April 22nd means that Earth Day is here! It’s time to start thinking and acting a little more eco-friendly. Here’s are six ways to optimize your Earth Day experience.

1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

This sounds simple and may be overly obvious, but it really works. Get in the habit of incorporating the “three R’s” into products you use on a daily basis. This process can have an effect on what you choose to buy. It also affects how you use and dispose of things you already have.

Remember to review all the acceptable items that can be recycled in your community. It’s likely that you’ll find something on the list that you’re accustomed to throwing away. Below are the links to view the lists for the current Ferris Homes communities.

• Grand Bend at Green Bay: City of Evanston Recycling
• Liberty Grove: City of Libertyville Recycling (PDF - 286 KB)
• Amberwood Estates: City of Wheaton & DuPage County Recycling (PDF - 120 KB)

2. Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs

Replace three (3) frequently used light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) and reduce your carbon footprint by 450 pounds a year. With CFL bulb prices continually dropping and the technology improving (increases in both bulb life & lumens per watt) this should be an easy choice. Need more reasons?

• CFLs save people money. Switching to CFLs is a fundamentally good economic decision
• Anyone can make the switch and begin using the bulbs
• CFLs drastically reduce energy consumption

3. Party Smart

Late April is also a great time for parties. But parties can generate a lot of waste. Here’s a few tips for an eco-friendly party:

• Set up recycling bins for aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles
• Buy large quantities of food and drinks to reduce packaging
• Encourage guests to bring their own glasses and/or plates to reduce waste (there will also be less confusion about which drink belongs to each person

4. Use Water Wisely

Saving water around the house is important because it is a limited resource. Here’s a few easy ways how to use less water and save some money:

• Take shorter showers because showers account for 2/3 of all water heating costs
• Put a filled bottle in your toilet tank (less water used per flush)
• Reuse water around the house, such as using cooking water for plants
• Keep your water heater insulated and the thermostat no higher than 120°F
• Use cold water to wash your clothes

5. Stop Filling Up The Gas Tank

Car pool, use public transportation, bike to work or drive a fuel efficient car. Not only will you be putting much less carbon dioxide into the air, you’ll also be saving a bundle as gas prices creep upwards towards $4.00/gallon.

6. Take Advantage of the Weather

Depending on where you live, this time of year has some of the nicest weather. Try opening windows instead of running the air conditioning and/or heater. This will also save some money on your energy bill.

Nice weather is also a great excuse to drive less. Walking and biking help your health and are better for the air.

Chicago Tribune
Friday, March 30, 2007
By Leslie Mann, Special to the Tribune

Imagine buying a new house with ceiling lights in some rooms, wall lights in the bathrooms and a pair of outdoor fixtures flanking the front door.

Sounds like a Spartan lighting plan? That was the norm just 20 years ago, when lighting was an afterthought and “lighting plan” was an oxymoron. Along came home tours, the Internet, HGTV and a flurry of home magazines that enabled consumers to, literally, see the light. Manufacturers multiplied their light-fixture offerings, lighting plans were attached to architectural plans and home buyers upped their lighting demands. Big time.

“What used to be “upscale lighting” has moved down even to tract homes, too,” reports Debbie Kosters, vice president of Inland Electric in Shorewood, which supplies builders, architects and homeowners. “Consumers want it and the builders are giving it to them. It’s not necessarily that lighting is a bigger part of the house budget because there are just so many more products, with better finishes, available now at all prices.” Ditto for lighting control, adds Kosters, which now routinely includes such features as motion sensors and dimmers, at least.

The notion of hiring a lighting designer, once limited to builders of pricy residences and commercial buildings, has trickled down also.

“I’m not just working with the very high-end buyer anymore,” says Peter Hugh of Hugh Lighting Design LLC in Oak Park. “Even if the client doesn’t hire me to do his whole house, he may ask me to do a special room such as a media room. And you’d be surprised what you can do on a modest budget.”

For those with tight budgets, Hugh recommends concentrating on the kitchen and the master bathroom, if the latter is your retreat. When a client shows him magazine pictures of a room she likes, he asks her to describe what she likes about the room’s lighting, not the specific fixture featured. “Is it romantic? Spa-like? Exciting?” he asks. “You can achieve these things with different fixtures.”

For a multipurpose room such as a great room or a finished basement (lighting designers’ greatest challenges), Hugh helps a homeowner design lighting that can break up the room into different zones. Then the homeowner can program the correct ambience for each zone.

Arch Ahern admits he spent lots of time shopping and combing magazines before choosing the lighting for his new townhouse in Libertyville, built by Ferris Homes in 2005.

“This is my fifth house, and I’ve learned from each one,” said Ahern. His lighting includes everything from down-lit stairway walls to up-lit bathroom vanities to cans aplenty that showcase his art collection. The most practical: a coat closet light that turns on automatically when you open the door.

Every lighting plan takes into account natural light and that, too, is expanding.

To preview lighting in tomorrow’s new house, look to top-dollar high-rise residential buildings such as the Mandarin Oriental Tower, slated to open in Chicago in 2009. Its lighting contractor, Ken Johnson of Premiere Condominium Technologies in Chicago, will include a light-emitting diode lighting system as an upgrade.

“Instead of a bulb, the LED is a little semiconductor that produces light,” explained Johnson. “It lasts for years, so you don’t change bulbs, and it uses much less electricity than bulbs. Until recently, these weren’t used in residential buildings because they weren’t bright enough and they cost too much. But that’s changing. Now we can use them anywhere we’d use a traditional fixture.”

Also on the horizon, say builders and designers, is a greater use of whole-house, automated lighting controls. ART-Allsmart Residential Technology Inc. in Lake Forest, for example, offers a system that enables the homeowner to pre-set the house’s lighting for “vacation,” “entertainment” or “sleep,” for example, and to control any light from any room so a homeowner can, say, turn off the kids’ bedroom lights from her bedroom. While these systems are too pricey for homeowners of modest means, they are already popular among high-end buyers.

In the meantime, lighting contractors tell home buyers that it costs much less to include lighting during construction than to add it later.

“One thing I’ve learned is to do as much as you can upfront,” said Ahern. “Even then, you will think of something else you left out.”