Living Like Ed (8 page)
Authors: Jr. Ed Begley
You might assume that VOCs are only a problem right after you paint, when you can actually smell that new-paint smell when you walk in a room. But it turns out paints and other finishes release low-level toxic emissions for
several years.
And it’s definitely not good to be breathing this stuff.
I love having a clean house. In fact, I’d say that I’m a neat freak. My biggest pet peeve when it comes to the house is having paint on the walls that doesn’t look fresh and crisp. Walls get dingy and banged up really quickly, and I wish that we could paint them much more often than we do. These new nontoxic paints definitely make it easier for me to convince Ed that it’s okay to paint the walls again. It’s still a negotiation, but it’s less of a battle than it used to be.
I do go into homes where I think, “Wow, the courage!” when I see the home owners’ color schemes, but I’ve gotten a little bolder about using color now, too. At one point, my walls were all Swiss Coffee, which is a designer’s fancy name for off-white. Now I’m using color as an accent, so my dining room is green, which I never would have tried before. You know, the inside of your house is an expression of your personality, so don’t play it
too
safe. Just consider the colors of your furniture and the artwork before you choose a bold color. If you want to showcase your art collection, keep the walls on the neutral side.
I’m still very conservative about exterior colors. I like the basics, white and gray. Some of the stucco houses, which are common in California, can be a little bolder. But I sometimes drive through a beautiful neighborhood where I know people have paid a lot for their homes, and see that someone has painted their house bright canary yellow. So my advice is: Express yourself, sure, but try not to offend your neighbors.
Air Purifiers
Even if you use nontoxic paint and change your air filter regularly, the air quality inside your home could still be unhealthful.
In part, this is because a normal household is filled with chemicals (cleaners, paints, and so on), not to mention dust mites and pet dander, pollen, cooking oils, common molds (including airborne bacteria), and even viruses. There’s a virtual army of pollutants assailing our lungs, sinuses, and personal health in our own homes.
Also, the air inside your house might not get circulated all that well or that often. You can do wonders simply by airing out your home once in a while. Open the windows and get some cross-ventilation.
Of course, nontoxic cleaning products and nontoxic paints can reduce the number of chemicals you release into the air in your home, and you’ll want to avoid things like hair spray and air fresheners.
Once you’ve stopped introducing toxins into the air, you’re ready to take the next step and
purify
the air in your home. The purification process helps to eliminate both germs and toxic odors, improving the environment inside. I started using an electronic air purifier—a relatively small device from Advanced Pure Air that doesn’t require much energy—in both my home and Rachelle’s Pilates studio, which is over the garage. The air purifier has been great for improving our health and alleviating our allergies. I’ll let Richard Mayer from Real Spirit USA, the company behind Advanced Pure Air, explain how the device works (see
“Ed’s Green Friend: Advanced Pure Air”
).
Turn Off Electronic Devices
Looking for more low-hanging fruit? You can save energy just by flipping a switch and changing some bad habits.
For instance, Rachelle doesn’t understand there’s this wonderful valve at the entrance to each room. It’s called a light switch. Every time you flip off that switch, you save a little energy.
Rachelle will turn on a television in the living room and then she’ll come into the kitchen, make dinner, and eat dinner with the television still on in the other room. You can’t even hear the TV from the kitchen. So you can save a little more energy by turning off the TV when you leave the room.
Ed’s Green Friend: Advanced Pure Air
I started a company called Real Spirit USA to bring environmental products into people’s homes to improve the quality of their lives. These Advanced Pure Air units are not just simple air filters. They are integrated, state-of-the-art air filtration and
purification
systems
Instead of relying on single, limited-filtration technology, these air purifiers feature as many as nine separate air filtration and purification technologies in a single, affordable unit. These technologies include:
•
HEPA filters.
HEPA filtration, designed by NASA, is the best way to filter out solid and liquid airborne particles, including household dust, soot, pollen, and even some biological agents, like bacteria and germs. Studies indicate that HEPA filters are 99.97 percent effective at capturing harmful airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns (i.e., 300 times smaller than the width of a single human hair).
