An outdoor shower

I was talking to my brother yesterday who'd spent the better part of the day outside doing yard work. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned that I was going back to The Bahamas in a couple of weeks to stay in a thatched roof shack on the beach. I've been to this same place about four times already and I was telling my brother that one of my favorite things about the place is that the showers are outside. He started dreaming of building himself an outdoor shower for yard work days and I started whining because I want an outdoor shower to use every day. Ahhh, to be naked in the sunshine is indeed a wonderful thing and the very idea of an outdoor shower exerts a very strong pull on me for some reason. I'm fortunate to live in a climate where something like an outdoor shower would be usable virtually year-round. Not so my temperate-climate-inclined brother. But the whole conversation reminded me of an article I'd read in the New York Times at some point in the last two weeks. According to my pals at the Times, outdoor showering is a thing whose time has come.

Setting up a shower outdoors isn't such a big deal and by setting it up without a traditional drain line can irrigate the area immediately surrounding your outdoor shower. Furthermore, an outdoor shower could be a handy excuse to start thinking about greywater reclamation.

So to plan an outdoor shower of your own, you'll need access to a water line, access to hot water for the faint of heart and some form of privacy screen for the modest. If the shower's not going to be plumbed with a drain line, it should be positioned over a dry well. A dry well is essentially a pit filled with gravel. For additional elevation and to keep you from standing in water while it drains into the ground, building a small teak deck to use as a shower platform is a great idea. Finally, plant some bamboo or other fast-growing, screen-type shrub around the perimeter of the shower and voila! An activity one relegated to the inside comes out into the clear light of day.

If you're planning to build or have built any type of outdoor plumbing, be sure to use copper pipes and for God's sake put cut off valves on the supply lines. PVC pipes aren't stable in direct sunlight and who wants to breathe aerosolized PVC anyway?

Let's save some money!

I have been on a real electricity conservation kick lately so I'm going to write some more about it today. In May, I finished swapping out the last of my light bulbs with CFLs, I increased the temperature setting on my fridge and I started turning off all of my power vampires when I leave the house in the morning. It worked. I just got my electric bill and I have halved my electrical use and more importantly to me, I have halved the amount of my bill. Hot dog! I really don't feel like I'm depriving myself of anything --I still run my air conditioning and I don't sit in the dark. But it's incredible to me that making some small changes like the ones I've made has netted me some real results.



My beloved St. Pete Times ran the following this morning and I'm repeating it in toto here.

• Put off the flat-screen television purchase, or unplug the one you have when it is not in use. Many flat-screen televisions can use as much power as an energy-efficient refrigerator.


• Change to compact fluorescent light bulbs. The energy-saving light bulbs use about a third of the energy of incandescents.


• Set your thermostat between 78 and 80 degrees, or higher if you're comfortable. When you leave the house, turn it up by 5 to 7 degrees instead of turning it off.


• Use ceiling and portable fans to keep air moving. Ceiling fans can make a room feel 2 degrees cooler.


• Close drapes, blinds and shades in the hottest part of the day.


• Get a clothesline. It's hot out. Let the heat dry your clothes. A dryer uses lots of electricity, and adds heat to your house that your air conditioner has to work against. Florida law says homeowners associations can't ban clotheslines.


• Consider "zoned" air conditioning systems that allow you to cool only the rooms you are in, or a small window unit to cool only the rooms in use.


• Check with your utility about home energy audits that can see where you are wasting electricity. Some utilities also offer rebates on energy-saving devices like thermal wraps for water heaters or solar thermal hot water installation. Tampa Electric and Progress Energy offer audits and other programs.


• Turn your computer and monitor off. Screen saver modes save no power. Sleep modes continue to draw electricity. With most computers, powering it on and off does not wear it out. There is more wear and tear on electronics from the heat stress of constantly running.


• Unplug "vampires." These are cable boxes, televisions, phone chargers, iPod charging stations. All of them draw power even then they are not charging a device, and even when they are in sleep mode. These devices can add as much as 10 percent to your power bill. You can also put the devices on power strips, and turn the strip off when the appliances are not in use.

