Biking the Paint Creek Trail

This past Saturday you may remember as one of Michigan's finer fall days. We took advantage of the beautiful weather with a trip up the Paint Creek Trail. We left in downtown Rochester and got within a few miles of Lake Orion before turning back. If you have never taken this trail, it's worth packing up the bikes and heading over. This is a better surface than the streets - certainly better then the sidewalks - and is cooled by the surrounding greenery.

On the way back, we stopped at the Paint Creek cider mill for cider and doughnuts. The cider mill is located on the trail at Goodison, on Orion Road.

After our ride, we gathered at the park and had a picnic supper. The early evening was exquisite, and we lingered, enjoying a last moment with summer.

Sump Pump Water Use System - John Heasley

Just thought I would post my attempt at putting our sump pump water to practical use while helping to reduce the load on the municipal storm drain.

When our house was originally built the sump pump water discharged unto the lawn about ten feet from the back of the house. The pump would run frequently as the water was being circulated down through the lawn and back into the sump system. Several years ago I installed a 4” underground plastic pipe from the sump pump that discharged directly into the storm drain at the front of the house but in the back of my head this always seemed like a waste of good water.

A few years ago I purchased a plastic 275-gallon container from Clawson Tank for less than $100. This was a used tank that had been steam cleaned. Don’t know if they are still available but you could try.

I then installed 1.5” plastic PVC pipe from the sump pump to the tank and provided a shut off so when the tank is full the water is manually diverted back into the storm drain. I am thinking of adding an overflow drain that would discharge automatically onto the grass.

I started by connecting a garden hose to the tank discharge plugging the end and drilling holes in the hose. The tank is elevated above the garden and I was using gravity feed. I never was able to determine the correct hole size and they kept plugging up otherwise the system worked fine.

This year I purchased a water pump from Northern Tool for about $150. This is a Wayne 120V 1HP sprinkler buster pump item #109258-291. In addition to the pump I also purchased #507510 1”X20” suction hose and #10823 1” foot valve. Very satisfied with the pump performance using a lawn sprinkler purchased at the local hardware store.

This pump can be damaged if run dry so I am using an 115V Little Giant Pump Cut Off Switch purchased from Webb’s Water Gardens. This was about $55 item #566009 and is set to shutdown the pump when the water in the tank is just above the suction foot valve.

I am sure there is a less complicated and cheaper way of accomplishing the same system but just thought I would share what I did. Please feel free to contact me with any questions and if you have any ideas let me know.

More photos below. They are, in order, the cut-off switch, the foot valve, the pump, the top of the tank, the shut-off valve and the sprinkler. Pictured at the top of the post is the tank.

Is environmentalism turning us into cranky people?

I ask this question because I'm beginning to feel a little cranky lately, and think it could be tied to this quest for more environmentally-friendly living. Here's what happened last week. Tom and I took a bike ride over Labor Day weekend to the mall because we both needed new shoes for the fall. Unfortunately for our sales clerk, she had to run into the back room quite a number of times before we found exactly what we were looking for. So before we began checking out, I noticed that her lips were beginning to purse into that eternally-patient look reserved for customers like us. So I really wanted to make the transaction part easy for her. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. She started taking our info for the computer, but Tom asked that we not provide any contact information lest we arrive on their mailing list. Lips pursed a bit more. As she made attempts to get our shoes into a bag, we asked for no bag, that we would take them home in our own bag. This didn't make her any happier. Are we turning into obnoxious customers who want everything just the way they want it - aka cranky people?

Further evidence: Biking on the way home, already feeling guilty about tanking a sales person, we came across a driveway where a car was inching its way forward, ready to make a right turn. The driver, of course, was on his cell phone, and so Tom began calling out to let him know we were passing. Well, he had to call out to the point of an outright shout, and still no response from the driver. We found a way to pass behind him, at which point he finally noticed us, and we gave him the Brennan glare. Pay attention! Yes indeed, we're cranky.

This same week, I was at a Starbucks ordering my standard nonfat latte, and you would think this would be a happy moment for me. Not so. When I put in my order, I noticed that the water in the sink was running full blast rinsing out a blender cannister. No problem there, but the entire time I was waiting for my coffee, the water kept running. Full blast. For someone who has been working at water conservation so intensely over the past year, this was akin to Chinese water torture. I couldn't think about anything but all that water pouring into the sink. And I knew I couldn't just tell the teenager in charge to turn off the water. I just had to watch it. But my happy coffee moment was ruined.

So there you have it - environmentally-induced cranks. I just have to shake my head and wonder how I got here.

