May 11, 2010
So, what might be the best of green design for 2010 are the things that don’t get designed. Don’t design me a new iPhone, figure out how to make my old one last. Don’t design me a new “green house”, figure out how to make the one I have more efficient. Don’t sell me physical objects, help me re-purpose the ones I have or otherwise give me digital tools for a higher quality of life that don’t require Chinese injection moldings.
I want an off button for our house.
That is, a single button, probably located somewhere by the front door, which we can use when we’re leaving or when we got to bed in the evening, which turns off all of the lights and all of the appliances that don’t need to stay in stand-by.
If you’re building a new house then getting this sort of thing setup is relatively easy, if not cheap. Either way, I don’t think it would be too hard to justify the cost of installation if you ran the numbers, as I’d hate to think how much of our monthly power bill is wasted on these two things alone.
But, if this sort of stuff is so expensive that it’s only installed in new homes then the savings will be a long time coming.
Who is solving this sort of problem for old/existing homes?
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