Solar water heaters' time has come

I noticed that my new friends over at Metaefficient ran a story the other day about solar water heaters in Israel. According to their website, 90% of all Israeli homes have solar water heaters. And then last week, Treehugger ran a story about Hawaii's new requirement that all new homes use solar water heaters. And then finally, my beloved St. Pete Times reported on 2 July that the thieves at Progress Energy were granted another rate increase so that as of January, Floridians will be paying $135 per kilowatt hour; that's a $27 increase over what we're paying today. Hmmmm. Wouldn't it make sense for the Sunshine State to start to tap into what's arguably our most plentiful natural resource? Saint Petersburg, my adopted hometown, is widely claimed to have 360 sunny days a year. Yet when I look over the rooftops of this paradise-by-the-sea what I don't see anywhere are solar panels. Might it have something to do with our one-party legislature making conservation and alternative energy synonymous with communism? Now I ask you, how is saving money and using resources wisely a partisan issue? Well, in a country where the Vice President goes on record with the quip "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy," nothing is a surprise.

Anyhow, enter the solar water heater. For most people, 30% of their monthly electric bill goes to heating water. Wouldn't it be cool as well as a great way to stick it to the thieves at Progress Energy to generate 90 to 95% of your own hot water and thereby keep more of your own money? Now imagine a world where everybody had these things. Progress Energy wouldn't need to raise rates or build new gazillion dollar power plants. No new power plants would mean a less blighted landscape, cleaner air and better water quality. Wow, it sounds as if conservation could be the basis of a sound and comprehensive energy policy after all Mr. Cheney.

A solar water heater is a pretty cool thing. They consists of three or four panels on the roof that have water circulating through them. The water gets heated by the sun and stored in a regular water heater tank. On a cloudy day, the regular electric water heater kicks in to guarantee a supply of hot water. On sunny days, the system hums along and keeps you with all the hot water you could hope for and it doesn't cost anything to operate. Talk to these guys , ECS Solar Energy Systems, Inc of Gainesville, about getting a system of your very own.

Starck strikes again

My new pals over at Inhabitat brought this beauty to my attention yesterday and this story dovetails perfectly into everything I've been talking about ans looking for these last couple of months. What I'm talking about is displayed below. It's Philippe Starck's "Democratic Ecology" personal wind turbine that goes into production in September '08. Starck unveiled it at a trade show in Milan, Greenergy Design, an expo dedicated to exploring sustainability and energy alternatives. Starck seems to have trumped everybody with his Democratic Ecology though. This wind turbine is a $600, roof-mounted supplemental generator that can supply 20 to 60% of a home's electricity needs. That it's made from a clear polycarbonate is genius --adding infrastructure without taking anything away from how things look. It certainly has me thinking. What if everybody in my neighborhood had one of these things? We'd save money for starters and that's my bottom line interest in sustainability if I'm going to be brutally honest. And what it would do too is eliminate the need for the thieves at Progress Energy to build a new plant and raise our electric rates by the 15 percent they're itching to do right now. Pretty cool. The people get cheaper electricity and in so doing have to burn less fuel through their electricity provider and therefore pollute less. It's a win all around. All hail Philippe Starck!

I love Cuban tile

I saw something on Apartment Therapy today that reminded me of my big find at the tile industry show in Orlando last May. And that would be Cuban tile. One of my favorite things about living in an older neighborhood in Florida is the sheer volume of Cuban tile that was used in the construction of a lot of older homes here. Cuban tile is gorgeous and it's enjoying a bit of a resurgence and that's fantastic news. Sure, who doesn't love a porcelain tile that's imitating travertine? But enough already. Show me something else. Well, else, is precisely what Cuban tile is.

For starters it's a green product made from Portland cement, powdered marble and mineral pigments. It's not a fired ceramic tile at all. Rather its a cement tile made with very little water and then pressed under tremendous pressure. The result is a brightly colored, extremely strong material that will make anywhere look like a shaded veranda in Florida. Just gorgeous.

These slide shows feature examples of work from two separate companies selling new Cuban tile. First up is a company called Villa Lagoon, who has the tiles made in the Dominican Republic and then distributes them throughout the US from a distributor in Tampa. Pretty stuff, though it's a bit more of a modern-ish take on the traditional patterns.

The second company, Cuban Tropical Tile, is out of Miami and these guys stick to the traditional forms and colors.

Keep Cuban tile in mind if you're looking to do something different yet timeless to your floors.