BLULOW (All About Living Green)

I finally did it! I finally ordered the Dundas Jafine Heat Keeper to recycle the heat from my dryer thats usually funneled outside. I’ve been looking at it for a few weeks now and finally took the plunge.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Heat Keeper, check out this article:”Make Clothes Dryer More Efficient by Recycling the Heat“. It will introduce you to the concept and recycling your dryer’s hot air. Be aware, however, this is only recommended for electric dryers. Exhaust from gas dryers may contain small amounts of unwanted pollutants that you do not want recycling through the air in your home.

The Heat Keeper is an inexpensive item. If you can find it at your local home improvement store, buy it there. If not, you can order it from Amazon. If you have to order it through Amazon, order a few of them. Give one to your neighbor, friends, and/or family. The item costs less than $6. The shipping costs will exceed the cost of the Heat Keeper. I foolishly ordered only one and spent around $13 in total. Oh well, I’ll make up the cost in heat recycling.

The installation process is a breeze. The only additional item not included in the packaging that you’ll need is a wire cutter. You will have to cut the exhaust tubing leading from the dryer to insert the Heat keeper. The process took about 5 minutes. It has a little switch so that you can vent the air outside during the summer and inside during the winter.

Expect your windows to fog as the heat also comes with some humidity. The amount of fogging will depend on the outside temperature and the size of the laundry area. I find it a small price to pay for heat recycling.

The Heat Keeper not only warms the area, it serves as an air freshener. The aroma of the fabric softener is dispersed around the room (my daughter loves this feature). All in all, I give thee Heat Keeper a thumbs up!

Some time ago, I tried a kitchen experiment by replacing paper towels with cloth towels. Here’s an update.

Not only have I saved money by not having to purchase paper towels, I’ve found that the cloth towels come in handy with things like washing dishes, cleaning windows, polishing furniture and…get this, washing the kitchen floor. The beauty is that all you have to do is throw it
in the washing machine and it’s ready for the next use. The homemade laundry detergent is working wonders on these towels.

My entire family is now 100 percent on board. Although we still have store-bought sponges, I find that we’ve been using them less and less. The sponges tend to get gross and gucky (yes, I did say gucky). My 11 year old gets totally grossed out by a gucky sponge and will only use her index finger and thumb to pick it up while the rest of her fingers make a futile attempt to disengage themselves from her hand.

When the cloth towels get gucky, they are tossed into a basket for washing. Right before they get really gucky, I use them to wipe down the floor at the end of the day. It serves two purposes

1. I get exercise by washing the floor by hand (or foot, depending on which muscle group is the group to be exercised for the day), and
2. My kitchen floor remains clean because a nightly wiping down gets rid of the daily juice spills and other treats left on the floor.

This little experiment worked better than I thought. My sponges have been relegated to really ugly jobs like cleaning the bathroom. Approximately 95 to 98 percent of my kitchen is cleaned with washable cloth towels. I look at it as a win for the environment, a win for my pocketbook and a win for my household (win-win-win).

Try this with me. Instead of plowing through roll after roll of paper towels, I bought several kitchen hand towels and a basket. I placed the basket underneath the paper towel dispenser. I’m in the process of retraining my family to use the washable hand towels instead of the disposable paper towels.

There are some occasions where cloth hand towels just don’t cut it. You know, like when you’re pulling the skin off of chicken legs. The only useful tool to finally pull the skin off is a paper towel. There’s also the time when you clean the yucky stuff out of the kitchen sink drain. For some reason, that requires a paper towel too.

Most of the other times, the cloth kitchen towels work just fine. Because I bought so many of them, we use them as every day napkins too.

The reason for this paper to cloth towel switch is 3-fold:

1. The cost of paper towels is going up and we go through so many in a week’s time.
2. Throwing them away is a waste (very unblulow like), unless you engage in composting.
3. Lastly, because I’m saving so much money making my own laundry detergent, what are a few extra hand towels to wash? With a family of four I wash often enough so as to not run out of hand towels.

Give it a try. Not only will you save money, you’ll be doing your part for the environment.