Choosing the right light bulb can be confusing, since there are different technologies that produce light more or less efficiently than we’re used to. Most of us grew up using 30 watt, 45w, and 60w bulbs - but that much power from a CFL or LED lamp would be blinding! New lights offer plenty of ways to cut the electric bill, but the new numbers can make it difficult to compare different lamps.
When choosing Compact Fluorescent or LED lamps, this gives you a rough idea what size bulb you’ll need to replace existing lights. It gets a bit more complicated than that for LED lamps though. If you only need to light up a small area (such as a display case or the steps of your porch) LEDs are great because they offer more focused light.
Instead of sending light in every direction, LEDs focus the light along a narrow beam angle. This results in greater illumination over a smaller space. With a 60 degree beam (instead of a 360 degree dispersion typical with an incandescent or CFL bulb), an LED produces roughly 6 times the illumination per lumen rating. As a rule of thumb, you can multiple the lumens produced by a 60 degree LED by 5 when comparing to other bulbs:
Incandescent bulb
(Wattage)
LED equivalent with a 60 degree beam width
(Lumens)
25
50
40
90
60
160
75
220
100
320
125
400
150
520
If you’re looking for Compact Fluorescent or LED Lamps, we have a few different options to choose from.
CFL Flood light - This lamp really lights up a room with 1650 lumens, while using only as much power as a puny 30 watt incandescent bulb.
Full Spectrum CFL - This fluorescent bulb offers a wide spectrum of light, full of warm colors. It produces 1300 lumens, which is approximately equal to a 100 watt incandescent bulb.
CFL Bug Light - This bulb emits 1320 lumens of light that people can see, but insects can’t. It wont attract bugs, which is another reason to replace your 80 watt bulbs with one!
3 Watt LED - This lamp produces 240 lumens, which is just right for highlighting pictures, display cases, or pedestals. It’s equivalent to about 80 watts of incandescent light (due to the focus effect).
LED Floodlight - This array of LED lights covers a wider area with 250 lumens of bright lighting.
Here at Clean Air Gardening, we now offer three different types of reusable shopping bags with this set of four being the latest addition to our supply.
Lately, I’ve gotten more and more excited about using reusable shopping bags. Some people around the office have been calling it my “obsession.” That’s a pretty strong term.
Maybe if “obsession” means talking about something frequently, bringing it up constantly in conversations, even when it is not relevant, buying large quantities of something, and maybe even dreaming about it now and then.
Obviously, they are exaggerating, and I’m not “obsessed” at all.
So before you judge me over my completely reasonable level of interest in reusable shopping bags, you should know I’m prepared to fight my case and convert you into a reusable shopping bag user too. (What? You aren’t using them already!?)
You might be inclined to call me a “bag lady” or other name, but I like to consider myself more of a bag evangelist, who is really just looking out for your best interests, and the best interests of the environment.
I’ve put together a small list of why plastic bags are bad and you should only shop with reusable bags.
1. If you or someone else puts a plastic bag over your head, you can’t breathe, and you will suffocate. Reusable bags are more breathable, and harder to be killed with.
2. Plastic bags tend to rip at inopportune times, when carrying heavy things that could fall on your toes. I’m sorry, but I paid $25 for this pedicure. I can’t afford to have a can of peas chip my polish.
3. Fact: Reusable bags make you cool. Look at me! I’m living proof. Duh.
4. Trying to save some money during the recent economic slowdown? If so, your heaps of plastic bags will not keep you warm. But reusable shopping bags, made from fabric, can be used as make-shift clothing, blankets and bedding. (Don’t think of yourself as a weird, reusable bag wearing freak. You’re thrifty!)
5. You can brag about how eco-friendly you are when you carry around your reusable bag. No one will notice that you just stepped out of a Hummer H2, and that you just threw all your recycling into the garbage instead of sorting it, or that you have your water sprinklers set to go off for half an hour every day. They’ll just see your cool bag and say, “Wow, an eco-warrior!” Because hey, perceptions are just as important as reality, right? One small step at a time, indeed.
6. Bonus reason. They are even more beautiful than the most beautiful thing you could ever film:
Well, Egglings are pretty cool little things we carry here at Clean Air Gardening, in our gardening gifts section. It looks just like a little egg in a terra cotta dish, but when you crack the top of the Eggling, you’ll see it is no ordinary egg, though. It is filled with soil and seeds of either. Included in the kit is an extra bag of seeds that you throw in on top.
I was skeptical if the extra bag of seeds would actually grow sitting on top, but they were the first ones to sprout! My Eggling gets a little bit of water almost daily and sits on my desk. It started sprouting after only a few days, and it’s getting bigger by the day!
I do not have a sunny office, so when I remember, I put my little egg in a window sill on my way out of the office to get a little sunny love.
Since I have my Eggling in my office, I decided to grow the Chrysanthemum Eggling, but we also have mint, too! The last picture in the series was taken today, and it’s only been a few weeks since I started growing my new Chrysanthemum Eggling. Once it gets too big for its egg, I’ll move my Chrysanthemum into a bigger pot, which will be in a few months.
Our Egglings are available for $12.99, and they make an awesome gift for friends, family or coworkers because they look great in any decor in any room!
