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Although we don’t store anything that needs to be refrigerated here in our warehouse at Clean Air Gardening, our super-insulated warehouse door helps keep our indoor temperatures regulated without raising our energy bills.
In our last location, we had a plain metal door to our warehouse that got extremely hot in the sun. It got so hot that it radiated heat and made the warehouse and box packing extremely hot. Us Texans might be able to withstand some extreme temperatures, but we still need a break from the heat and a break from the cooling bills.
This door is typically used in meat packing warehouses where everything inside needs to stay below certain temperatures. Here at CAG, it works the same way and keeps us nice and cool during the hot Texas days without us having to crank up the air conditioning.
Although you probably don’t have a warehouse that needs cooling attached to your home, if you plan a green renovation, consider a heavier insulated garage door.
Here at Clean Air Gardening, we don’t want to just tell you about how to be green and do your part to improve our environment. We want to make sure we do our part as well, so we’ve done a number of things in our office and warehouse to make sure we make as little impact as possible.
One of the first tenets of green building is indoor air quality. No one likes to breathe in harmful, polluted air. That’s why we’ve painted our entire office with No Volatile Organic Compound, or No VOC paint.
EPA’s Total Exposure Assessment Methodology (TEAM) studies found levels of about a dozen common organic pollutants to be 2 to 5 times higher inside homes than outside, regardless of whether the homes were located in rural or highly industrial areas. Additional TEAM studies indicate that while people are using products containing organic chemicals, they can expose themselves and others to very high pollutant levels, and elevated concentrations can persist in the air long after the activity is completed.
Does that mean that the air outside your home is better quality air than the air in your home or office? Well, if you use harmful chemicals and paints, it might be. Like the EPA says, these chemicals can linger for several years after the paint is dried and doesn’t smell anymore.
Low VOC or no VOC paint is easy to find, although not everyone is aware of its name. If someone at your big box store doesn’t know what you’re talking about, try asking for the “low fume” paint, and then look for the Green Seal.
This paint is just as good quality as the high fume paint, can be made any color just like the higher fume paint, but it improves your indoor air quality. We love it here at Clean Air Gardening because we know it will benefit us now and in the future while we work!
There has been a lot of talk lately about the need to conserve water today since it’s becoming a limited resource. And, since the best way to conserve water in the home is in the bathroom, I decided to try out a water-saving showerhead.
At first, I thought it would be hard to install, but it took less than 10 minutes and required very little effort. If you’re curious how installing a water-saving showerhead works, check out this post where I explain how easy it is.
My husband was a little skeptical of the whole “water-saving” aspect and worried that he would no longer be able to enjoy strong water pressure showers. I think we’ve both been pleasantly surprised by our new showerhead! Our new water-saving showerhead hasn’t reduced the comfort of taking a shower at all! I actually like it much more than our old showerhead!
Many water- and/or energy-saving showerheads work differently. The showerhead that I chose has a “pause” feature that stops the flow of water when it reaches bathing temperature, and when I’m ready to hop in, I pull the lever and take a warm shower. That precious warm water isn’t wasted down the drain while I’m running around, brushing my teeth, making coffee or on the phone.
Even though it’s just the two of us in a small apartment, we are seeing the benefits of this showerhead after only a week. Since we do live in an apartment, our hot water heater is smaller than most, so our hot water is extremely limited. With this new water-saving showerhead, we can each take a warm shower without the water getting cold before the last person is ready to get out.
I could totally see how this would work the same way in a house with a normal size water heater and a family.
I love my new showerhead, and I am recommending them to everyone I know! These showerheads don’t strip you of your comforts and they pay for themselves over time with amount of water you save! Duh, get one today!!!
The kitchen composter is still working like a champ. The anaerobic bacteria are reproducing to their hearts content and turning paper scraps, veggie waste, and other kitchen scraps into potting soil. I noticed that the outside of the composter was a few degrees warmer than the wall it sits against, but that could be because I’ve been running the heater in my apartment and it sits near a vent. On the other hand, it’s nice to think that the composter is adding a little bit of heat to my home and reducing my heating bill by a few cents.
What’s in my composter? (new items are marked in bold):
Some paper napkins
3 pumpkins worth of pumpkin goo
A pint of cherries
2 pear pits
About 1/4 of the bag of Bokashi
2 Corn cobs
The rinds of 5 oranges
3 Grapefruit husks
About 3 cups of vegetable scraps
A cup of soy bean husks
Scrap paper from direct mail About 2 dozen tea bags
8 Corn husks from Christmas tamales (hey - I live in Texas!)
More paper napkins
The skin of a miniature pumpkin
Half of a bagel
The composter is now about 2/3 full. The upper layers continue to settle, but I would guess that the bottom layers are about as compact as they’re going to get.
When I added tamale husks this week, I broke one of the cardinal rules of open air composting - I added compost that includes animal products (pork and chicken grease). This is something I’ve been leery about doing with the Kitchen Composter, even though the manual suggests I could compost any kind of protein that I want to (from beef trimmings all the way up to noisy neighbors). I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this doesn’t derail the composting experiment but we wont know until we try.
Composter output:
About 1/4 cup of compost tea
No unpleasant smells.
