Organic Bath Towels 

  Finding the right towel can be tricky. On the one hand, you need a towel which is thick enough to really absorb moisture, but I have also found that top quality thick towels can also be too stiff. So our organic towels I am pleased to say really hit the right note, as they are ultra soft and absorbent at the same time. I might also say that my opinion is shared by the man of the house for whom organic in a towel is not so important as its softness and absorbency. I wish I could justify throwing out all our other towels and just use these ones, as they make using a towel so much more pleasurable. My husband of course will use nothing else - I get to use the other ones.  Starting at $119 for two bath sheet set.  http://www.greenandmore.com/organic-bath-towels.html

Being a cat fan when I saw this little wind up rechargeable LED flash light, it was on my “must buy” gift list for every friend I have who is also a cat lover like me. It is absolutely adorable and actually gives off a decent amount of light. When the lights went out in our offices recently it was this little cat LED flash light that saved the day when I wanted to visit the Ladies Room! It is small enough to fit in a purse and can save you fumbling on a dark night when you are trying to fit your front door key in lock. Starting at $14.99

http://www.greenandmore.com/greenandmore-blackcat-rechargeable-LED-flashlight.html

Before you rush ahead and install a tankless water heater in your home you need to do some investigation to decide whether indeed it is the right option for you and your family. Be clear, I am a great fan of tankless water heaters and grew up with them 40 years ago in England, but like every appliance they have their pluses and minuses.

On the plus side:

1. You never need to worry about a water heater failure and flood while you are out for the day - let alone away on vacation. That peace of mind is worth quite a bit in my book.

2. A tankless water heater can easily last 20 years and we have heard of some lasting over 50 years, so over the long haul they can yield enormous replacement water heater cost savings.

3. Hot water in a family accounts for about 10-13% of their total energy bill. Using tankless water heaters an average family can save about $250 a year in energy costs.

4. Both federal and state governments are promoting the use of tankless water heaters so you might get as much as $100 credit for purchasing one. We predict that in the future all new homes will have tankless systems in them.

5. Hot water on demand is literally endless, so if the unit is properly sized, there is never a possibility of running out of hot water even if everyone in the family is using hot water for showers, dishwashers and laundry at the same time.

On the minus side:

1. While the cost of the tankless water heater is about the same as a conventional water heater, the installation is often much more expensive with the break even point at five years of more out. So if you are not planning on staying in your house very long this might not be a good choice for you. The plumbing part of installation is quite simple but most home owners will have to spend some money on electrical upgrades to their breaker box to bring in several dedicated 220 volt lines. The installation cost which can run as much as $500-$1500.

2. While tankless water heaters last so much longer than their conventional counterparts, they are not without some maintenance costs every 5 to 7 years. There are electric heating coils inside the water heater and this is its point of failure especially if air gets into the water pipes. This may happen more often than you think because the mains water can get shut off outside when road repairs are taking place and you may of may not get notified that this is taking place. Also if you shut off your water when you are going on vacation then you will have noticed that it “spits and sputters” on your return and you need to let the COLD water run for 5 to 10 minutes before turning on the hot water. The good news is that the element only costs $35 and can be easily replaced by the home owner. This is a spare part that we recommend having put aside somewhere so you never have to be without hot water.

3. You need to decide what is the perfect water temperature for your house which can be a bit difficult if you have bathrooms on 3 different levels. The bathroom on the highest level will always have water which is slightly cooler than downstairs. We all typically run the water hot then mix it with cold to get the perfect temperature. Stands to reason that you do not want to spend money heating up water only to then cool it down afterwards. Relearning that behavior will take some getting used to.

4. If you have the kind of furnace which is designed to “free heat” your water heater, then you are only heating up your hot water in the summer months, which would make your payback period much longer and may give you pause to consider whether it is a viable project for you.

This being said I gamely volunteered to be the corporate guinea pig to install a tankless water heater in my townhouse. I chose a top of the line Eemax system and opted for external digital controls to regulate my water temperature. I have an oil based system and it was 10 years old and is an accident waiting to happen. My townhouse is 25 years old, so I do have a modern circuit breaker panel system - but it was too small to accommodate any more breakers. So we need to put in an additional panel or replace the existing one with a bigger one. I was worried that this would put this project over budget but in fact I have been quoted $200 plus parts for the electrical and $100 for the plumbing so I am not expecting my total installation bill to be more than $350 which rivals the installation cost of a regular water heater. So considering this is Boston and not the cheapest part of the country, so I consider myself lucky. I am however going to take lessons on how to install a burnt electric coil which cannot be more complicated than changing a light bulb, and a way to avoid unnecessary labor costs down the road for a trivial repair.

I will let you know how the installation went and my assessment of the effectiveness of the tankless system in the next few weeks….

