I  gave up bottled water (for the most part, meaning when I am stuck in a situation with no alternative) for the alternative of filtered tap water served up in my own reusable bottle.  I mean it really is just tap water with a name, IMHO.  I don’t need the name.

Anyway, enjoy the video and when you are done pop over to Do The Green Thing.  It is a great site that has matured nicely.

Tears Of A Cloud from Green Thing on Vimeo.

So, nothing like some time away to recharge the batteries and gain a new perspective.  EcoZebra is back!

Warren Buffett Company Debuts Line of Green Prefab Homes – enn

China poised to go all out with clean tech. – SFGate

Mandatory composting may come to SF – American Public Media

DOE to slash fuel cell vehicle research – cnet

Real Estate Industry Looks to ‘Green’ Homes – Green Building

How Builders Can Save the Planet — One House at a Time - Green Building

10 Sustainable Communities Worth Imitating – Green Buidling

cities overcharging for solar power permits – Go Green Solar

US Drought Is A Reality – Scream to be Green

Can Clean Energy Be Cheap Energy? – Forbes

I personally think most of it looks pretty cool, I really do, but in my opinion it is a bigger waste of natural resources than most furniture out there.  This is not going to be a family heirloom that get’s passed down for generations and it certainly is not going to handle spills and repeated dusting or bumps from the vacuum cleaner.  So sure, it can be recycled, it can be used in the garden later or you can feed it to your worms, but the process of manufacturing it, moving it, shipping it and storing it is creating carbon emissions and water waste for a product that will ultimately fall apart and be thrown away.  Granted that is true with most furniture these days and there-in lies the problem.  Will anyone ever manufacture truly heirloom quality furniture ever again?  At least for those of us willing to save our pennies so we can buy something only once, knowing that it will last?

So here it is, my finished product, and following is a detailed account of how I did it.

I started this project like I do most.    I Googled the term “build your own compost tumbler“.  Frankly, there were a lot of plans, but they were all far too complicated and expensive to build as well.  A compost tumbler should not need $100 in parts to build on top of the cost of the barrel you will be using!

Anyway, in the picture to the left you see 5 food grade barrels that I got from a friend and client that recently bought a house from me.  You see, they bought the house and it came with rain barrels.  They didn’t want them (shudder), so I willingly took them off of their hands.  Three I used for their intended purpose, one I gave to a neighbor and one I saved for compost.

the one I saved had only one large hole cut out for a downspout and was perfect otherwise.  I then purchased three 4 foot sections of 1 1/2 inch galvanized pipe, four 1 foot sections of pipe, 2 elbows and 2 tees.  Total cost so far, including the free barrel, of $35.00, or probably about $65.00 if you were to buy a barrel. The pipes came from a recycler.

The next step was to drill a 1 3/4 inch hole in the center of each end of the barrel so that I could slide one of the 4 foot pipes through the center.  I then ran the pipe through the hole and connected an elbow to each end and then the other two long sections of pipe were connected, like legs, to the elbow.  At the bottom of those two sections I connected the tees and then connected the four 1 foot sections of the pipe to each of the tees, like feet.  Lastly, I buried the feet about two feet underground for stability and to bring the tumbler to the right height.

Notice the legs buried in the ground in the photo above.  This made it very stable and I needed no special connectors to help me turn the barrel on the pipe.  It rotates smoothly and the pipe through the center helps to break up the compost as you tumble it.

The final step was to cut out the door.  I drilled four holes in each corner and then used a keyhole saw to cut out the door.  You will notice in the pictures that the holes were rather large.  I did this because I did not cut any other holes and these will provide for ventilation.  I then installed two brass hinges and a slide latch to keep it closed.

If I were to do it differently I would use a hasp instead of a slide latch.  The slide latch slips out while turning and the door opens.  That is a problem, so I had to bungee it.

Below is a photo of the inside full of future compost.  Good luck in building your own and I hope this helps!

Today I am going to urge your to monitor your energy use daily.  It is something that I currently am not doing, but I am going to implement it.  If our local utilities and Google get it together soon enough, this will be something you can someday do for free  with Google Power Meter.  For now though there are a lot of products on the market that can help you do this and they should definitely pay for themselves in the time it will take for power meter to be up and running.

There is a new webstore out there called Energy Circle where the staff are users of the products and where if you are not satisfied with the products you buy, you can send them back.  It’s pretty cool and for Earth Day this year they have hacked an energy monitoring device so that you can have a voyeuristic view into their own homes Energy Use.  It’s pretty interesting to watch and it is what really made me want to add this to my own home. I am almost afraid to know where I am wasting energy because I like to think that I am doing a pretty good job of conserving it.  However, I know that the truth is that I can do better.

Well, have a good day this Earth Day and whatever you do, have fun doing it.

A while back I posted a bit on worm farming and how I was going to get started with it.  Well, I did.  About four weeks ago I ordered and received a shipment of Red Wiggler worms to fill my newly built worm bin which I had hand crafted based on the video in the last post.  I don’t have any pictures because I didn’t take any and I pretty much did exactly what they did in the video.  The only problem, my worms kept trying to leave.  So I researched what was going on.  They might be too hot or too cold.  Too wet or too dry.  To hungry or overfed.  In other words, my worms hated their new home and for four weeks I tried everything I could to make them happy.  They seemed to get better, but I always had 10 or so trying to move out everyday.  So off to do more research.

So after googling around a bit I found that there are many options to bins.  Some work better than others and almost everyone pointed to the stacking tray type of bin.  I liked them and I thought they make work well, but the price at $75.00 plus seemed steep to me, but everyday I would scoop my runaways into the bin and think, maybe, just maybe I needed to get them a new home.  Time to stop being so cheap and just do it.

This is my hand made Rubbermaid bin:

So, while shopping at target over the weekend I stumble upon a stacking tray system by MIO.  It was cool, looked better than the others and promised to do what it should.  Make my worms happy.  So I bit the bullet and bought it.  Does it work?  Well, it has been 24 hours and no one is trying to escape anymore.

The new worm bin in three parts:

I will keep you updated on how it goes from here on out.  We will see if this works any better.  I am not totally detered from my rubbermaid bin and have not given up complete hope in it.  I am going to modify and continue to use it.  I am anticipating happy worms now and lots of multiplying.  Lord knows I have enough scraps for more of them.

Photo: Ludovic Hurlimann via Creative Commons