As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for Home and Lifestyle / Living Green

Cut your energy bill this holiday season by switching to LED Holiday lights

by

We had our first snow last week. That’s a little early for Toronto, especially to have snow that actually stayed on the ground for a few days.

I was taken by surprise by the early snow and it made me realize that we’d better get the Christmas lights out and start decorating the house before it snows again and makes it difficult to get the lights up.

Have you started decorating your home for the holidays yet?

We’ve pretty much switched over to LED Christmas lights. With the cost of energy these days it’s nice to know that LED lights are 90% more efficient than standard incandescent lights.

Did you know that this past Spring Toronto’s CN Tower, one of the tallest free standing structures in the world, got new lights? Yes, they equipped the tower with thousands of LED lights. Now at night the CN Tower is lite up with a variety of colors or pasterns. I think they change the colors and patterns daily. By patterns I mean that on Canada Day the tower might be light up with a flag totally made of LED lights or on the 4th of July there could be an American Flag showing. It’s beautiful. Plus, it doesn’t cost the city very much to light the tower. Only $1000 per month! That’s pretty good for a gigantic public building and tourist attraction.

So … if even cities are starting to use LED lights maybe you should too if you haven’t already made the switch.

A few other things that I like about using LED Holiday lights is the fact that the bulb is encased in a very hard plastic which makes them extremely durable. I’m sure you know how easy it is to break glass incandescent bulbs – especially the ones you use outdoors! LED lights are also long lasting. They’ll operate for 50,000 hours or more! That means years and years of use before you need to replace a string of lights.

As you know we try to be as green as possible with our gardening and the products we use around our home. I consider LED lights a green product because they are energy efficient and also because they last so long.

How many of you already use LED Holiday lights?






Find out which products have the highest consumer ratings

by

Some time in the very near future we’re going to have to get a new washer and dryer.

Apparently, the washer and dryer that we’re currently using, and that were in our basement when we moved in are over 30 years old! I guess I should be proud that they are still working, but as you know, in the last decade or so companies have been making appliances that are much more energy efficient than they were when my washer and dryer were made!

There’s a site that has dryer reviews that I plan on taking a very good look at when we decide to purchase a new dryer. Each of the dryers listed on the dryer reviews page has what is called a whizrank beside it. Whizranks are basically a product satisfaction score, so high ranks means that more consumers are satisfied with that dryer over all.

The website also has listings and ratings for a variety of appliances and electronics as well as the dryer reviews I’ve mentioned so if you’re purchasing a new appliance or major product for your home in the near future check out the page and find our which products have the highest consumer ratings.

Cork flooring – beautiful and an eco-friendly choice for your home

by

Are you thinking about replacing the flooring in your home? Perhaps tearing out your wall to wall carpeting and putting down a beautiful wooden floor?

That certainly seems to be the trend these days. I can even say that my own home has no carpeted floors. We tore them out when we first moved in because we both have allergies to dust mites, cats and dogs and the former home owners had had a cat. We were also lucky enough to discover that the flooring beneath the carpeting was in fairly good shape and only needed a little bit of work in order to regain it’s former beauty.

If we’d found that we had to replace the current flooring we might have chosen to go with cork. I’ve actually thought of replacing the not so nice looking laminated fake wood flooring that’s in our kitchen with cork flooring.

Have you ever thought of using cork flooring? It’s durable and comes in many different styles and colors from natural honey tones to red, green, chocolate, black and many other shades. Have a look at three different types I’ve selected to show you:

bamboo-natural_hb.jpg stone-cream_hb.jpg mediterranean.jpg

The first image is a natural bamboo style cork flooring, while the second cork flooring image is called Stone Cream (both by Valencia) and it almost looks like marble doesn’t it? The last image is called Mediterranean (by DaVinci) and it has a rich red tone to it.

You could easily purchase a style and color of Cork Flooring to suit any room in your home.

As someone who tries to live green the idea of using an easily renewable product such as cork flooring in my home is appealing.

When cork is collected for use in the creation of flooring and other products no trees are cut down. No. Instead, the bark is peeled from parts of the tree without harming the tree at all. New bark grows back within nine to ten years and is ready to be harvested once again.

See how environmentally friendly cork flooring really is? No trees are cut down or harmed at all. The fact that the trees remain in place and standing likely means that the delicate eco-systems that live in an around the trees probably have very little disruption.

Floormall.com carries several cork flooring lines made by some of the top manufactures in the business. Valencia, Da Vinci, Natural Cork, Wicanders, and APC cork floors are featured cork flooring manufacturers at the Floormall.com. I believe the majority of the cork flooring styles sold at the Floormall.com website are glue-less joint systems, which means they should be easy to install in your home.

If cork flooring sounds like it might be a great choice for your home visit the floormall.com. You can talk to a live service representative 7 days a week/ 24 hours a day if you have questions.

Meta