Nolde Forest State Park hosts free Green Rebuild workshop on April 5.

As a way to push green forward in our community, Nolde Forest State Park in Cumru Township, Berks County, is hosting Green Rebuild: Renovating for a Healthy Environment, as a free workshop on Saturday, April 5 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

( All photographs courtesy of Nolde Forest State Park )

The event will help those who attend to better understand the growing options available today in how to pursue renovations and remodeling projects with eco-friendly and more sustainably-geared products and approaches.

"The program was inspired by my own kitchen remodeling project and the time-consuming experience of researching, comparing, and choosing materials (and then finding them) while working with a limited budget," explains Eleanor Sweeney who serves as an environmental education specialist at the state park office.

Kurt and Joanne Reinhart who serve as members of Nolde Forest’s Sustainable Energy Committee (and new members are always welcome!) are building a new home, aiming for “net-zero” energy with a tight building envelope and very extensive use of recycled/re-purposed materials, Sweeney mentions.

The Reinharts will also be discussing their project's planning and budgeting and will have visuals to illustrate their efforts at the program this Saturday.

"After learning about their project, especially their extensive use of recycled items, I wished I had thought about these options as well," Sweeney says in reflecting on recently remodeling at her own home.

Sweeney knew, once she heard the Reinharts story, that the lessons learned would be great to expose to the local community.

"We agreed that it would be helpful to save people a certain amount of the basic research about what building greener means, how to go about it, and what’s available to work with," she says.

And since "greenwashing" is stirring into supply, department, and online stores more and more, it's important to understand what is truly more green and what is merely advertised as green in terms of products on shelves today.

"People who are planning remodeling or renovation projects (as well as new construction) can save energy and create a healthier indoor environment simply by their choice of construction and finish materials," Sweeney says.

With this in mind, she easily advocates how becoming more versed in this realm can bring advantages at the community level.

"Less toxic materials benefit people’s health by reducing chemical exposure and also environmental health by decreasing sources of pollution," she says. "Use of recycled and recyclable materials reduces overall waste, saves landfill space, and reduces demand for more 'new' things."

And then there's the other kind of green to push forward. "Energy efficiency results in lower demand on utilities and money savings for homeowners," she adds.

Gary Laity of A.G. Artisan Finishes in West Reading will offer insights from the perspective of a painting specialist. Laity will help workshop-goers to understand important aspects with indoor air quality and choices of materials that may minimize chemical exposure.

Jennifer Bryan, an independent realtor who specializes in green homes, will offer ideas that involve energy upgrades in renovations and their effect on market values, Sweeney notes.

Several products for comparison, like lighting choices and insulation samples, will be a part of the event, too.

The workshop's demonstrations and discussions will be in the C. H. McDonnell Environmental Educational Hall, reachable from Route 625 through GPS address 2910 New Holland Road, Reading, PA 19607, using the Park Office Lane entrance.

Anyone is welcome to attend, as the workshop is designed to benefit those from residential, nonprofit, and commercial backgrounds. To register for the free event, call Nolde Forest State Park at 610.796.3699, reach Sweeney at 610.796.3689, or email her at noldeforestprogramstaff@pa.gov.

North Carolina entrepeneur breaks solar ground on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

With Reginald Parker's family having been involved in sharecropping for generations spent in North Carolina, he is now helping farmland to take a shift into clean energy with his entrepreneurial choices.

Parker is giving tribute to his ancestors' hard-working cotton and tobacco-harvesting efforts by advancing agricultural fields instead into solar.

NationSwell explains more of Parker's plans with solar in his home state, with great honor tied into the picture as he moves forward in this renewable energy on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. To find out more, read here.

Soak Up the Sun & Savings Before the PA Sunshine Grant Runs Out

From a call this Monday to the PA Sunshine Program office in Harrisburg, PA Sunshine Team members confirmed that the fund is still at $1,622,306 since last noting the balance on their website as of September 20.

The delay in this week's update on the fund balance is due to the office's current heaping applications in need of review.

Earlier this year, the state replenished the fund to $7.25 million, but a good portion of that went directly to applicants on last year's waiting lists for the grant.

