Beat the Summer Heat with Energy Saving Tips
You don’t have to live in Texas for long to realize that the summer heat here can kill your electricity bill. An energy consultation can always help with specific ways you can utilize your home more efficiently, but these general tips are quick ways you can help the impact this summer has on your utilities.
It sounds like complete common sense, but one way to save energy is to have all your appliances unplugged. Even when appliances are just switched “off” they still use 75% of your electricity.
How you use your household appliances also has a major effect on electricity. A front loading washing machine uses 25% less energy than a standard model. Also with laundry, using warm or cold water settings instead of hot water can save 4% off your electricity. After washing, line drying your clothes can save another 5%.
With your dishwasher, you actually use more water hand washing dishes than you do running the dishwasher. And since you’re going to be running the dishwasher now anyways, make sure it’s full! A dishwasher at 90% capacity uses 4 units of electricity, while a dishwasher at 50% capacity still uses 3 units – so a full dishwasher is much more energy efficient than a mostly empty one.
After the dishes and clothes are all clean, there’s still one major appliance you can use more efficiently – the refrigerator. Keeping the fridge full of food helps it from warming up too fast when the door is open, so it doesn’t have to work as hard to stay cool.
On top of these appliance tips, it’s also important to think about air flow in your house. You can save 1-3 percent per degree for each degree the thermostat is set above 72. So if you’re heading out of the house for the weekend bump up the temperature to 85 to save on cooling costs. Also be sure to replace dirty air filters to save another 1-2%. Another big way to save is to have your ducts tested for any leaks or restrictions. Leaking duct work account for 25% of cooling costs in the average home, and duct cleaning is not the same as duct testing which should be done by a qualified contractor.
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Jay Billig Featured in L Style G Style
The WHOLE Place president, Jay Billig, is featured in a spread in the May/June issue of L Style G Style.
L Style G Style is the authoritative lifestyle magazine for social and cultural influencers in the gay/lesbian community. It offers an unprecedented forum for reaching highly discerning and affluent consumers who set the tastes and trends for our society as a whole.
From lstylegstyle.com
The article features Jay’s life with his two kids, growing up in a large family, and living in Austin. You can read it and the rest of this great magazine by clicking here. Jay rocks! At least we think so…
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Living Tips for Smaller Spaces
We all have a different perspective of what an ideally-sized space is, and for a variety of reasons, many of us find ourselves living in a small space now more than ever. Whether you’re downsizing or choosing to live small, living in such a space can be a challenge. But have no fear, there are many things you can do to fully utilize every nook and cranny of your home.
First and foremost, don’t be afraid to downsize. That musical instrument you haven’t touched since high school? Those outfits you “maybe will wear one day” – there are plenty of others who would use and appreciate them. Consider donating your excess stuff to a local non-profit – or have a good ‘ol fashioned yard sale and use the money for smart storage.
One way to maximize all the space you can is the use of floor-to-ceiling shelves. By placing everyday things on the eye level shelves, and less needed items up high (keep the trusty step stool at hand) you make effective use of that space. Make sure to keep shelves neat and tidy to avoid any unnecessary clutter.
Go digital. Save CDs and other music overflowing off your shelves onto an external hard drive. It’ll sync up with your iTunes easily and save room from all those plastic cases. New record players will also record LP’s as MP3′s, making digital storing easier and more space efficient!
On top of organization and storage, there’s always tricking the eye to make a room seem larger. You’ve read our take on horizontal lines stretching a space, and using well-designed storage like we show here helps contain the stuff of everyday life right at your fingertips. This is the practical side of “less is more” and makes even small spaces feel roomy.
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Dive into local produce at Austin Farmers’ Markets!
Buying from a Farmer’s market allows you to talk to the source directly, discover new plant varieties, learn uses for certain fruits and vegetables, and you can shop confidently knowing you’re helping your local community. By buying local, you also reduce the distance the food had to travel to get to your plate. Less shipping = less fuel & emissions = greener produce, simple as that!
