ReviewLab» Green Sustainble

Sparkling Water at Home with Sodastream

admin — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 17:34:38 +0000

Make carbonated water or soda at home

For about $1 per liter, the Sodastream carbonated water and soda maker is a super simple, convenient and “no trash” way to get on demand sparkling water or flavored soda at home. And it you’re a big soda drinker, it’s a great alternative to sugary and artificial sweetened sodas. Or simply add your own Sodastream flavoring to the mix.

I never really considered this being a good buy for at home use, but it really has been one of our best purchases ever. Instead of drinking diet soda with dinner, I drink sparkling water – a cheaper, healthier and no waste alternative.

If you like flavored sodas, the Sodastream gives you many mixes you can easily add to your water for what would cost about 15 cents per can.

The hardest part about buying a Sodastream is deciding which model to buy – they offer four from about $100 to $200. Basically, the big difference is construction material (plastic vs metal) and aesthetic (plain Jane to fancy penguin with glass carafe).

The Sodastream is a simple device – there is no electric or moving parts. You simply insert the pressurized carbonation tank into the unit to “power it”. Insert or screw in the bottle with cold water (the directions suggest using refrigerated water, which I’ve found does yield maximum carbonation). Hit the carbonate button a few times and you’re done. Once the carbonation tank is empty (appx 40 liters), you simply purchase a replacement tank for about $35 and ship back the old one.

I’ve only found a few minor drawbacks to Sodastream: you should carbonate the water when you need it. Like any bottled carbonated beverage, it will lose its carbonation over time after opened. At the time of publishing, the Sodastream units were hard to find, even online. Finally, with the basic model, you must screw the bottle into the unit at a strange angle, making it cumbersome to use. All that aside, the Sodastream has a been a great purchase.

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ahhNatural Update: Tips to Keep Your Spa Clean

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:38:40 +0000

A brief update now that I’ve been using AhhNatural for several years. It continues to provide a clean hot tub without chlorine. But I would like to share some tricks and tips from experience.

Unlike traditional hot tubs which essentially chemical bomb the water, you should enter an ahhNatural tub clean. If it becomes overwhelmed with oil and bacteria, you may need to resort to chlorine to get it back to clean state. I have resorted to using chlorine on a few occasions, but only to get my water back to “normal”. When I do this, I remove the ahhNatural bag from the tub until most of the chlorine has dissipated.

ahhNatural specifies using hydrogen peroxide to shock the tub and keep it clean. I usually do this after refilling the tub. Over the course of using the tub, I use “MPS” – monopersulfate. There are a few forms of this compound on the market, which most pool supply stores will carry at least one. Essentially this uses oxygen, like peroxide, to keep the tub clean. You should experiment with various MPS brands. SpaDepot offers an MPS I have used consistently. However, I have found that when the water gets really dirty, you may eventually go through a large quantity of MPS. What I have noticed is that in large quantities, MPS will break down into some cloudy material. This may give you the impression that your water is dirty. It will eventually get filtered out, but you may need to resort to chlorine to get the tub back to normal. Too much MPS can wreak havoc with your pH too.

The biggest tip is that pH is critical. It is true that your ahhNatural water will stabilize to its preferred pH, which will likely differ greatly from the standard spa pH level. I have also lived in two areas where the water is quite different and can impact how easy it is to maintain your pH.

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Better AAA Alternative Starting at $14/yr

admin — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:52:00 +0000

If you don’t like the status quo and pro-auto bent of the American Automobile Association, then Better World Club is for you. You get nearly the same features (national towing service, trip planning, travel sevice, etc), but BWC supports environmental causes, mass transit, Clean Air Act and offers green alternatives when possible. They even offer bicycle protection.

Membership rates start at $54 per year. Plus, they provide $40 in gas reimbursement certificates, which makes the basic service only $14 per year! They’ll even match AAA prices for new members. Really, if you care about sustainability, this is the service for you!

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Update: ahhNatural Dependent on pH

admin — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:51:00 +0000

A brief update…I live in area of super hard water and very high pH. It took a LOOOONNNGGG time to get the pH down and stabilized, at which time the ahhNatural system worked like a charm. But until the pH was brought down, it was very difficult to keep the water sparkling clean.

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Non-Chlorine Spa System That Works

admin — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Finally, an alternative to soaking in harsh chemicals. I ran across ahhNatural at a local fair, and was both pleasantly surprised and skeptical. After all, if treating your tub without harsh chemicals, like chlorine and bromine, was so easy, then why isn’t ahhNatural more readily available? It was worth a shot.

For $240 you get “the system” (best I can tell, you can only buy this at their site). The kit contains a perforated bag they call the “pad” (presumably some sort of rock mixture), sea salt, sodium bicarbonate, and vitamin C. The vitamin C was not labeled, so I only recently figured out what this was. Besides not knowing what was in the mystery bag, the rest of the kit seemed like grade school science.

Probably the biggest downfall to the whole system is the additional time and maintenance required. But I guess that should be expected – you’re not nuking your water, but going for a natural balance. I followed the instructions to prep my hot tub for the new approach – basically you need to clean everything thoroughly – kill all of the bacteria. The instructions recommend emptying the tub, but I did not – I just shocked it with some chlorine and cleaned the filter as they suggested. It appears the system relies on the mystery bag soaking up the sea salt and sodium bicarb to help clean the hot tub water – this step takes about a day in itself.

After the initial prep, it’s pretty much just like any other tub – except you have this bag in the bottom. You still need to play with your water for the first week or so to find the balance. I also found that you should clean your filter frequently for maximum benefit. You’ll find ahhNatural a little more demanding than normal chemicals – you need to clean and recharge the bag monthly and it is suggested to replace the bag annually (another $240).

While the instructions suggest using hydrogen peroxide for the chlorine alternative (it breaks down into water and oxygen), it also mentions using MPS (monopersulfate), they claim is a more concentrated peroxide. I found this stuff at my local spa store and it seems pretty effective. The instructions also suggest using a natural clarifier, like the Sea Klear brand, which I also found locally (or buy at ahhNatural). I use the MPS after every soak – a little goes a long way. And I use the clarifier when the water looks funky.

I would not recommend the ahhNatural system for people who want easy maintenance, although this isn’t much harder than the traditional method. The instructions suggest that heavy users probably won’t find this of great value, but I often soak after a sweaty day. As a result, I just need to clean the filter and use the clarifier more often.
All in all, this is a great spa or pool water treatment alternative.