Making your home more power-efficient and Earth-friendly has moved beyond obvious upgrades like swapping out incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents or installing a couple of solar panels.
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By Trevor Curwin from SciFi's Dvice.
A lot of environmentally friendly home renovations have emerged in the last couple of years, and they're easier to implement than ever before. Even better, lots of them look sexier, too. Read about the 10 newest green renovations you could be seeing in your home or your neighbor's soon, and be sure to check out what other sites in the NBC Universal family are doing for Green Week.
1. The EcoDrain
WHERE YOU'LL FIND IT: In the shower
WHAT IT DOES Typical showers use lots of heat, but when that hot water hits the drain, it's still pretty warm. EcoDrain works as a small heat pump, using the leftover heat from "used" water to help warm the incoming stuff. Don't worry: clean and dirty don't ever mix, and it squeezes out the extra heat that would otherwise help warm your city sewer system.
HOW IT'S GREEN Heating hot water is one of the biggest single energy costs in a typical house, and therefore possibly one of the biggest sources of your home's carbon emissions. EcoDrain cuts energy use for a normal shower by almost 50%. The downside: It's an extensive installation, since it's hidden in the floor under your shower.
2. Bluenergy Solarwind turbine
WHERE YOU'LL FIND IT: On the roof
WHAT IT DOES Combining solar and wind power generation, the turbine's wind vanes are covered with solar cells that are themselves coated with a patented Teflon-like fluoropolymer. That means they can capture sunlight from any angle. Unlike the typical propeller windmill design, the Solarwind is virtually silent and poses no threat to birds or drunk partiers.
HOW IT'S GREEN The efficiency of the design means the Solarwind generates electricity in breezes as low as 4 mph.
3. Reclamator water recycler
WHERE YOU'LL FIND IT: Outside, buried under the lawn
WHAT IT DOES The Reclamator is a self-contained water-treatment system that lets you reuse the same water over and over again. Unlike a septic tank or a municipal system where waste water just goes "away," the Reclamator uses applies a proprietary process to settle out solid waste and draw off clean treated water that passes municipal standards for drinkability. It's not cheap — each system runs around $25,000, there's a monthly charge for maintenance, and if the kids dump motor oil down the toilet, you'll need people to come fix it — but it does allow for self-contained living and depending on your water bill, it could pay for itself over time.
HOW IT'S GREEN Besides cutting down your water waste, the Reclamator can be made from recycled or repurposed materials. But the biggest savings are in energy and infrastructure costs, which are really the biggest part of your monthly water bill.
4. Swash toilet seat
WHERE YOU'LL FIND IT The bathroom
WHAT IT DOES Bringing together the function of a bidet with the sleek styling and luxury of a European sedan, your Swash experience starts with a heated seat and ends with "a warm water wash with temperature, pressure, and pulsation adjustability" that you can tweak from a convenient touchpad within reach.
HOW IT'S GREEN The U.S. uses 3.2 million tons of toilet paper annually — about 54 million trees' worth. The process of making that paper is bad enough, and then there are all the problems of treating that flushed solid waste. The Swash allows you to eliminate 90% of that paper.
5. Redwood Renewable Smart CoolRoof
WHERE YOU'LL FIND IT On the roof
WHAT IT DOES Redwood Renewable's Smart CoolRoof takes rubber from old car tires to create new rubber material, and then embeds solar cells in it. Together, this gives you recycled roofing material with excellent insulation that generates power for your home. Plus it actually looks like a typical roof versus looking like a roof with big, ugly solar panels on it .Best of all, it costs about half of what a typical solar-panel installation would cost.
HOW IT'S GREEN Waste tires are a huge environmental headache. Redwood Renewables uses an ultrasonic, chemical-free process to actually devulcanizes the rubber. (To visualize devulcanization, think about how you'd "unfry" a fried egg.) The renewable energy generated is icing on the cake.
Continue the list at DVICE.