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FLIR Thermal Imaging Camera
Anyone who has seen an infrared thermal imaging camera knows how fun it can be. You can find your cats outside. You can see that people’s noses are colder than their cheeks and foreheads. That’s fun, but it can be useful too. For a home, you can easily see where any air and water leaks are a problem, so you can fix them properly. For example, since insulation is typically installed behind drywall, you don’t know if the installer missed an area—and often areas are missed: around outlet plugs, in corners, near crawl spaces, you name it. And the FLIR camera can find it. The older cameras are very expensive and bulky; the newer version is compatible with mobile phones (and is still pretty pricey, at $269.99 on Amazon, but it’s a lot less than older models). If you want to know where insulation is missing and are not a DIY-er, get your home an energy audit.
SodaStream Fizzi Sparkling Water Machine
Drinking your own filtered water from your tap is one of the best things you can do for your home: it will save money on purchasing drinks that contain water, reduce packaging waste, and keep you healthier. But what about bubbly water? It’s refreshing and can be mixed with so many tasty flavors like orange juice and grape juice. Kids who are not too psyched to drink regular water might happily drink bubbly water, which is much healthier than sugary and diet sodas. With Soda Stream, you can make it at home with your own water, using no electricity, no extra bottles to throw out or recycle, and at a greatly reduced cost per bottle. The Soda Stream Fizzi Sparkling Water Maker Bundle on Amazon (in a pretty icy blue color) sells for $109.99 with free shipping. You get the soda stream maker, two carbonating cylinders, three bottles, and zero-calorie natural orange and lime flavor essences as a bonus! Let’s compare the variable costs to a 24-pack of San Pellegrino mineral water (0.5 liters each), which sells for $13.98 on Amazon. Each Soda Stream 60L-carbonating cylinder makes about 60 liters of bubbly water, and each cylinder costs $30, which equals about 50 cents per liter. This compares to $1.16 per liter of San Pellegrino (or a much higher price for the flavored ones)! And, according to Soda Stream’s website, “one SodaStream bottle can help the average family reduce more than 3,700 bottles and cans from our planet.” On top of that, the CO2 cylinders can be recycled.
Lighting Science LED Light Bulbs
LED light bulbs use only about 10 percent of the electricity compared to incandescent bulbs, but they have suffered a bad reputation because the early models did not emit a pleasant tone of light. The technology has come a long way, though, and now, LED bulbs are an essential part of every sustainable home. Lighting Science offers several different types of LED bulbs for all areas of your home, including the Goodnight Sleep LED bulb for $15.99 and the GoodDay HealthE LED Lamp for $22.99. These unique LED lights are the result of NASA engineers developing an energy-saving light bulb that delivers the perfect amount (and type) of light to maximize the health benefits that come from the light we receive in our homes. These LED lights can potentially help regulate the circadian rhythms of our bodies so that we can stay more attentive and awake during the day while getting a restful night sleep. While other types of artificial light can damage the body, these lights mimic the progression of natural light throughout the day. Don’t let the competing 100-watt product with a lower price fool you. They will cost a lot more to operate and will require frequent replacement.
TomCare Outdoor Solar LED Torch Lights
For outdoor lighting, there really is no reason to use electricity. Unless you live in Alaska where the sun does not shine for very long during half the year, you can gather enough sunlight during the day to power a simple solar panel that will offer quality outdoor lighting during the evening. For a decorative look, the TomCare Torch Lights would look great on the edge of almost any patio or driveway. You never need to change a battery, and they will go on and off automatically from dusk until dawn.
Compost Pail
To reduce the amount of waste that goes in the dumpster, recycling is becoming more and more common—but recycling only applies to paper, plastic, glass, and metal. What about all those food scraps and food waste? Compost it! If you don’t have an outdoor compost pile (or don’t want one), and your city picks up organics, you can start separating out your compost waste—but you’ll need some sort of container. Williams Sonoma’s Full Circle Fresh Air Compost Collector sells for $29.95 and has some nice features: it allows air to flow through, so it doesn’t start smelling within a day or two while sitting on your counter. The lid opens with the push of a button, so it’s easy to fill up, and it’s even made of recycled plastic.
Melissa Rappaport Schifman
Melissa became the Twin Cities’ fifth LEED for Homes Accredited Professional (LEED AP) and completed the work necessary to get her own home LEED Gold Certified, the basis for her book, Building a Sustainable Home: Practical Green Design Choices for Your Health, Wealth, and Soul, (Skyhorse Publishing, August, 2018). With her corporate experience in finance, marketing, and business development, and an MBA and Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Chicago, Melissa has been providing sustainability advisory services to businesses, governmental agencies and non-profits, focusing on strategic and operational change that provide bottom-line financial returns. She has led the LEED certification of two million square feet of commercial buildings, written GRI-compliant Corporate Sustainability Reports, is a LEED Pro Reviewer and LEED mentor with the U.S. Green Building Council. She is the founder of Green Intention LLC where she writes about sustainable home living.