 Grants for homeowners have a cap at $7,500 for up to 10 KW solar PV systems, while small business owners installing commercial solar energy have a maximum rebate of $52,500. The cap is 100 KW for commercial solar.

Some customers are seeing rates of return above 18% and paybacks in less than 4 years. On top of that, solar is a great way to bring savings to your electricity bill as the costs of traditional energy only continue to rise. And the environment will thank you, too.

The grant fund is slated to close as of December 31, 2013 or sooner if the rebates are completely used up before then by residents and small business owners in Pennsylvania who are installing solar on their properties and signing up to benefit from the program.

From start to finish, paperwork, planning, permitting, and interconnection approval with your local utility company can take up to 2 or 3 months. So that means anyone who is seriously interested in solar and appreciating the PA Sunshine grant needs to literally act fast in pushing green forward both through these environmental energy smarts and your budget.

GreenPointe.Energy can help you with the application process and be a part of bringing solar home or into your business' vision. To find out more about how to keep green-speak benefiting you in 2013, call 1.800.619.9880.

Sunny regards!  

GreenPointe.Energy Brings Solar Leasing to Homeowners in Pennsylvania through Houston-Based Sunnova.

GreenPointe.Energy of Chester County, Pa. recently partnered with Sunnova of Houston, Texas as a way to bring solar leasing to homeowners not only in neighboring New Jersey but now Pennsylvania, too.

While solar leasing has been minimally available to residents Pennsylvania--the team at Sunnova, working together in solar since 2010--is pushing forward in seeing the benefit of helping residents of the state to appreciate alternative energy options from the comfort of their own homes.

"We want to help more homeowners choose low-cost, affordable solar electricity to power their homes," said Jordan Fruge, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Sunnova. "We buy solar energy systems and provide solar service to our customers over long, fixed periods of time."

As one of the top solar electricity power providers in the U.S., Sunnova offers leasing in 17 states across the country.

"Customers historically have never had any choice, Fruge said. "They do now, and not only one that allows them to save money today but also lock in their rate for the future."'

As more people are gearing up to see what green options are available to them, a curiosity about solar is sweeping across the state.

"It comes down to economics," Fruge said. "Companies such as Sunnova have enabled more people to have access to solar than in the past. Before, it was really only almost reserved for the rich and those who could write big, large checks. We're democratizing it and extending solar to the masses."

And leasing solar versus purchasing it outright is definitely making it a viable option for more and more people.

"If you choose to purchase the system, you're saying you want to take on the warranty, insurance, monitoring, and production risk associated with that system," he said, pointing out that with a lease, all of that responsibility would be on the shoulders of Sunnova. "We're experts in solar so you don't have to be."

Fruge noted that one of the major reasons Sunnova decided to bring solar leasing into Pennsylvania is because of its reputable and well-experienced installers like GreenPointe.Energy.

And Fruge beamed in green-speak that solar is obviously growing across the U.S. and the globe as well.

"More than 100,000 homeowners a year are choosing to go solar. What it really represents is a different and a better way for people to purchase a portion of their overall electricity needs--because the utility companies have, can, and do raise rates whenever it suits them. And they've shown a long history of doing that," he said.

"If you want price certainty, locking in that price, and a cleaner way to power part of your home, solar is the right answer for you," Fruge said. "And we want to continue to help more Pennsylvania homeowners make that decision."

Fruge said he anticipates seeing a greater and greater percentage of Pennsylvania homeowners going solar in the next few years.

"Anytime you can reduce the operating expenses of a home, you're going to increase the value of that home," Fruge added as a final important point to take away from solar leasing.

"We're certainly very excited about the partnership," Fruge said in regard to working with GreenPointe.Energy. "And we look forward to growing that relationship."

To find out more, call 1.800.619.9880. 

New digital free air pumps at Wawa are a breeze to use but environmentally friend, too.

Some Wawa locations recently replaced their traditional air pumps with new digital ones. These are more energy-efficient but also incredibly easy and technologically savvy.

And the air is still free at Wawa, which is a nice perk compared to other gas stations that can charge up to 75 cents or more for air for when your tire pressure is low.

Instead of wasting air by letting the pump run for a minute or two after you have filled all the air you need into your tires which are low on pressure, the sensors in these shut the flow of air off a second or two after you pull the hose away from the tire's valve stem. 