Did You Know? (from www.sustainabletable.org)
- Communities reap more economic benefits from the presence of small farms than they do from large ones. Studies have shown that small farms re-invest more money into local economies by purchasing feed, seed and other materials from local businesses, whereas large farms often order in bulk from distant companies.
- A typical carrot has to travel 1,838 miles to reach your dinner table.
- Farmers’ markets enable farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer.
- The food miles for items in the grocery store are, on average, 27 times higher than the food miles for goods bought from local sources.
- In the U.S., the average grocery store’s produce travels nearly 1,500 miles between the farm where it was grown and your refrigerator.
- About 40% of our fruit is produced overseas and, even though broccoli is grown all over the country, the broccoli we buy at the supermarket travels an average of 1,800 miles to get there.
Of course there are other immediate benefits to buying at Austin Farmer’s Markets that may be more important to you immediately – the amazing food! We are familiar with 3 Austin farmers markets located in 5 different locations for convenient shopping on items such as organic fruits and vegetables, grass-fed pasture-raised beef and pork, fresh cheese, specialty prepared food and more.
Photo by roger_mommaerts
On any weekend day and specific weekdays, you can check out these local farmers markets to stock up on top quality food and other unique Austin items.
To learn more, visit their sites at:
- http://hopefarmersmarket.org/
- http://www.bartoncreekfarmersmarket.org/
- http://www.sfcfarmersmarket.org
Photo by MoxyJane@Spiral Bound Images
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Resource Conservation: Wet Weather Creek
What do these two pictures have in common?
It’s not just that they’re both located in South Austin, although at a first glance that seems like the only similarity. The beautiful wet weather creek was made out of limestone harvested from the construction site.
When building brand new projects or remodeling an older house, we are always conscientious of conserving and reusing resources. If a home owner wants a new floor, their existing hardwood isn’t put to waste. Instead, we offer the older floors to someone who may be doing their own big project – and that way as little as possible goes to waste.
This limestone is no different. Seeing the new apartments going up on South Lamar, I saw an excellent opportunity to get some hand picked limestone for my rainwater-collecting wet weather creek. After asking permission to take away some of the rock (remember kids – reusing is not the same as stealing!)
The result? Perfect sizes of rock. Water for the garden. Beautifully re-purposed materials. That sounds like a triple win to us! Now this wet weather creek gives roof rainwater a place to go, both irrigating plants efficiently and preventing erosion of the mulch.
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Picking Paint Colors for your Home
Picking out paint colors for your home can be a daunting process. Not only are there what seems like a million shades of off-white, but people like to assign rules to room colors too. Blue is tranquil and good for a bedroom. Paint rooms light colors to make them seem bigger. Beware of the “sunny yellow kitchen” because yellow is a color that can make people feel anxious or frustrated.
Here at The WHOLE Place, we think rules were made to be broken. Probably not rules like gravity or paying for things before taking them out of the store, but with paint colors there is definitely some wiggle room.
The colors of your home should reflect your personality. If you want dark, bold colors in a small room – you can do it. If you don’t want a blue bedroom, don’t have a blue bedroom! With our color consultation service, we help you achieve eye pleasing color combinations that are individual to you. No canned formula. No celebrity endorsement. Just colors you love that work well together in your space. After all, the home is an extension of your personality. You decorate it, live in it, and work to have all those little details jiving together nicely – shouldn’t the paint colors be treated the same way?
To learn more about our color consultation service, click here.
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One Day Without Shoes
Here at our Global Corporate Headquarters we’re participating in the TOMS One Day Without Shoes event. If you’re familiar with the brand TOMS, you’ll know that every time someone buys a pair of TOMS shoes the company donates a pair of shoes to an underprivileged child in need.
Why are shoes so important to a child? From the TOMS website:
- Children in developing countries are at risk of injury, infection, and soil-transmitted diseases that they can’t afford to treat.
- In certain regions of Ethiopia, wearing shoes and practicing good hygiene can prevent podoconiosis, a disease that causes swelling of the feet and legs due to prolonged exposure to irritant soil.
- Healthy children are much more likely to succeed in their education and achieve long-term success.