It’s been rainy and wet outside this last week, so I’m glad that I haven’t been out there turning a compost heap. My Indoor Kitchen composter, on the other hand, is snug and dry, sitting in my entry hallway.
What’s in my composter? (new items are marked in bold):
Some paper napkins
3 pumpkins worth of pumpkin goo
A pint of old cherries
2 pear pits
About 1/4 of the bag of Bokashi (I added a lot this time)
2 Corn husks
The rinds of 5 oranges
3 Grapefruit husks
About 3 cups of vegetable scraps A lot of tea bags (more than a dozen)
A cup of soy bean husks
More scrap paper from direct mail
The composter is about about as full now as it was last week. Since I added more stuff, that means it must have settled a bit.
Composter output:
About 1/3 cup of compost tea
No unpleasant smells.
This week, I decided to add a bit of roughage to the Indoor Kitchen Composter. While going through my mail, I came across a bunch of financial documents with account numbers and my address printed on them. Normally, I’d tear these up and put them in the paper recycling bin, but even tearing up paper may not protect you from identity theft. So, I decided to play it safe and feed the confidential details to my pet bacteria.
The latest list of compost:
Some paper napkins
3 pumpkins worth of pumpkin goo (left over from a Halloween carving)
A pint glass full of old cherries
2 pear pits
About 1/5 of the bag of Bokashi (remember to add more with additional compost)
2 Corn cobs
A Grapefruit rind
Additional vegetable scraps A half dozen tea bags
Scrap paper from direct mail
The rinds of 5 oranges
I also found further proof that the composter is working exactly as it should - it produced the first batch of compost tea! Composter output:
A very very small amount of compost tea
No unpleasant smells.
There was only about 3 tablespoons of compost tea, but this stuff is a very potent fertilizer. I mixed it with a full glass of water and poured the mix on a patch of grass outside my apartment. If the grass is still alive next week, then I’ll try fertilizing my houseplants with compost tea.
After the first week of testing, I’m happy to report that I’m still alive. The Indoor Kitchen Composter hasn’t released any unpleasant smells, blown up, or gotten up and started walking on it’s own.
Since the Indoor composter uses anaerobic bacteria, I kept it tightly closed for the entire week. When I cracked the lid to add a few new items, I noticed that the composter seems to be doing its job. There’s a bit of visible bacteria growth, and there’s a slightly sweeter scent to the Bokashi (which I can only smell when the lid is off). I checked the spigot, but so far there’s no compost tea.
Here’s what I’ve put in the composter to date (new additions are marked in bold):
Some paper napkins
3 pumpkins worth of pumpkin goo (left over from a Halloween carving)
A pint glass full of old cherries
2 pear pits
About 1/6 of the bag of Bokashi 2 Corn husks
A Grapefruit rind
Additional vegetable scraps
Here’s what the composter has produced:
No compost tea so far.
No unpleasant smells. (Huzzah!)
Last week, Lars asked me if I’d like to try out the Indoor Kitchen Composter in my apartment. Since I’m curious about how well it works, I took him up on the offer. My only condition is that we document its success or failure for everyone to see. So, each week I’ll post a few pictures about how the composter is working and jot down some notes about the process.
First things first - allow me to introduce the Indoor Kitchen Composter. It’s about the size of a 10 gallon bucket, and is made of black, heavy duty plastic. There’s a spigot on one side for extracting the compost tea, and a sifting tray to keep solid waste from clogging the spigot. The composter has an airtight lid that makes it perfect for indoor use. It also came with a bag of Bokashi - a microorganism rich mix of molasses and wheat bran. The bacteria in this mix will survive in the absense of oxygen and break down a wide variety of organic matter, including waste paper, kitchen scraps, fruit rinds, and even meat.
At least, that’s what the people who make the Bokashi composter say. I have some doubts - after all, most of the articles I’ve read about composting encourage you to keep your compost well aerated and warn that anaerobic bacteria are a very, very bad thing. I’ve also been told that putting meat into a compost pile is asking for trouble. This anaerobic composter seems to do everything that the experts warned me not to do - I like it already.
I’m also a little bit afraid. If I fill this up with compost and it starts to smell, my girlfriend is going to KILL me.
So, I tear off the plastic wrap and unpack everything. Following the instructions, I tear open the resealable Bokashi mix and sprinkle some into the bottom of the composter. Then, I add some kitchen scraps and pour another layer of Bokashi on top. After everything is well covered, I carefully press down the lid and find a place to store the composter. Total setup took about 5 minutes and most of the time was spent clearing some space by the door.
The Bokashi mix itself has a pleasant, faintly exotic scent. It reminds me of garlic Terriyaki sauce. The mix is easy to pour and has about the consistency of sawdust.
After setting up the composter, I double checked that the spigot at the bottom was tightly closed. I also noticed that even though the lid is easy to close, the areas near the handle need special attention. It’s easy to overlook them while sealing the lid, and that would probably disrupt the anaerobic composting process.
So far, here’s what I’ve put in the composter:
Some paper napkins
3 pumpkins worth of pumpkin goo (left over from a Halloween carving)
A pint glass full of old cherries
2 pear pits
About 1/6 of the bag of Bokashi Here’s what the composter has produced:
No compost tea (since it just started)
No unpleasant smells.