  It is easy to forget that these eco-friendly teak cutting boards are made out of young teak trees thinned out so that other trees can grow. The truth is they are just plain gorgeous- stunning in fact- and bound to cause a smile to the face of anyone who gets one of these as a gift. As a cheese board or for a display of hors d’oevres these teak cutting boards are magnificent. They are so beautiful it actually seems like a travesty to chop on them. My husband immediately said they were the next thing on his list to give his children. He then showed them to friends of ours who immediately reacted the same way, and wanted to give them to their adult kids (hey, I’m an adult kid) this holiday season. We gave one as a gift this last week and scored a big hit. There are two main patterns and I would recommend either the largest rectangular or the large circular shapes. Quite honestly, you cannot go wrong and these teak cutting boards are very modestly priced for what you get. Starting at $17.99

  http://www.greenandmore.com/proteak-cutting-boards.html

Many years ago, I had an energy audit done on my house I live in during the work week, and one of the first things they did was recommend the installation of an attic insulation cover, so that we did not waste either heating or cooling costs through leaks to the attic. It is not without significance that this house which has been “energy proofed” is significantly lower cost to run than our newer summer home which is of similar size. Energy conservation is all about doing a bunch of little things but they all add up. Starting at $105.99

http://www.greenandmore.com/attic-insulation-covers.html

When I first unpacked these LED torch lights I was a little disappointed, and then as I assembled and later used them, I was simply delighted! So be warned, if you intend to give them as a gift, pre-assemble them for the recipient to insure the lights are used and not re-gifted.When you have gotten through rolling the colored vellum papers and putting in batteries, what you discover is that you have a charming set of long lasting torch lights each giving off the equivalent of 15 watts of incandescent power. 45 Watts in total which is only 3 watts of LED power.

I was simply entranced with these lights and have used them on our deck for mood lighting or when I’m taking a long soak in the bathtub and even or emergency lighting during a power outage. Our grandchildren also thought that the torch lights were splendid and the five year old twin girls carried them solemnly throughout the house. Just this last weekend my husband took the yellow one on his nightly walk through our condo complex so these torch lights have a myriad of uses. Starting at $59.99

http://www.greenandmore.com/cordless-led-torch-lights.html

We have a bunch of these hygrometers scattered throughout our house as I like to make sure that the humidity level is being kept under control, preferably no more than 50% humidity. Above this humidity level is when both mold spores and dust mites can start to breed. By using these hygrometers I have peace of mind and so can you. Priced at $39.95 and it also features a thermometer and clock.  

http://www.allergybuyersclubshopping.com/thermometer-hygrometer.html

As company president, I am often asked which dehumidifier do I use in my own basement? I use two dehumidifiers one of them being the Comfort-Aire low temperature dehumidifier which I have hooked up with a pump to my furnace in a room which abuts the finished space of about 800 square feet. I have been using the Comfort-Aire for four summers without any problem at all. It has been amazingly reliable and most certainly gets the job done. I set it at fifty degrees and monitor its performance throughout the space with a humidistat. We routinely have power outages each summer and because of Auto Restart, as the saying goes the Comfort-Aire keeps going and going. For the price, I do not expect it to last forever but I certainly think it gives good value for the money. Starting at $319.95 for the 50 pint low temp dehumidifier.

http://www.allergybuyersclubshopping.com/comfortaire-lt-45-65-dehumidifiers.html

Our latex pillows come in three levels of firmness and when checking around to our staff, I found that “Latex Soft” is by far and away the outright winner. I have fallen in love with these pillows, which are wonderfully scrunchy and as a side sleeper, I like a nice responsive pillow. I like these pillows so much I have put them in every bedroom of our home and am confident that they will last at least 10 years which makes them an outright bargain. Coupled with that they are dust mite resistant which means I do not have to purchase dust mite encasings for them. Before I bought these pillows I was somewhat skeptical of a “rubber pillow” having slept on down for my entire life - but these latex pillows made a believer out of me. A perfect pillow does not always have to be made out of down. Starting at $169.99

http://www.allergybuyersclubshopping.com/latex-foam-pillows.html

I will be entering my fourth season using the same Air-0-Swiss humidifier; the Air-o-Swiss 7135 humidifier. This immediately tells you something about its reliability and my satisfaction with the product. It garners our category winner award in the Humidifiers category and for some very good reasons.

1. It is almost noiseless, and therefore is a humidifier that my husband can live with in our bedroom. It is strategically placed so as to reduce his snoring and my tendency to sinus infections.

2. It humidifies a good sized master bedroom quite quickly, so we do not need to keep it running 24/7 although we sometimes do in the dead of winter.

3. It is light enough to make filling it up a relatively easy process even if you have little upper arm strength. It is not a top fill which would be my first choice, but refilling is not onerous and it lasts at least 24 hours.

4. It offers the option of cool and warm mist. Since we live in the Northeast, I choose the warm mist option as it results in a humidity which is pleasantly warm rather than cool and clammy.

5. Even though I use it on warm mist, because of the demineralization cartridge I do not have any white dust around my bedroom. I might hasten to add that we do not have hard water and for those with very hard water, and an air washer might be a better choice.

6. I also can rest easy that this humidifier is not spewing out bacteria into the air because the water is sterilized using a patented ionic stick. We are so impressed with the ionic stick, we recommend it as an accessory to other humidifiers.

So all in all I think this humidifier gets the job done and I have no complaints and would recommend it to others without hesitation. It is not without note to reveal that we have the highest customer satisfaction with this brand as evidenced by the lowest level of returns. Our customers like this humidifier and we agree with them. Starting at $169.99

http://www.allergybuyersclubshopping.com/airoswiss-7135-humidifiers.html