We dig what TOMS is doing for these kids.
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Spring Vegetable Gardening in Austin
Spring is in full swing, and now is the time for vegetable gardening here in Austin. We’ve got some basic information to get you started!
A garden starts from the ground up, and that means soil. In central Texas the soil is hit or miss. We’ve often got lots of thick clay or dry, rocky soil. Give your vegetables a better chance at success by introducing compost to the soil. First and foremost, stop throwing away your uncooked fruit and vegetable “waste”! These kitchen scraps are useful elements for your compost. Making your own compost is easy with the aid of a compost bin, and being in Texas we’re lucky to be surrounded by horse farms everywhere. Did you know that horse manure makes GREAT compost? Most horse farms are more than happy to let someone come and take the nutrient rich manure away, and getting amazing fertilizer for your vegetable garden is often just a phone call away.
"Fresh Vegetables" by ConstructionDealMkting
Once you’ve got your soil rich with nutrients for those future salads and your garden free of weeds and competing plants, it’s time to start planting those veggies. The best time to start planting in Austin is Mid-March when the weather is still cool and the chance of a late frost is minimal. This time of year the plants that do best in Central Texas are asparagus, tomatoes, lima beans, cabbage, cucumbers, eggplant, carrots, peppers, pumpkin, peas, and spinach. Once the harsh heat of the summer has passed brussels sprouts, cauliflower, Swiss chard, garlic, onion, winter squash, mustard greens, kohlrabi and potatoes do better in the early fall for a 2nd growing season.
Not only is it important when you plant your vegetables, but how you plant them. Did you know that if you plant a hot pepper too close to a tomato, you could end up with a hot tomato? Always read directions and give plants a proper space… unless you’re trying to experiment with a new “Beetcoli” or “Parsnumpkin”. If that’s the case, then rock on gardener.
Here are some links where you can learn even more about vegetable gardening in Austin:
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Design Inspiration: Horizontal Lines
You’ve heard the old trick a hundred times: “Paint a room a light color to make it look bigger.” Well, it depends on the space and you may not like light colors. There are other stylistic, practical ways to trick the eye while maintaining a unique design.
Here at The WHOLE Place, horizontal lines feature prominently in many of our designs to create both sweeping wide angles and functional assets. Horizontal lines help bring the inside and outside together by tying the windows inside a room together with the views outside.
It’s not just about making spaces feel wider though, using horizontal lines in design can also make a space feel taller. Trim around walls near the top of a room can create more volume, and make the ceiling feel as its melting away from a room instead of compressing against it.
But what’s good design if it isn’t functional? Reinterpreting the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright, the floating shelf has found its way into many of our projects at The WHOLE Place. These floating shelves enhance open space, as well as giving a home’s inhabitants a place to accent their belongings… like these little birds. Talk about connecting your built space with your planet!
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New Season, New WHOLE Place.
Spring is in full swing here in Austin, TX and with the emergence of new vegetation, Jaythings, Inc. is emerging with a new name, new website, and fruitful content for all to savor. What’s the new name you ask? The WHOLE Place. New website? You’re standing on it. Fruitful content? Ever feasted on produce from Tecolote Farm? We have, and it’s delicious… just like our content.
The WHOLE Place is more than just a re-branding of an already exquisite, 17 year old locally owned and operated Design/Build firm chock-full of green building grooviness. We’re also highly passionate about Austin and the relationships we build through our craft. The evolution into The WHOLE Place is mostly symbolic of our personal growth within this community. We’ve taken said growth and inserted it into our business model – emerging with the entity laying before you. Now that we’ve met, let me express our blog intentions: Green building, innovative design… that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the information and events we will share with you. Don’t worry, we checked our narcissism at the door. This is more than a rehashing of our past projects and pictures (check the gallery!), but a place to share our interests and WHOLE evolution with you.
We hope you read, browse, learn and laugh a little. We certainly wouldn’t be offended if you called us up to remodel your house either, but let’s start things slowly. We hope you find the upcoming explorations of our knowledge, experience and growth, as fascinating as we do. Enjoy.
