figure out the controls when you have them up close and personal on a counter top, and then memorize them, because once I put this humidifier onto a small foot stool to raise it up off the floor (as per manufacturer’s instruction) you will not be able to differentiate the controls from far away, unless you have eagle, youthful eyes.

Starting at $199.99 the Air-O-Swiss 7144 Humidifier covers up to 650 sq. ft.