3 Professors Sharing Information
You Can Trust
On How To Make Your Home and Lifestyle
Safe, Healthy, Energy Efficient
And Just Plain Smart
With “Go Green Tips” and Green Living Strategies
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Our aim is simple:
Help people do the right thing, and make sure the steps add up to significant change over time
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This site will:
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Help you do the right thing by making choices that improve your wallet and the environment
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Do the research for you
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Help you set a good example for your kids
We live and breathe this stuff. We filter the information for you, so you don’t have to. We also have access to experts in the industry, giving us the best information that likely won’t be found anywhere else.
Our “Trust, but verify” Policy
Overtime you will come to trust us, but until then we’ll give you all the links for you to verify our information.
To get started:
Lifestyle Posts: Our approach and hand-picked information to making you and your family healthier, wealthier and wise – featuring “Green Hacking” where we lay out our unconventional strategy to going green
Green Home Posts: Our approach and selective information on how to get the biggest bang for your buck and not be “greenwashed”
One last thing:
Who the site is for:
- Anyone interested in doing the right thing
- Families, cohabitants and singles
- Anyone open to taking control of your lifestyle and home
- Anyone willing to use facts and focus on big wins
- Homeowners and Renters
- Anyone who second guesses the quality of information on other “green” websites
Who the site is not for:
- People with an idealist axe to grind
- People who don’t value strategies
- People who spend more time on being frugal rather than grabbing the big wins
I am excited to read about educational activities I can do with my kids. Looking forward to reading the entries!
Content holds exciting potential, and the initial stuff is good, I am looking forward to more of it it. However your web design is not so great. The backgrounds you have picked make it harder to read, plus the colors are not very vibrant. A few of the magazines I read are doing the same thing ( reducing contrast by printing text on a formatted background) and I find that reading it is very tiring. The text does not need to jump off the page, but it should be easy to read. And since I am hoping to do a lot of reading on this site, perhaps you can do something about the format.
Just checked the site from another computer. My first post was made after viewing the site on my macbook thru a Citrix remote terminal connection to the ben franklin website. This connection ofter reduces the image quality of websites. I just had a look using my Imac thru the same link and it does look much better from an ease of reading point of view, but the cloors are still a bit too quiet for me. The blue on black navigation bar at the top is not good contrast, and I think a bolder type face for the body of the site would be much better.
One final comment about the site appearance. I would suggest using a contrasting color for the panels to the left and right of the main text.
Here is a comment for consideration in your blog. I read on the website for the Nissan LEAF that a home assessment would be part of the buying process. From the website:
Q:If I want to “prewire” a new home for a future Leaf owner, what is required?
A:A home assessment will be part of the buying process. Sign up now to learn more when it’s available.
Logically I imagine that’s a good idea – no good to buy an all electric vehicle and find out that your home electrical system won’t charge it. But practically is it really necessary? Again I guess it depends – if you charge up on a 110 volt line perhaps you don’t need anything special, but a 220 volt line in a garage is not common – so if it needed 220, I guess it would involve a special hookup. How about if I live in Philadelphia in a row house – How would I ever charge up the vehicle? Lots of questions with these new technologies…
The site needs more pictorial images. Think graphic novel as well as photographs.
Hi Dick –
thanks for input. I’ll see what can be done.
It’s been getting a ton of visibility, what do you know about the Bloom Box?
Update: our post can be found here: http://smartercontext.com/?p=330
Bill – the Bloom Box and its science is still being understood by us and others. The project just emerged from “stealth mode”. Our scientists are trying to uncover exactly what this is and to see if it defies the laws of physics. We have found other sources that discuss this if you’d like to check them out:
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/02/19/is-k-r-sridhars-magic-box-ready-for-prime-time/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtml
BTW – The company that created the Bloom Box is planning a product launch this Wed Feb 24th here:
http://earth2tech.com/2010/02/16/bloom-energy-to-open-the-kimono-next-week/
We’ll let you know our thoughts once we’ve had a chance to look into it.
There is now a blog entry with a little more detail about Bloom Box. Of course in a few hours there will be a press conference and the blog entry will be updated if there is more useful information at that time.
I currently live in a building that has lights on a timer. When you get off the elevator you have to press a light switch to turn them on and they only stay on for about 1 minute; meaning you have to sprint to your door and quickly unlock it. However, there have been multiple cases where the lights have timed out while I am in the process of opening my door. I then have to feel my way around the hallway to the nearest light switch. This is extremely unsafe especially since I live in a horrible town. Is there a way to make green technology effective but also safe?
Your green hacking suggestions on insulating the ceiling of an exterior screened porch that also is the floor of the bathroom above it.
@Eliza,
I would suggest that your landlord replace the timer with a motion detector. There is no reason to feel unsafe, especially because of green technologies. Most green technologies are by their nature safer, so if you feel you have to choose between them, in my opinion you’re being mislead.
@Bill F.
Yes, I would recommend insulating it. It’s just like having an exterior wall with no insulation, but worse, because it’s likely the surface of the exposed floor area is greater than one of the wall’s. That said, to know exactly how much it’s costing you really depends on the following factors:
– surface areas of walls and floor
– the insulation in those walls (R-value)
– where your house is located (climate)
– area of windows in your walls
You can drop me an email with the above information and I can do a simple calculation to determine just how much heat / cooling you’re losing by not insulating. fryer@smartercontext.com