Along with our green building renovations, we’ve done some green business renovations, as well. We’re a pretty normal business, maybe not necessarily normal people, but definitely a normal business. Being such means we have to use paper to print lots of things for our office from orders and faxes to letters and copies, but unlike many businesses we A) only print when we have to and B) use 100% post consumer recycled paper for all our printing.
100% post consumer recycled means that this paper is only made from recycled material. No new trees were cut down to make it. Most environmentally conscious people call this “closing the loop” because we’re not just recycling our stuff, we’re also supporting companies who make recycled stuff.
If you’re not already using recycled paper in your home or office, you definitely should. It’s one easy step to make in becoming more environmentally friendly!
Somehow, whenever people talk about anything to do with toilets it’s pretty funny to me, but when you’re talking about how much water (an increasingly limited resource) each flush uses, that’s not so funny. Water-saving appliances, especially those for the bathroom, are a great way to help make your home and/or office more environmentally friendly.
Designed in Australia, where water conservation is extremely important, this dual flush water-saving toilet uses, at most, 1.6 gallons per flush. “Dual flush” means that this toilet has two different types of flushing. One for liquids (or #1), which is only .8 gallon of water, and one for solids ( like #2, c’mon let’s be grownups about this!), which is only 1.6 gallons of water. At its biggest flush, this water still uses less than the standard new toilets, which use 1.8 gallons of water per flush. That’s up to 50-75% savings!
We use these toilets here at CAG, and we think they’re awesome. With the dual flush design, they’re approved by the EPA Watersense standard. But really, the kid in me thinks it’s much cooler to push a button than pull down the same old potty lever.
This toilet really gets people talking about ways to conserve water, which gives “potty mouth” a whole new meaning!
Another green building feature we’ve added here at Clean Air Gardening is our Energy Star rated sky lights. Unlike regular sky lights, these Solatube natural sky lights don’t let in any heat from outside, which helps keep temperatures inside more regulated.
In our building at CAG, we’ve got 5 of these bad boys installed — two in the upstairs offices and three others around the warehouse (the delivery/bay area, the packing area and the main warehouse section). These sky lights let in so much natural light, that Lars and Steve in the upstairs offices almost never turn their lights on. We just recently installed the three in our warehouse and already love not having to turn on those lights, as well!
These natural sky lights help cut down on our lighting and cooling bills, which are typically really expensive for offices and warehouses.
Another benefit from these sky lights is that natural light is much easier on your eyes than being under fluorescent lights all day, which is great here because it helps create a really nice work environment!
If you’re considering way to make your home more environmentally friendly, these sky lights are a great way to start!
Instead of using cork flooring like the upstairs, in our downstairs offices, we installed recycled carpet tiles.
What does that mean, you might ask. Good question. We’re glad you asked. Basically what that means is that we purchased carpet made entirely of recycled materials instead of virgin materials. The carpet also comes in squares, or tiles, that can be replaced individually as they wear out or if something is spilled on them. Instead of replacing the entire carpeted area, we can replace individual tiles.
We’ve really enjoyed this carpet. It’s really durable and easy to clean, which are total bonuses to the fact that it’s an eco-friendly product!
As we’ve mentioned before, having good indoor air quality is one of the major tenets to a green building.
And like our walls, we’ve sealed our concrete floors with a No VOC sealant that doesn’t emit all those harmful fumes like the regular sealants. Instead of adding new flooring, we kept the cement flooring that’s been here ever since this building was built, and we simply added a grey sealant to give it a fresher, more updated look.
Using a No VOC sealant is helping ensure we have great indoor air quality, which makes us all happy!
After heating and air conditioning, lighting is one of the biggest sources of energy use. That’s why here at Clean Air Gardening, we only use fluorescent and LED lighting.
In our showroom, we’ve switched to LED lights, which use even less energy than Compact Fluorescent bulbs and can produce the same amount of wattage as incandescent bulbs. And while LED lights can be costly upfront, they produce light up to 11 or more years, meaning you will only have to replace them every decade or so. Plus, with the amount we’ll be saving on our energy bills, these bulbs will pay for themselves very quickly. Even after 50,000 hours, the LED bulbs we use will still shine up to 70% of their initial intensity.
Another benefit of LED light bulbs is that they do not get hot like incandescent bulbs, and when you multiply that by only a few bulbs, that can drastically help save on cooling. And unlike, compact fluorescent bulbs, which are still a great alternative to incandescent bulbs, LED bulbs contain no mercury.
Another green feature that we’ve employed here at Clean Air Gardening is cork flooring in our upstairs offices. Cork is an extremely renewable source. It comes from cork oak trees, and according to the Cork Institute of America,
A cork tree regenerates its precious outer layer 12 or 13 times during its 150-year lifetime. The first stripping of the cork bark occurs when the tree is between 15 and 20 years of age, with subsequent yields at 9 to 10 year intervals.
Our cork flooring is made from the cork left overs from when wine corks are made. They take the remaining cork and make it into the tiles we used.
Having cork flooring in our upstairs offices actually helps the sound insulation. When people move around upstairs, it doesn’t sound like elephants walking around like it would with hardwood flooring. The cork flooring is also a bit springier than wood, giving the flooring a more cushy feel.
