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

Top 5 Water Saving Devices

by Trish






It’s easy to forget that water is a precious commodity, but unfortunately not all of us have such free access to it. In fact it is estimated that two fifths of the world’s population do not have access to proper sanitation, while roughly one tenth of people living today cannot access safe, drinkable water. It is up to us who live better of parts of the the world to make sure the water we use is not squandered, and that we only use what we need.

There are a number of devices that have specifically manufactured to reduce a household’s level of water consumption without affecting the current pressure and strength. Implementing these devices into your home is beneficial to not only to environment, but also to you. Water saving devices greatly reduce water usage and this in turn helps to keep electricity and energy bills down.

Top 5 Water Saving Devices

Water saving devices range in price, but the majority of them are very inexpensive. The main benefit homeowners stand to gain from using a water saving device is the reduction in energy bills, which will save you a lot of money in the long run. Although the lower priced devices such as the shower timer and bucket can be bought at most DIY stores, it’s a good idea to shop for the more intricate devices on specialist sites such as Agua Flux. Doing so will guarantee the device’s efficiency and quality.

1 – Shower Timer

The average shower expels around nine litres of water per minute, and reducing your currently shower session by even one minute can save up to sixty three litres of water a week. That’s three thousand and seventy six litres of water over a year that do not need to be warmed by your tank or boiler. Shower timers are invaluable products, and will also help ensure that you’re never late for work again.

2 – Bucket

BucketBuy a small plastic bucket and keep it in the shower when you use it. The bucket will catch excess water and this can be used to water flowers and plants around the garden.

3 – Low Flow Shower Heads

Low flow shower heads work by adding air bubbles to the water as it passes out through the head. This reduces the amount of water used, while still maintaining strength and cleaning power. Low flow shower heads are available in a variety of designs, offering buyers different spray patterns.

4 – Flow Restrictors and Aerators

Flow restrictors are connected to the shower or kitchen faucet and help stop excess water from dripping. The aerators work in a similar way to the low flow shower heads and can reduce water usage by up to 60%. If looking for restrictors or aerators then make sure to purchase those that have been manufactured from brass and are coated in chrome. This will guarantee corrosion resistance.

5 – Dual Flush

Buying a dual flush toilet is an expensive option, but it is possible to purchase the components that create the alternating flushes and have them installed by a plumber. A dual flush toilet offers the user two settings to choose from; the standard strong 6 litre flush and a softer 4 litre flush.

Attached Images:
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Terance Nichols is home improvement specialist with a keen eye for energy saving opportunities. When not busy consulting homeowners and businesses how they can save on energy bills, Terance enjoys long walks with his dog.






Care For The Environment Even When Out Shopping

by Trish

These days we are all looking for ways we can help the environment. At home we recycle our waste, we try and walk or cycle rather than use our vehicles and we try and reduce the amount of electricity we use by ensuring things are turned off when not in use.

More homes are being built these days with solar energy and wind power and hybrid and electric vehicles are more common on our roads than ever before. For many of us these new environmentally friendly inovations are not achieveable due to cost for example and so we need to find different ways to help the environment.

Recycling

The one big thing I have changed in our home is our recycling habits. Our waste is removed weekly and recycling every second week, I am sure it’s much the same everywhere in the UK. The scary thing is that many people don’t bother to recycle, sending their everyday trash to the overflowing landfills. If everyone was to make the change and start recycling we could dramatically reduce our carbon footprint.

Now I know I’m a tiny fish in a huge ocean when I recycle and the amount of recycling I do on a weekly basis probably isn’t going to make a different, but I only need a few more people like me and together we will make a difference.

All my recyclable materials get collected every second week and I try and save as much of the natural items such as my veg peelings for my compost heap at the edge of my garden, this means I am sending a limited amount to the landfills. Our landfills are overflowing with waste that could have been recycled, we are running out of space and unfortunately shooting our waste into outer space is not an option. What comes up must come down.

Shopping Bags

Every time I head to the shop I notice people grabbing at the plastic bags, filling them up and heading home. Chances are those bags are landing up on the landfills. Buying canvas bags are a great way to reduce the number of plastic bags you use and they are stronger and more stylish at the same time.

Canvas bags are so durable and can easily help you transport your groceries from the store to your home without damaging the environment. I am surprised that we don’t charge for bags here in the UK, you have a small handful of shops that do charge, but if everyone were to charge, more people would buy canvas bags and make a positive impact on our environment.

Canvas bags are available in a range of colours and designs and are ideal when going shopping. Make a difference to our environment in a positive way and don’t grab that plastic bag when out shopping.

Spring is here and it’s time to pull out the bikes

by The Shopping Maniac

I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Well … if the weather holds and it doesn’t end up raining too much that is. You see, it’s spring and things are greening; up and growing and it’s supposed to be warm … the warmest day of the year so far if everything turns out the way the weatherman said it would.

Since it’s supposed to rain we probably won’t end up doing this, but sometime soon I think it would be great to get our bikes out, attach the hitch bike rack to the car and drive to one of the great bike trail areas of the city and go for a big bike ride. Obviously since it’s Spring I haven’t done that for quite a while but it would be nice to do, especially at this time of year when everything is just starting to green up and begin to bloom.

Toronto has some wonderful, long, bike trails. A few of them are close to where we live, and they go quite a distance through the city. As I said, I have to pull out the bike and start using them again. Apparently one of the tails near us can take us all the way to the west end of the city.

Those darn red lily beetles!

by The Shopping Maniac

We have a pest problem in our garden.

Most of our plants are extremely healthy, but last year we noticed these red beetle like bugs on our various lily plants. It wasn’t long before we notice most of the leaves had holes in them and the plants were starting to look raggy.

Last year I looked up our new pest and discovered that they were called “Lily beetles”. I also found out that they’re pretty hard to get rid of.

It seems that the best method of getting rid of them is to hand pick the beetles off the plants and squish them dead. You also need to look at the underside of the leaves for a mass that looks quite a bit like dark bird poop. that’s the larvae – the part of the cycle that does the most damage – the larvae cover themselves in poop in order to hid or to be more repellent to bugs that might eat them. I guess it’s a protective coating in more ways than one.

So last year that’s what we did, we’d pick off all the beetles and poopy larvae that we could find and try to kill the pests. Our lilies started looking better but very few of them bloomed.

The same thing happened this year, but we were more on top of the problem than last year. We actually had more lily blooms this year and some of our plants look fairly healthy thanks to diligent beetle and larvae picking.

I did find out that there is another way to get rid of this dreadful pest. Neem Oil. It’s an organic pesticide. Great for us since our garden is 100% organic.

The only problem is that it’s very hard to find pure Neem oil here in Canada. Oh sure there are lots of “leaf shine’ products that contain Neem oil and I’m sure they’d work if we’d try them. Trouble is we’d go through a lot of bottles before we got rid of our lily beetle infestation!

So last week I went looking for a place that sold pure Neem oil. I found one place … I think it’s more of a hydroponic systems store, that sold pure Neem oil in 1 Litre bottles.

The store isn’t too far from us – it’s on Eastern Avenue here in Toronto. So on Saturday we took a ride over to the store and I got my Neem oil. I’m treating it like gold. I know it’s going to help us get rid of those darn lily beetle pests once and for all.

If you want to know how to use Neem oil to get rid of pests I’ll tell you. Just mix about a teaspoon of neem oil (warm it up first so it will run better) to a litre bottle of warm water. Add a squirt of dish detergent as well (the soap helps make it stick to the plants leaves).

Mix and then go out and spray it on your Lily plants or any other plants that are being invaded by pests. In the case of lily beetle infestations make sure you spray the underside of the leaves and if you have extra liquid dump it on the ground around the affected plant. Lily beetles mate and lay eggs in the soil around their feeder plants so watering the plant with a Neem oil mix might help kill off some of the eggs or baby larvae.

As I said our garden is organic and we like to have some good bugs around to help control the pests. So we won’t be spraying all of our plants with this mix as it can harm Lady Bugs and Bees. We’ll spray in the early morning when it’s cool or in the early evening when the good bugs like bees won’t be hovering around the plants.

I hope this helps if you have Lily Beetles eating all of your Lily plants.

BTW while I was doing some research on neem oil I found out that some people use it for skin care. I also read that it’s supposed to help cure psoriasis. I have a patch of psoriasis on my wrist that just won’t go away so I might rub some neem oil on the spot and see if it helps.

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