It's Hip to be Warm

Keeping warm this winter is important to keep you and your family healthy and happy. Most conventional means of heating homes are ultimately through the burning of fossil fuels or wood, but heat doesn’t just come from turning up the thermostat or throwing a log on the fire any more. The cold of winter is just beginning and it’s not too late to invest in an eco-friendly and chic alternative to conventional heat. Check out an eco-fireplace to keep you warm and stylish for this and winters to come. Try the Zeta EcoSmart Fire brings us their award winning Zeta model. This stylish fireplace is made up of timber, leather, and stainless steel, with glass screens on either side of the fire. The Zeta, which is located on a secure swivel stainless steel base, acts almost as a space heater, portable and able to heat the area around it. It is available in four different exterior colors: Nero, Ranch Hide, Latte, and Ciocolatta. The flames for this chic fireplace are fueled by denatured ethanol, a renewable biofuel. Or Maybe the Fire Ribbon Another company, Spark Fires, created a beautiful fireplace known as the Fire Ribbon. This “versatile installation” fireplace does not require any ventilation, so can be installed in your home with ease. This fireplace is over 95% efficient and can run on either natural gas or propane. This stylish fireplace will be a welcome addition to any home this winter. Bringing the Heat with the Igloo If the Zeta and Fire Ribbon are too conventional for you, you will love the Igloo made by EcoSmart. The fireplace consists of a stainless steel bench with flames, suspended by glass. The Igloo is a visual and a practical gem, with flames that reflect off the glass to create a beautiful dancing effect. The Igloo, also running on denatured ethanol, is truly an eco-conscious luxury and a fashion forward way to heat your home. So when it comes to keeping warm this winter, invest in an environmentally friendly fireplace that doesn’t sacrifice aesthetics for function. Image Credit: EcoSmart, Inhabit.com

Passive Houses: A New Solution to an Old Problem

A recent article in the New York times highlighted an interesting trend in green building. Passive houses, which have been gaining popularity in Europe for years, are beginning to come to the United States. These homes, built for extreme energy efficiency, utilize no more than a quarter of the heating energy required in older structures. In some cases, such as the house described in the article above, the power required is as little as one twentieth of the norm, or about the amount required to run a hairdryer. In addition, when energy needs are this low, it's relatively easy to go a step further and supply them with solar or other green power sources. Of course, the idea of using passive heating isn't new, and many of the features of passive houses would be familiar to green builders. These homes tend to have large south-facing windows to take advantage of sunlight, and extremely efficient insulation to keep heat generated by occupants and their appliances inside. There is an important new twist, however: a heat exchange system ventilates the house with fresh air, while transferring 80% of the heat from the exhaust air to the intake. This allows every other area of the building to be built tighter than ever before without becoming stuffy. In Germany, where this technology was pioneered, passive houses (and other buildings, including schools), are becoming quite popular, and they now cost only about five percent more to build. In the United States the movement is still in its infancy, but some designers, such as Nabih Tahan in the Bay Area, are already helping it to gain a foothold. Hopefully we will see many future developments in this field!