A cool roof

This past June we (the Brennans) decided to do something about the heat that causes our second story to heat up so much in the summer. Often we have experienced a 10-degree difference between our upper and lower levels, which makes for uncomfortable sleeping and causes us to use the air conditioner. Tom did a bit of research and found something interesting: radiant barriers for the attic. A radiant barrier for an attic is simply a tarp-like material made of a modified form of aluminum foil that reflects the heat back up and out of the house. It seemed so simple in concept...we had to try it!

There are a couple of ways you can install this layer, and Tom chose to use the technique where the foil is placed over the insulation. So we ordered about 250 feet of Super R Supreme Material from a company called Innovative Insulation Inc and hired Dunbar Construction to install it. The material cost $150 plus shipping.

The results have really been amazing. We have not felt that temp differential while climbing the stairs in the late afternoon and evening. We have been completely comfortable at night. So we give this simple change a big thumbs up!

For additional detail and more pictures, see our Cool Roofs page.

A gray water system in Birmingham

Yesterday a group of us met at the home of Roman Bukowinski in Birmingham to see his gray water system. Roman is a civil engineer and master plumber who moved here 6 years ago from Scotland. He owns a company called Tartan Plumbing, and is building this home in Birmingham that he hopes will become LEED certified. He spent 2 hours showing us some of its features.

In the basement we saw his elaborate gray water system, pictured. He had seen a similar system that cost thousands of dollars, but decided to save money and build his own. The system consists of 3 tiers of bins. The top tier is fed waste water from his showers and sinks. It gets filtered through sand and then is fed down to he next level, where it passes through another layer of sand, and finally through to the bottom layer. He has the system rigged so that the resultant clear water is sent to the toilets, then to holding tanks, and finally outside to water the lawn (through skinny tubes placed under the lawn) and the gardens. He also uses solar tubes (yes, tubes, not panels) on the roof to heat up the water. It really is an amazing feat of engineering. The house is currently under construction, and we want to return to see all of this in action.

Here is Roman describing a bit of his motivation for this project, a little about his radiant heat system, and an explanation of the sand filtering in his gray water system. It's worth seeing, if only to hear his wonderful Scottish burr.

All Creatures Great and Small

One of the changes I've made this summer is more frequent use of my clothesline (it extends from the garage wall to a nearby tree). It has helped that the weather has been so cooperative, but even on cloudy days I've been drying, for the most part, outside. I acquired an old metal table from my girls a month ago - one that my mother used to use to fold her clothes - and Tom put it outside for me so I had a place to fold and didn't have to bend down so much.


The other day I went outside and dumped a big pile of wet clothes on the table so I could hang them up, and I found this nice grasshopper in the middle of the table, apparently unperturbed by the wet mass next to him because he never moved. At first I thought he might be dead, but I bent down to introduce myself and his little antennae twitched. Hmm. Anyway, I continued making conversation and folding piles all around him, and the little bugger (sorry) simply stayed put.

I took a close-up of him in case any of you think I might be mistaken as to his species - I'm not an insect person. Let me know, because I believe in truth in blogs.

By the way, he did eventually leave after I did - no more of the stimulating conversation, I suppose. But isn't it nice to be able to do laundry on a beautiful day surrounded by flowers and friendly insects?

Failure

Alas, not all goes as smoothly as my previous post. We are on our 3rd year of a chemical-free lawn, and all is not well. We have weeds everywhere, including large sections of crabgrass and clover. Bummer. But we have no one to blame but ourselves. After receiving instruction from Dale at Uncle Luke's on an organic lawn program, we developed our own modified program which I'll call benign neglect. Over the past 3 years, we have put down only a couple of applications of corn gluten and a couple of chicken manure. And it worked for the last couple of years - the lawn looked beautiful.

Last summer, however, we experienced a drought, and here's where I think we went wrong. First, in order to conserve water, we watered only minimally. This produced the right conditions (dry lawn with bare patches) for weeds to grow. Second, we didn't follow the organic lawn program, so the weeds pretty much made themselves at home.

So now I have called in the Mounties - Mike at Mike's Tree Surgeons - and we are doing an intervention. He will need to use chemicals to restore the lawn up through next summer, and then we'll go on his organic program and see if we have better results. He also told us to water more frequently through August to build the lawn back up again. The majority of these weeds are in the front lawn, so he also suggested we put a tree in and develop a garden bed, so as to shade the lawn and minimize space we'll have to use chemicals. We'll put one in this fall.

I'm writing this because I think it's important that people realize that some things will work and some may not. Please remember that I'm not suggesting that an organic lawn care program won't work, but I can assure you that benign neglect will not be your answer.