•
Activated charcoal or carbon.
This type of filter removes smells and chemicals, such as benzenes, that foul the air in homes. Activated charcoal is also very effective on smoke.
•
UV light.
UV light is highly effective in helping fight biological-based diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, and mold.
•
Photo-catalysis TiO2.
This technology enhances the UV light and helps break down the DNA of bacteria, molds, and viruses.
•
Plasma grid.
This high-voltage positive and negative charge causes the grid to attract dust, so air leaving the purifier is much cleaner than air coming in.
•
Negative ions.
These are dispersed into the air, where they attach themselves to positive particles (dust), causing them to fall to the ground, where they’re picked up by the vacuum cleaner.
•
Activated oxygen.
This is extremely good at ridding the air of odors, bacteria, and mold.
By combining all of these technologies in our units, we are able to provide our customers with the healthiest, cleanest, most odor-free air possible for their homes, offices, automobiles, RVs, or even their pets’ environments.
—Richard Mayer
Rachelle also regularly turns on her curling iron, then gets on the computer, then forgets about the curling iron. It turns off automatically after about 20 minutes. So then she’ll turn it on again . . . and go back to the computer. She’ll do two 20-minute cycles before she finally gets around to doing her hair. If I turn it off, she gets outraged—even though it gets up to full heat in 2 minutes. It doesn’t get hotter at the 3-minute mark. It’s as hot as it’s ever going to get at 120 seconds. So all you need to do is put it on for 2 minutes—let’s say a slap-happy 3 minutes—before you do your hair. Not 20 minutes, turns itself off, 20 minutes, turns itself off. There’s energy to be saved there, certainly.
I’m picking on Rachelle, of course, but she’s like so many people who just haven’t focused on how their actions—simple little everyday actions—can make a real difference.
Fortunately, I’ve found some cool companies that are making it easier to save energy with no thinking required. GreenSwitch is a great example. I’ll let Gregory Hood from Energy Innovation Group explain how it works.
Ed’s Green Friend: GreenSwitch
The largest consumer of power in your home is your heating and air-conditioning system, which accounts for about 35 percent of the total energy used.
Household electronics items like TVs, stereos, phone chargers, and computers also draw power all the time; they’re designed to stay on while they’re plugged in, so you don’t have to wait for them to warm up when you’re ready to use them.
In fact, home-electronics products like these currently consume 10 to 15 percent of the energy used in a home—and the U.S. Department of Energy predicts this number may increase to 20 percent by 2010, due to new technologies.
People who know this and want to save energy and save money at the same time—often run around the house before they leave, turning off lights and computers and unplugging things. This can be quite a hassle, especially in a multi-level home, where people often just give up and ignore stuff on the top or lower level.
Now, there is a simple, low-cost solution for home energy management called GreenSwitch, which automates the process. With the flip of a single switch at the primary entrance/exit for your home, you can simultaneously turn off designated light switches and wall electrical outlets. Plus, GreenSwitch will set your heating and air-conditioning system to your desired temperature or turn off the system completely.
When you return home, you flip on the GreenSwitch and your wall outlets and heating/cooling system are reenergized. (You’ll still have to walk through your home and turn on lights as you need them, since this allows you to continue the energy savings.)
This technology is completely wireless, so it can be retrofitted easily to any home, apartment, or condo. You can even operate it via a remote control, if you happen to use more than one entrance to your home. We also offer a split receptacle, so some things plugged into a wall outlet can remain on, while others are turned off. This is great if you have your TV and video or DVD recording device plugged into the same electrical outlet, for example; this way, the recorder can stay on while the TV gets turned off.
Another terrific use for the GreenSwitch is to “clear” your home before you go to bed, so you can save energy all night long.
A GreenSwitch should deliver a 30 to 45 percent reduction in energy use. Since the average American home uses more than 12,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, a reduction in energy use of 40 percent would save 6,336 pounds of CO2 emissions, which are created in the production of electricity.
—Gregory Hood