With South Florida already setting summer heat records, power bills may set even higher records this summer. But Ken Fields, who lives in a three-bedroom, three-bath house on Miami Beach, has just installed a roof-top photovoltaic system and is dramatically reducing his energy consumption in a first step to going off the grid.
Two South Florida women have created a virtual Little Green House -- an online business selling eco-friendly products for activities ranging from walking the dog to remodeling the kitchen.
LIVING GREEN
As the temperature rises, so too does the cost of cooling your home. Last week Florida Power & Light revealed plans to seek a 16 percent hike in electric rates in August. That makes it even more important to conserve energy. The following suggestions, put together by the U.S. Department of Energy and Alliance to Save Energy, can both help residents stay cool and save on electric bills.
A federal appeals court has upheld a 2½-year injunction blocking new construction in the Florida Keys from receiving federal flood insurance in places where rare creatures such as the Key deer roam.
GOING GREEN
A switch was pulled and the shelves of equipment murmured softly and turned on the lights. A house in Miami's Bay Heights quietly went off the grid and onto hydrogen power.
South-facing small windows and Bahama shutters, light paint and a white roof offer clues to the character of this house within a hammock: It is a ''green'' home that proudly wears a photovoltaic system and thermal water heater on its roof and envelopes a 7,500-gallon cistern within its walls.
Albert Harum-Alvarez, a software designer and consultant, grew up in Kendall and has spent years planning his home among the trees. Now under construction, it will catch the southeast breezes, use a geothermal pump for optional air conditioning, and employ a composting toilet system. Harum-Alvarez believes it's the greenest home in Miami-Dade County.
If you are building a home, there are ways to make it energy-efficient: Orient it so the long axis runs east and west. Limit west-facing windows.
CERTIFICATION
Carolyn Mitchell, a landscape architect with the architecture and design firm Zyscovich in Miami, started the South Florida chapter of the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council three years ago.
BUILDING GREEN
In Pompano Beach, the 27 Habitat for Humanity houses built or under construction on Northwest First Court are green, says Mary Lou Bowman Cubbin, architect and director of construction. The homes, designed to save energy costs and water for low-income families, feature double ceilings to cool air conditioning ducts, roof and soffit vents to ventilate attic space and R-30 ceiling insulation, more than the R-19 required by code.
This is one in a series about living green. Next week, we explore contemporary green homes. Forty years ago, Gwladys and Eugene Scott combined their lives and families and set out to design their dream house: a Japanese-inspired home in a South Florida hammock. It was to be without air conditioning, using salvaged pine beams, and open to the trees.
ARCHITECTURE
Alfred Browning Parker, legendary South Florida architect now living in Gainesville, came back to Miami some months ago to show his work at Miami Dade College. He chose to look back at homes he had designed, built and owned.
How can you retrofit a concrete block house with few windows to be more resource-conserving? ''It may not be practical to add a porch, but it might be practical to add shade trees on the south and west sides,'' suggests Janet McIlvane with the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa.
Half a century made all the difference. We went from designing with the climate to defensively shutting it out while shutting ourselves in, and today we are paying the energy price.
Living without air conditioning has its challenges, and with experience, Joyce Gann has learned how to do it.
Wise use of native plants can go a long way toward reducing outdoor water use while celebrating the place you call home.
APPLIANCES
How many times a day do you flush a toilet? How long are your showers? How many loads of laundry do you wash a week?
A new washing machine will appear in stores this summer that spins clothes so fast (1,200 revolutions per minute) they come out almost dry.
How lush does it flush? The newest high-efficiency toilets use only 1.28 gallons of water. Not lush. And that's the point. While 1.6 gallons per flush still is the standard, the new versions use 20 percent less water. The Environmental Protection Agency's voluntary WaterSense program, begun in 2006, will certify that products use less water.
How low can it flow? Water savings with low-flow shower heads add up when the flow slows to a rate of 1.5 to 2 gallons per minute.
