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Household & Building

Energy Efficient Upgrades That Pay For Themselves

Home improvement can pay for itself, and even put cash back in your pocket – if you’re putting your money in the right places.  Renovations that increase your home’s energy efficiency aren’t just nice for the environment, they can be economical as well.  The folks at One Block Off The Grid offer a great guide [...]

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Can An “Earthscraper” Provide Efficient Urban Living?

Mexico City is a sprawling city with nearly 9 million residents, and some of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the world.  So how could developers possibly squeeze a 65-story structure into the middle of the city’s historic district?  Instead of building upwards, a newly proposed design calls for building down into the ground, creating [...]

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Lighting Costs Cut By 90% Using Intelligent LEDs

A company called Digital Lumens has introduced product that networks LED lights together to form an “intelligent” lighting system. The system can turn on lights if people are present in a room, and adjust brightness levels over the course of a day. Overall, the system can cut lighting costs by 90% for commercial sites like warehouses. [...]

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LED Lamps That Glow With Warm White Light

LED Lamps With Warm White Illumination: Koncept Z-Bar ($165) and i-Tower ($195) Pablo Designs LIM L Floor ($350) Cree XLamp XR-E Warm White LED Lantern ($25) The color temperature of light is measured in degrees Kelvin. Lower-temperature white LEDs (around 2,000-4,000 K) are warm (yellowish white) like incandescent bulbs. White LEDs with higher color temperatures [...]

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Energy Efficient House In Mojave Desert Built With Shipping Containers

Sitting near Joshua Tree, California in the Mojave Desert is an energy efficient new home and studio built by architect Walter Scott Perry of ecotechdesign out of six re-purposed steel shipping containers. Also known as the Tim Palen Studio at Shadow Mountain, the 2,300 square foot home is the first permitted shipping container house to [...]

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Chicago Center For Green Technology: Sustainable Development Leader

Thumbnail image for Chicago Center For Green Technology: Sustainable Development Leader

Great ideas for sustainable development sometimes just remain abstract concepts – that is, until they’re put into practice where they can serve as a showcase for their real potential.  Such was the case with Chicago’s Center for Green Technology, the country’s first LEED Platinum municipal building – and an inspiration for subsequent development both in [...]

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Best Solar LED Lawn And Garden Lights

Since LEDs are an efficient light source and draw far less power than traditional bulbs, they are perfect for off-the-grid applications where solar cells charge a battery that powers the lamp. Large-scale applications of this concept include LED road lane markers, but smaller-scale projects like lighting your lawn or garden are perfect uses for them [...]

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Chlorine Alternatives For Efficient Swimming Pools

Cannonball! Jumping into a swimming pool is a classic way to beat the heat on a hot summer day. But clean pool water requires a combination of filtration, circulation, and sanitization. Chlorine has long been the most common tool for keeping pools free of bacteria and algae – but it has its drawbacks, and there [...]

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Efficient Outdoor Water Use

Efficient Outdoor Water Use

A recent Metaefficient post offered some ideas for reducing water consumption in your home – but why stop there? Read on to learn about some tips and products that will help you manage water use in outdoor spaces like lawns and gardens. Best of all, you’ll reduce both your environmental impact and utility bills in [...]

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Reduce Your Household Water Use Efficiently

Reduce Your Household Water Use

Reducing household water usage has big-time benefits for both homeowners and for the environment: reducing strain on local water resources, cutting demand on wastewater treatment facilities, and lowering both water and sewage utility bills, to name a few. Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, we’ve put together a collection of water-saving tips [...]

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