Home & Yard Handbook

Looking for a home improvement you can really sink your teeth into?  Consider an edible wall! 

by Brenna Hartmann

Imagine having fresh dill for a homemade veggie dip, some chives for your sour cream or even lettuce for a fresh picked spring salad…all year long, right at your fingertips!  Sound delicious?  Trust me, it is.  Fresh, fragrant, organically grown herbs and veggies ripe for the picking from your own kitchen garden.  That’s right, you can have a vertical herb garden right in the heart of your home growing on your wall!  A relatively new concept here on the East coast, it is fast taking hold as people seek greener and healthier lifestyles.

One of my home improvement themes this year is designing a “natural” kitchen.  I began my project by eliminating chemically toxic cleaning products and replacing them with my own home  brewed products consisting of eco-friendly ingredients like baking soda and vinegar.

I have regularly been replacing damaged and scratched non-stick cookware and plastics with more enviro-friendly and reusable products like glass storage containers and stainless steel cookware.

I have upgraded to energy efficient appliances and have installed dimmer switches.  I am using Energy Star-rated light fixtures and bulbs.  So what’s next?  Naturally…the food I am preparing and eating.  But, like many homeowners, I have limited  horizontal space for growing fresh herbs and vegetables and my short outdoor growing season is further limited by the climate here in upstate New York.  Now, thanks to Green Living Technologies, I am  growing fresh herbs and lettuce right on my kitchen wall!  I have installed an edible, vertical garden.  Complete with automatic lighting and irrigation system, this simple modular panel construction allows me to grow my own organic produce year round!

My edible wall is by far my favorite home improvement project to date.  The aroma of the fresh cut herbs is indescribable and for a fraction of the amount of money I would spend growing annually or purchasing costly store bought herbs, I have a beautiful, sustainable and eco-friendly garden wall, right in the heart of my home.

As an added benefit, the plants in my edible wall also serve as air purifiers.  You may be aware that formaldehyde is emitted from many products in our homes such as carpet, plywood, particle board, adhesives and even draperies.  The leaves and the stems of the plants in my edible wall absorb the volatiles during the day and the root zone continues the work at night.  Now that’s a great green bonus!

I am delighted and proud to have a natural kitchen.  Now I just have to learn how to cook!

You can view a video of the installation on my website www.homeandyardradio.com.  Click on the link “Living Greener”. 

Brenna Hartmann is the co-founder of Fixin’Chix Inc., a do-it-yourself enterprise that includes a comprehensive home improvement website; how-to workshops, seminars and publications; and a product line. Brenna is dedicated to empowering women “do-it herselfers” (DIHers) who have the passion and desire to improve their homes. Brenna writes the popular Fixie Chick home improvement column found in Home & Yard Handbook, and is the co-host of “Home & Yard Radio with the Fixie Chick” on 950 ESPN. Brenna lives in Webster with her husband and two children.

Respect the ‘Staycation’ and discover the art of taking time off at home!

If you are among the many who are opting out of a pricey out of town vacation this year, you may be looking for ideas on what to do during your “spring break”.  You may not have got that hefty bonus this year but hopefully you still get that paid time off. 

“Staycations” describe a growing movement among folks who are spending their downtime right at home.  The problem is, it’s hard to get away at home.  The laundry piles up, the grass keeps growing and your neighbor still runs his leaf blower at 7 pm.  All can put a damper on your downtime.  Don’t get discouraged yet.  There are a variety of ways to get the most out of your at-home get away!

• Schedule your staycation just as you would an away vacation.  Run your errands, catch up on your home and yard chores and let your co-workers, friends and neighbors know that you are taking a staycation before the time comes.  
• Hold your mail for the duration of your staycation and pre-arrange any deliveries and contracted lawn maintenance.
• Decide on a budget.  If you don’t own a hot tub, consider renting a soft tub for the week.  If you have kids, check out a party rental store for fun ideas.  Bounce houses can be fun for grown-ups too.
• Make a staycation itinerary. You may prefer to be spontaneous, but some people find that being at home can guilt them into chores or projects.  If you make a schedule you’ll be more likely to do stimulating activities, instead of thinking about what needs to be done around the house.
• Make a list of attractions in your area.  Engage your family in planning places to visit.  Include activities for weather fair and foul.
• Unless it’s one of your favorite things to do, don’t cook.  Make dinner reservations-you’ll be more likely to stick to them.  Be adventurous, exotic or romantic.  Anything but homestyle.
• Consider asking a relative to sit your pets.  It’ll be nice to be able to come and go on your own schedule without concern for their care.

Follow these tips and your staycation can feel like a real vacation with significantly less expense and stress.   Relax and enjoy… and don’t forget to sleep in a little! 

Brenna Hartmann is the co-founder of Fixin’Chix Inc., a do-it-yourself enterprise that includes a comprehensive home improvement website; how-to workshops, seminars and publications; and a product line. Brenna is dedicated to empowering women “do-it herselfers” (DIHers) who have the passion and desire to improve and green their homes. She is the co-host of “Home & Yard Radio with the Fixie Chick” on ESPN-AM (950). Brenna lives in Webster with her husband and two children. Email Brenna at fixiechick@homeandyardhandbook.com.

by Brenna Hartmann

Did you know that an American home can waste, on average, 11,000 gallons of water every year due to running toilets, dripping faucets, and other household leaks?  Nationwide, more than 1 trillion gallons of water leak from U.S. homes each year. 

FACT:  According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), indoors, 3/4 of all water is used in the bathroom.