That is after it gets to the specific amount of pounds of air pressure you select, like 32 pounds, for example, since this is the general figure suggested for tires on many sedans today. The pump beeps to let you know you're filled up and ready to go.

The green smarts of keeping your tires inflated.

When tires are not inflated to their capacity, it takes more energy to get them moving and to help them to stay at the speed a driver wants.

But on top of that, under-inflated tires end up translating to higher fuel costs, which means more pollution filtering into the air. And that means more money out of your pocket, too.

Automobile specialists normally recommend checking tire pressure at least once a month, but checking the pressure twice a month is even better. It's easy to forget about this though since so many people are just so busy nowadays. But remembering to take the time to check tire pressure will be a better bet in the long run.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy branch says on www.fueleconomy.gov that gas mileage can be bumped upward by 3.3 percent if tires are properly inflated on a regular basis.

This translates to around 11 cents per gallon saved.

And gas mileage efficiency can drop by 0.3 percent for every single pound per square inch (otherwise known as PSI) lost in all four tires on a vehicle.
 
Even if these numbers don't seem that huge, they convert into several hundred gallons of gas extra used each year for a vehicle that would guzzle away around $300 to $500 more in fuel, says environmental journalist Larry West.

This is the case when a vehicle averages around 12,000 miles annually.

For each gallon of gas burned off while driving, around 20 pounds of carbon dioxide releases into the air.

Tires inflated to the proper pressure wear more evenly than ones with lower pressure and also tend to last longer for that reason.

Since 2008, automobile manufacturers have been required by Congress to install tire pressure monitoring systems on non-commercial vehicles so that people can keep a better eye on this from their dashboard.

To get a better idea of how tire pressure affects your wheels, read the sidewall information on your tires, check out your owner's manual, or talk to your mechanic.

Blue Moon Florist Reflects on Year into Solar.

DOWNINGTOWN, PA – After more than a year of producing solar energy in East Brandywine Township, Chester County, Pa. instead of pulling electricity for her floral shop from the grid, Ami Trost of Blue Moon Florist is easily proud of her decision to push forward in green-speak.

Trost is the president of Blue Moon Florist, while her husband Kevin Morgan serves as its sales director. Their 20-mile delivery radius from the shop includes floral shipments to Honey Brook, Coatesville, Elverson, West Chester, Malvern, Exton and other nearby towns.

With almost two decades in running the business, an average of 100 wedding clients in the tri-state area each year, and tens of thousands of flower arrangements prepared by Blue Moon Florist since opening, it’s easy to understand that Trost’s electricity costs would be pretty hefty.

Before solar, the shop’s electric bills often lingered around $700 to $800 monthly. Compared to that now, her 49.2 KW ground-mount behind the shop is helping her to now have bills that are always under $85 each month.

Installed by GreenPointe.Energy of Berwyn, Chester County, Pa., the system consists of 240 solar modules, each with a 205 watt rating. In the past, operations at the shop led to about 59,000 KWH used annually. But now Trost sees those old usage numbers translating into what she’s producing, thankfully.

“I’ve always been interested in solar since I was a little girl back in the 1970s when solar was first introduced to everyday residential applications,” Trost said. “It was really an alternative energy that came about back then but never really took root the way that it has today.”

She even tried to encourage her parents to bring solar energy home around the age of 9, seeing it as a no-brainer in terms of electricity cost savings and being more decent to the environment. But it wasn’t until she chose to bring solar into her own business setting with Blue Moon Florist that her childhood dream finally stepped into the picture.

“If we do sell the property sometime in the future, if this system lasts 40 to 45 years, it’s going to make us money,” Trost reflected. “Then the system becomes valuable to the real estate value. So how can you go wrong with that? You’re being green, and you have zero carbon emissions, which is very important to us and our son and our future and his children and thereafter.”

“It kind of goes hand-in-hand, being a florist and going green,” Trost said. “We’ve had at least one person a day since its inception ask us about the solar energy system. They’re just very curious about it and think it’s a cool thing.”

Get rid of weeds without using chemicals.

In the persuasion of green-speak, when summer's atrocious and rampant sweeps of weeds hit your gardens, patios, and sidewalks, be glad to know there are natural and environmentally-friendly alternatives to chemicals sprays.

