Environmentally Friendly Home

Contributed by Karen Price, Hive National (Florida)

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My family moved to Florida not long ago and we built a new home with lots of environmentally friendly features. Energy in Florida (and all over the US) is expensive so adding elements to your home that are energy efficient and environmentally friendly can really cut costs and reduce energy consumption.

I will start by saying the most environmentally friendly product from a yoga mat to an oven is the one you already own! 

Our most expensive and intricate tech items are 60 solar panels on our roof that are connected to 6 Tesla wall batteries to store the energy generated from these panels. In my humble opinion this is the future for those that have the resources and are going to stay in their home for a long time to recoup their money! 

With all this clean solar power we opted to make our home as electric as possible - that includes an induction cooktop. An induction stove uses electromagnetic energy to heat pots and pans and turns them into their own heat source. This electromagnetic current passes through coiled copper wire underneath the surface of the cooktop which creates a magnetic current within the cookware, heating it up - so cool!! However, for the past 20 years, I have had the coil stovetop burners, a flat electric cooktop and gas burners that I loved, so I was a bit nervous about this change. I am happy to report I love induction cooking! It heats up lighting fast and the heat is very evenly distributed. Also, it is significantly easier to clean than a conventional flat top electric cooktop. Keep in mind, because the induction stovetop uses magnets, you do need pans that have steel or iron in them. For some people that may mean all new cookware which can be a large investment. I only had one old pot that I had to replace because it was warped.

Sometimes it is the low-tech or no-tech items that make the biggest impact on your energy use and subsequent energy bills: 

Cooling: We have overhead fans in all rooms that have a massive help keeping rooms cooler in the heat of the summer allowing us to maintain the AC at a higher temp and still feel cool. The electric rechargeable blinds do a great job keeping out the sun in the heat of the summer and retract into a small header to enjoy the beautiful view. It's wild but when the blinds are down I can still see through them well enough to see a car or person but from the outside you cannot see into the house at all! Also, our home is one level so we don't have an upstairs to heat and cool. To cut energy costs further, we have big windows that let in natural light, especially in bathrooms where you want privacy but you also need good lighting.

Drying Clothes: One of my favorite no tech items is called a Dry Away. In the past I had at least two fold up drying racks to dry exercise or athleisure clothing - and if you are like me, I wear athleisure clothes every day!! I try to avoid using the dryer because it uses waaaay too much energy and isn't recommended for exercise fabrics. But, the drying racks took up too much space and I was tripping over them constantly. The Dry Away racks are almost floor to ceiling so they hold a ton of clothes, slide into a cabinet for easy use/storage, and use no energy to dry clothes.

I told the cabinet maker I wanted this in my laundry room design and he thought I was crazy! He came a few times during installation and has since installed one in his own home and sold many more now that he knows about the product. I should have asked Dry Away for referral fee!

Nature gives us so much, let's try to lend a helping hand in return.

Karen, Conservationist Corner