More On Water

I am so happy with our filter systems! I used to cringe everytime I saw Ruby swallow a mouthful of bath water, but now I sleep easy knowing that the water coming out of our system is free of cancer causing toxic chemicals. Not only that, but the filter systems have eliminated our need to buy water, and I can't tell you what a relief it is on my conscience to know that I no longer contribute to the mass amounts of plastic water bottles filling up our landfills and leaching poisonous chemicals into our drinking water. I bought a few bottles of VOS water in glass bottles and everyday I fill them up at my kitchen sink and carry them around with me. No plastic bottles, no waste, no trucks driving across the country to deliver water to us-- just me, my filter and a glass container. Love it.

Clean Water At Last!

One of the most important aspects of creating a less toxic house for me from the very beginning has been cleaning out our water. To me, getting clean water into your house is the first step in creating a clean and healthy living environment. Water is such a staple of our lives, and we use it in so many ways every day, so to allow such contanimated water into our homes on a such a regular basis is not right. Los Angeles' tap water, according the Natural Resource Defense Council findings in 2002, has elevated levels of radon, trace amounts of arsenic, and several other carcinogenic chemicals depending on what part of Los Angeles you live in. I began researching water filtration systems and spoke at length with our plumber, Michael Levey, about different options. We settled on a mid grade filtration system for the whole house, manufactured by Aquapure, which will pull the chlorine and several other chemicals out of all the water supplied to the entire house. This includes our bath water, water we wash our clothes in and do our dishes in, hose water and even toilet water. It is important to me, because even though we don't drink any of this water, it is impossible to avoid absorbing it, through either our porous skin or accidentally swallowing it when we shower or brush our teeth. At the kitchen sinks, we put in an even more substantial reverse osmosis filter, which uses a pressure system to do a thorough cleaning of the water (Sparkletts uses a similar reverse osmosis system in filtering their water). The water that comes out of our kitchen filters tastes amazing and with the reverse osmosis system installed we can be confident that it is, most importantly, clean. The reverse osmosis filter was about $800 installed-- not a bad price to pay to clean water on demand. The whole house filter was a little more expensive-- about$3200 installed, but for it was an important aspect of our "healthy" house.

The decision making process was more dificult than one might imagine, because water filtration systems pose a little bit of a Catch-22 situation. There are so many different interpretations of the word "green" and sometimes they are in conflict, as with the idea of water filtration. Clean water is important, but in filtering water one wastes water. The way a filtration system works, it pushes tap water through a filter and in the process of doing so, some of the water escapes and is normally routed directly to the sewer system. So to make a gallon of clean water, you often waste anywhere from 1-2 gallons of regular tap water. This was a problem for me, because although I wanted clean water, water conservation is also an important issue on the table and we are trying to do our part in honoring California's natural, relatively dry environment. The more extensive the filter system, the more water you must waste during the filter process-- so that with a reverse osmosis filter, which really cleans out the water, you waste more water than with a less advanced system where you might only be filtering out the chlorine, for instance. This is what helped us make our decision to only install the reverse osmosis in the kitchen where we would use drinking water, and go with a less intense filtering system for the rest of the house. In any event, I wasn't comfortable with the amount of water we were going to be throwing down the sewer system (up to hundreds of gallons per month) so I consulted Michael again. He agreed that it would be great to find a way to use the water that was being flushed into the sewer, and helped me create a system to collect the unused tap water in a container, which we periodically dump on our lawn instead of using sprinklers. It was a perfect solution.

Floors

I lifted up my carpet and it turns out I have some beautiful wood floors underneath. Only, they're 80 years old and in need of a little touch up. Traditional wood finishes can be very toxic and I didn't want any part of that, so I began to explore other options. My first call was to Christine Werba at Plan-It Hardware. She recommended a product by a company called Aura. I had my brother Jake, who was going to be helping me unleash the natural beauty of the old wood floors, price the Aura finish. It did end up costing a bit more-- maybe a total of $200 or so-- but to me, it was worth the extra expense to know that we wouldn't be off-gassing dangerous chemicals. Jake sanded the floors and then waxed them. They turned out beautifully, although they have a very raw look to them-- they don't have the shiny varnished look that wood floors often have after a good refinishing. The look isn't bad, and I actually really like it, but if you are looking for a glistening floor I would look around at other non-toxic products (I know there are others out there).

Tankless Heaters

Things are moving right along, and we just installed our Noritz tankless water heaters. We are very excited about these-- not only do we never run out of hot water, but they take up less room and because there is no tank that continually needs to keep water hot, the energy output is significantly less than with a traditional heater, not only making us feel environmentally responsible, but saving us money as well! The heaters we chose are the 751 series, which are capable of putting out about 9 gallons of water per minute. This is important because even though we don't need 9 gallons per minute right now (the heater will only put out the water we actually use, so just because it is capable of putting out 9 gallons/minute doesn't mean we are actually using that much water) these heaters will be capable of handling more water output if we added a bathroom, which is something we have thought about doing down the road. The biggest expense on these heaters is the initial purchase and installation, which can run anywhere from about $3600-5400, but once installed they are warrantied for 10 years and tend to last up to 20 years (nearly twice as long as a conventional heater, which has a typical lifespan of about 12 years). The maintenance is minimal and can be done by the homeowner-- it really just consists of flushing out the tubing inside (instead of a tank, there are tubes that the water runs through to heat up) with vinegar every six months or so. A plumber can do this also, for about $120. So even though the upfront costs aren't cheap, in the long run you end up saving energy and money.

Dual Flush Toilets

Well, I never knew I could spend so much time talking about toilets. A toilet is a toilet is a toilet...or so I thought. It turns out there are these ultra cool dual flush toilets that not only look pretty neat-o, but conserve water as well. An old toilet might use up to 3.5 gallons of water everytime you flush, but these dual flush toilets we got from Caroma (www.caromausa.com) use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush. And if that weren't good enough, there is an option for even less-- that's where the "dual flush" comes in. Our super cool toilets have a an option for "liquid waste" flush or "solid waste" flush. The solid waste uses 1.6 gallons-- the liquid waste only uses 0.8 gallons of water. Pretty, cool, huh?