Monday, March 28, 2011

How to Green-ify a Condo


We're moving to our own place very soon. It's a 55 sq.m. condo space. Yes it is small but we can call it our own. A result of our blood, sweat and tears.Aside from the challenge of fitting 3 bedrooms, 2 toilets & bath, a living room, dining room and kitchen, another objective we have in mind is how to make our place earth friendly. Here's ze game plan:

(1) Earth friendly LED TV. It's been a while since we bought a TV set, 7 yrs to be precise. The plan is to get a 32 inch 1080p 120 Hz wide LED TV . Whatever that means, it sounds high tech so that’s acceptable. Kidding aside, one of the advantages of an LED TV is it comes with backlight control and screen off function. Definitely energy saving.
(2) Compact Fluorescent Lamp. CFL's reduce electricity usage and they put off less heat. They consume 75% less electricity compared to incandescent bulbs and last up to 12 times longer.
(3) Aircon with timer. We'll be installing 3 window type aircon in our place. While the HPs vary per room, one common denominator is the timer. Max use per a/c per day target is 6 hours. Just right to attain REM status before the a/c turns off automatically.
(4) Electric fan in every room. Ventilation is quite a challenge in our new place since the window size is just right hence the tendency is a/c galore. Airtime between a/c and e/fan will be split with the latter hopefully getting the lion's share.
(5) Low-Flow Showerhead. Low-Flow what?!?!? A few years ago, showerheads delivered about 5 to 8 gallons per minute (gpm) at 80 psi. The current standard for low-flow heads is 2.5 gpm at 80 psi. Some showerheads deliver only 1.6 gpm.
(6) Wash in cold water. This hold true for dishes and clothes. A study shows about 90 percent of laundry energy goes to heating water.
(7) Lose the tub. The fact is that the t&b in our new place is smaller therefore a regular sized 1.5 meter tub won't fit (lest we place it in the living room). We are doing away with the tub. We rarely use it anyways. At most, we use it once every quarter.
(8) Use a smaller and newer heater. We are now using an over 10 year old 12 gallon heater consuming 2000 watts and plan to downsize to a 6 gallon heater consuming 1500 watts only. The new gadget comes with it new technology ergo energy savings even if it’s just a water heater.
(9) Use an electric range instead of a gas-powered one. Aside from the fact that the condo management mandates electric range only because of the potential dangers of a gas powered range, we can save P 650/mo on an 11 kg LPG tank. Besides, where can we store the tank in our itsy bitsy condo.
(10) Recycle. So what if you’re transferring to a spanking new condo and you’ll be re-using furniture and appliances hence they will not match? Not only are you helping yourself meet your budget, you’re also helping the environment. Here are the some items that will be transferred to our new place: refrigerator, dryer, aircon, dvd player, desktop and all the pc peripherals.

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