As the co-founder and co-manager of the organic community garden in Kutztown, Berks County, Pa., Robyn Jasko easily advocates using vinegar or boiling water to safely kill off aggressively plentiful weeds.

Jasko is also the founder and editor of the goindie, growindie, travelindie, and dineindie websites and the author of Homesweet Homegrown: How to Grow, Make and Store Food, No Matter Where You Live; she presses forward in sustainability through lectures, demonstrations, and any opportunity to show people her knowledge in gardening.

Her general rule of thumb when tackling the problem of weeds is to apply undiluted vinegar onto the plants on a very sunny, day-- the hotter the tempatures, the better. The vinegar will kill any foliage it touches, over a period of 24 hours. 

Using a pumping sprayer, which you can buy at any home improvement store, is a more volume-conscious way to attack more weeds at once when they are vast and persistent in certain areas of the yard.

"All vinegars, undiluted, will work well again weeds, but the higher the concentration, the faster it works. Five percent vinegar work, well, but 20 percent vinegar works in as little as a few hours to kill weeds," Jasko says. "Always wear gloves to protect your hands against vinegar or boiling water weed applications."

With boiling water and pouring it over weeds, it's crucial to make sure to reach the roots in order for it to work successfully.

"And I am a huge fan of mulching with newspaper paper and straw to naturally block out light and prevent weeds from growing in the first place, versus dumping a bunch of Roundup and pesticides on your food or lawn to kill existing weeds," Jasko says.

"Chemical weed killers are extremely toxic to plants, people, animals, and everything they come near. The runoff from these pesticides is also extremely scary, as it gets into the water supply and destroys the eco-system," Jasko mentions in referencing an article published by the Rodale Institute based in Maxatawny Township, Berks County, Pa. "Plus, after several applications, there are diminishing returns, and you get this new generation of super weeds which are resistant to Roundup and chemical pesticides."

And when not using vinegar or boiling water to tackle weeds, Jasko doesn’t mind pulling some by hand.

“I actually save a pile of weeds and let them dry out in the sun for a day or so, and then use them as mulch to block out more weeds,” Jasko says. “There is something especially satisfying about using weeds to mulch weeds.”

Solar power in a flower.

It's great to see that a better appreciation of alternative and sustainable energy like solar is making a name for itself in today's toy industry, which goes to show that more and more people are seeing the value of sun-inspired energy efforts in daily living.

This quaint toy flower's rounded leaves and cheerful orange petals dance happily even with small amounts of sunlight in a room. And when young children see flowers like these bouncing about on a windowsill, their eyes often grow in awe and excitement for what they're glimpsing. And then they want to understand how it works, too.

The tiny frame of solar cells tucked in front of this toy flower in its bright blue pot help it to convert the light's energy into its own energy so that it can keep on dancing. And it easily shows how just a little bit of light has the capacity to literally power even a toy but so much more.

Sip well & solar up during Drinking Water Week.

May 5 to 11 is Drinking Water Week across the U.S., sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the EPA, and several other organizations that advocate pro-healthy drinking water availabilty.

"Water regulates the Earth's temperature," the National Sanitation Foundation mentions on its website in explaining some of the importance of water's functions. "It also regulates the temperature of the human body, carries nutrients and oxygen to cells, cushions joints, protects organs and tissues, and removes wastes."

In line with this week's geared awareness, a company known as Puralytics in Oregon has created a bag that harnesses the sun's energy paired with nanotechology in order to allow for clean drinking water in remote places. Its purification process is an advancement showing how solar smarts are an incredible asset in today's world.

Puralytics is also slated to develop a floating solar-powered device that will treat and remove contaminants in retention ponds and in ditches along heavy traffic roadways and parking areas so that the water reaching nearby streams would be cleaner and less polluted.

"What we do to the environment affects the quality of our drinking water," the NSF elaborates, with this tying well into showing how solar energy can be a part of prevention and better practices of sustainability in daily living. "What we pour on the ground will end up in our water; what we spray into the air will also end up in our water."

It helps that the production of solar energy tosses no harmful pollutants into the environment, too.

Diving into healthy choices in not only what we gulp down daily but in the types of energy we use is important for our world; think green and clean.