One easy and inexpensive way to green your bathroom is to simply save water.  Reducing your personal water usage has a tremendous positive impact on the environment and on your wallet. The first step is being mindful of your habits.  Do you leave the water running while brushing your teeth?  Does your husband shave with a constant stream of hot water running from the faucet?  Do you let warm-up water go down the drain while drawing a bubble bath? Changing one of these costly habits will result in immediate savings to you and your planet.

To save even more money by conserving water, consider installing an aerator on your faucet.  Without an aerator, water usually flows out of a faucet as one big stream. An aerator spreads this stream into many little droplets. This helps save water and reduces splashing.

Showering represents approximately 17 percent of residential indoor water use in the United States—more than 1.2 trillion gallons of water consumed each year. Inexpensive and simple to install, low-flow shower heads can reduce your home water consumption as much as 50%, and reduce your energy cost of heating the water also by as much as 50%

To cut down on water waste, put an inch or two of sand or pebbles inside each of two plastic bottles to weigh them down. Fill the bottles with water, screw the lids on, and put them in your toilet tank, safely away from the operating mechanisms. You can also purchase an inexpensive “tank bank”. This may save ten or more gallons of water per day.

TIP:  Be sure at least 3 gallons of water remain in the tank so it will flush properly.

If you are in the market for a new toilet, consider a “low flush” model, which use 1 to 2 gallons per flush instead of the usual 3 to 5 gallons.

Replacing an 18-liter per flush toilet with an ultra-low volume (ULV) 6-liter flush model represents a 70% savings in water flushed and will cut indoor water use by about 30%.

No matter what model toilet you use, never flush garbage of any kind. Every time you flush a cigarette butt, facial tissue or other small bit of trash, five to seven gallons of water is wasted.

Overall water is our least costly utility, but continued wastefulness will likely drive it’s cost up too.  WaterSense, a partnership program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, makes it easy for Americans to save water and protect the environment. Look for the WaterSense label to choose quality, water-efficient products. Many products are available, and don’t require a change in your lifestyle.  WaterSense is promoting Fix a Leak Week from March 16 to 20, 2009, to remind Americans to check their plumbing fixtures and irrigation systems for leaks.  To learn how you can fix a leak, go HomeAndYardRadio.com-Living Greener and click on the WaterSense link. 

Brenna Hartmann is the co-founder of Fixin’Chix Inc., a do-it-yourself enterprise that includes a comprehensive home improvement website; how-to workshops, seminars and publications; and a product line. Brenna is dedicated to empowering women “do-it herselfers” (DIHers) who have the passion and desire to improve and green their homes. She is the co-host of “Home & Yard Radio with the Fixie Chick” on ESPN-AM (950). Brenna lives in Webster with her husband and two children. Email Brenna at fixiechick@homeandyardhandbook.com.�

‘Going Green’ is certainly en vogue.  I haven’t shopped, watched television, read a newspaper or listened to the radio in the last year without learning something about or of some way companies and consumers are making ‘green’ choices.

Everyone is talking about reducing their carbon footprint.  Have you ever wondered what that means exactly?  Well I did, so I looked it up.  Here’s how Wikipedia defines it:  A Carbon Footprint is a “measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measures in units of carbon dioxide”.  Here’s what that means to me:  the common thought, although some scientists dispute this, is that we are loading up the atmosphere with too much carbon dioxide or CO2, which is causing global warming.  Long story short, we are upsetting the balance of nature.  No one knows exactly what the effects of this will be, but rising oceans resulting in crop damage and food shortages, tropical diseases and all sorts of calamities have been predicted.

Since 1751 roughly 315 billion tons of carbon have been released to the atmosphere from the consumption of fossil fuels and cement production alone.  Half of these emissions have occurred since the mid 1970’s.  So, it looks like we’re escalating at a pretty rapid pace.  

The science is clear: global warming is happening faster than ever and humans are responsible. When we turn on our lights, cook our food, wash and dry our clothes, or heat or cool our homes, we are using energy sources such as coal and oil.  These energy sources emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the earth’s atmosphere.  Over time, the build up of these gasses causes global warming. Global warming destabilizes the delicate eco balance that makes life on this planet possible.  Just a few degrees in temperature can completely change the world as we know it and threaten the lives of millions of people around the world.

Dr. James Hansen, of NASA, the United States’ space agency, has been researching global warming longer than just about anyone else. He was the first to publicly testify before the U.S. Congress, in June of 1988, that global warming was real. He and his colleagues have used both real-world observation, computer simulation, and mountains of data about ancient climates to calculate what constitutes dangerous quantities of carbon in the atmosphere.   These studies have revealed that the planet is in its danger zone because we’ve poured too much carbon into the atmosphere, and we’re starting to see signs of real trouble like melting ice caps and rapidly spreading drought. 

As of the year 2008, carbon in the atmosphere was measured at about 387 parts per million (PPM).  At that time, researchers and climatologists we calling to reduce that number to 340 PPM, saying that we need to scramble back as quickly as we can to safety.  In mid-December, giving the climactic speech at the Poznan global warming conference, Al Gore set a new bottom line for the climate debate: 350 PPM. 350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide–measured in “Parts Per Million” in our atmosphere. 350 PPM–it’s the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.

This is certainly a global movement.  In order to slow the warming of our planet, every person on the globe needs to reduce their carbon footprint.  It can be done.  If every American household switched just one light bulb to an Energy Star Bulb, every year our country would save $600 million in energy costs.  That’s enough to light 3 million homes and avoid the green house gases equal to 800,00 cars.

So you see, green matters.  And every time you make green choices you are personally contributing to the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere.