Creating the Eco-Friendly Kitchen

The framework for an environmentally friendly home and kitchen is being all electric. Electricity is increasingly being generated by renewables, either on or off site, thus avoiding the pollution and climate issues linked to using fossil fuels. Clean electricity has none of the harmful health issues tied to home gas appliances. A Federal EPA report asserts that a gas stove adds between 25 and 39 percent more nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide to the air in a home.

Fortunately, a great alternative to gas stoves exists in the electric magnetic induction cooktop. Because it directly heats a pan using magnetic fields, an induction unit can provide great power, instant adjustability, excellent thermal efficiency and precise control—better than with gas cookers and without the negative impact on indoor air quality. The energy efficiency of induction coils is approximately double that of gas burners.

To create an eco-kitchen, all appliances need to be minimally Energy Star rated. The Energy Star label, a Federal program that evaluates energy efficiency of household appliances, enables shoppers to knowingly purchase appliances that use the least energy and water to operate. Created in 1992, the program now covers 40,000 products and saves more than $30 billion (2013) in energy costs annually.

Choose cookware and utensils that stand the test-of-time and won’t have to be thrown away and replaced. Stainless steel and cast iron are good choices for pots and pans (also metallic cookware is required for magnetic induction cookers). Similarly, choose high-quality knives. One only needs a few good ones, plus they stay sharp longer.

Good natural lighting and ventilation can reduce the need for artificial lighting and mechanical ventilation. Carefully locating windows and skylights can improve the ambiance in a kitchen and enhance air quality. When needed, electric lighting is best provided by LEDs (light emitting diodes). They are super-efficient—requiring fewer photovoltaic solar panels—and provide excellent task lighting.

Equipment, lighting and ventilation are important, but one’s devotion, passion, common sense and experience focused on efficient food prep and cleaning habits are as key, if not more so, in creating an eco-friendly kitchen. Examples:

·         Use cloth towels rather than paper towels.

·         Avoid bottled water.

·         Buy cleaning products from companies that make non-toxic, biodegradable, plant-based products

·         Shop at the farmers’ market for local, fresh, organic, highly nutritious food without packaging.

·         The difference between ordering takeout and tossing together a salad with farmers’ market ingredients shifts from big to small impact on our agricultural system and the larger eco-systems. Food accounts for a greater portion of our ecological impact than home energy.

·         Minimize gadgets.

·         Don’t install a garbage disposal. Learn how to compost. Set up for easy recycling.

·         Design an open pantry for maximum convenience.

·         Have only drawers below counters. Avoid cabinets with doors and pull-out shelves. They require 2 operations every time one accesses a cabinet.

A Water Efficiency Breakthrough

Rain patterns are changing all over the planet. Being in a multi-year drought, Southern California is acutely aware of this indispensable resource and our lack of it. Santa Barbara has cut its non-agricultural water consumption by 35 percent. If we can cut usage even more, we can minimize additions to our water supply from the most costly, most energy intensive sources such as desalinization or the California State Water Project.

A promising development that can help cut water consumption even more is the atomizer mist technology. Nozzles harnessing this technology can be attached to most faucets or the concept can be incorporated into showerheads. The Swedish firm, Altered, has created a simple device that atomizes tap water into a fine mist. Although simple, it has been years in development. The result, per the company, “is a 98 percent reduction in water use, with no loss in functionality.” Although using only about 2 percent of the flow from a tap with no flow restrictor, the dispersion of millions of tiny droplets of water created by the high spread mist, makes it as effective in performing tasks like washing hands, cleaning a toothbrush or rinsing vegetables, or, for that matter, doing most other tap-related tasks.

At times, more water is needed more quickly than the atomizer can provide. Because it takes minutes to fill a glass or a pasta pot with water in the mist mode, the nozzle can easily be switched to a higher volume flow, called the Saver mode. This mode increases the flow to almost a gallon (0.8 gal) per minute. Since, on average, about 18 percent of household water consumption is through sink faucets, retrofitting with these small, attractive devices could reduce overall household water usage by 15 percent or more.

Another recently developed product using the same atomizing approach is the Nebia showerhead. Produced in the US, it similarly disperses water into millions of microscopic droplets to create 10 times more surface area than a regular shower’s water pattern, while saving 70 percent of water in the process. It has a built in multi-layer filter to catch sediment and other solid buildup. The Nebia comes with a wall mounted bracket that allows the showerhead to be adjusted vertically, or even detached completely to be used as a portable unit.

Both of these devices, new players in the strategic game to make more efficient use of our available water resources, show great potential as they move into the marketplace.

Energy Upgrades for Existing Homes

Information on how to build an energy efficient home is easy to come by these days—but what if you can’t start from the ground up? What about the 18 million homes that already exist in California? Are those of us living in existing homes relegated to changing light bulbs and adjusting thermostats?

Not at all. Enter the Home Performance contractor. Home Performance is the discipline of applying building science and retrofit techniques to existing buildings, and the results can be dramatic; numerous case studies cite total measured energy used by the home reduced by as much as 70%!

Building science developed in the 1980s along with sophisticated equipment making possible the measurement and study of buildings. By applying these tools and scientific principles, we now know how to transform the energy performance of buildings.

The good news doesn’t stop there. It turns out that many of the same retrofit measures that reduce energy use also improve the quality of indoor air, humidity and moisture levels plus the overall longevity of the structure itself. The benefits are many and varied, from reduced indoor allergies to less frequent dusting to decreased home repair work.

But what goes into an energy upgrade? Since every home is unique, a good Home Performance contractor starts by running tests to understand exactly what is needed for the specific building. With this data, the contractor then recommends the upgrade measures for maximum improvement.

Because most homes are “leaky”—that is, air can pass more or less freely between indoors and out, the first priority is to stop the leaks. Typically, we spend energy (and money) to heat or cool our indoors, but, because of leaks, we end up heating or cooling the outdoors. Home heating and cooling is by far the biggest use of energy in homes, so stopping this energy wastage represents a key first step used by the Home Performance contractor.

Most of us think of windows when we think of building air leaks, but the science shows us that windows are usually not the main culprit. Because warm air rises (the stack effect), most air escapes at the top and bottom of buildings, through the attic and the crawlspace. Consequently, air sealing is one of the most important strategies. With this single measure, both energy use and indoor air quality can be improved.

One caveat, this work should be done by a professional trained in building science and home performance. Tightening a home can have unsafe side effects. For example, if gas appliances are present, there is a danger of trapping noxious, life-threating fumes inside the home. A professional will understand these risks, and will use test equipment to verify that they’ve been avoided.

Natural Cooling Strategies

Since most of us have limited tolerance for hot weather, and since air conditioning consumes a lot of electricity, it is important to first consider natural strategies when seeking ways to cool a building. Architects and builders have largely stopped using these techniques over the past 100 years, but because they utilize simple approaches to cooling, they save both energy and money.

Breezes help moisture evaporate from one’s skin—one of the body’s main methods for cooling off. In fact, many natural cooling techniques boil down to one basic principle: keep air moving. Funneling our afternoon breezes through our buildings (predominately from the Southwest in Santa Barbara) is ideal for cooling. It is possible to optimize the channeling of these breezes through our buildings by carefully choosing the type and location of windows and doors. Casement windows offer maximum ventilation area for a given glass area, while also providing ways to catch and direct airflow.

Openings through opposite exterior walls create maximum air currents, namely cross ventilation. Openings in adjacent walls produce air turbulence, which also enhances cooling. A combination of small low inlets and larger outlets achieves the best and fastest indoor air movement. A size ratio of 1:3 between inlets and outlets increases the speed of air movement by 2 ½ times (the Bernoulli principle).

The effectiveness of ventilation can be further enhanced by pre-cooling the air before it enters the home. Trees can both shade windows and cool the afternoon air currents. Deciduous trees are best, because they shed their leaves in winter to allow the sun and its warmth in. Almost any vegetation between a building and the approaching breezes will cool the air as the plants release water vapor through transpiration. Moisture evaporating from a pond, fountain or supplied by a mister also remove heat from air.

Trellises, building overhangs and awnings are simple yet effective strategies for keeping a building cool by limiting solar gain. Exterior shade screens prevent direct sunlight from striking a window. Awnings block light and heat whereas shade screens allow some light through. Shade screens are lightweight, durable, inexpensive and can block between 50 and 90 percent of the sun’s heat directed toward a window. Most often they are motorized for optimum sun control. Awnings are similarly most effective when motorized.

Another consideration is a building’s color. Dark-colored exteriors absorb 70-90 percent of the sun’s radiant energy, some of which is transferred into the exterior walls resulting in heat gain. In contrast, light-colored surfaces reflect most of the heat away.