The past couple weeks I have been amazed at how many wonderful Green Twitter folk from right here in Houston are tweeting their hearts out and sharing some fantastic information and I thought I would share some of them with you.  If you know of some others that I missed, please let me know and I can add them to the list.  I LOVE meeting new tweeps.

Many of these are companies that I was not even aware existed and was really excited to find out about them.  Hope you find them interesting as well!

@MaryFrancesB
@SpotOnSeo
@NotTrashHouston
@RecycleMatch
@HoustonGBRC
@HTownSolarTour
@HoustonGreenScn
@Blockcast
@EGBHouston
@USGBCHouston
@GulfCoastGreen
@GreenHoustonTx
@KeepItGreenMaid
@GreenTheBlock
@TaigaCompany
@GreenFitNFrugal
@RecyclingRic
@EcoSocials
@EcoStarHomes

Feng Shui is an ancient system of aligning a home’s design with the invisible life force known as Chi.  It was practiced in China for over 3,000 -5,000 years, before the Communist regime made it illegal.  It is a tool, that homeowners in America and all over the world are discovering as a way to improve their lives.  In Feng Shui, a home can be divided into nine life areas.  These include our Work, Relationships, Family, Health, Money, Service, Children, Knowledge, and Fame.  When people begin to discover that taking control of their lives means taking control of their surroundings, they are going to need options that include Feng Shui and Green building. 

Much emphasis has been made recently among builders to incorporate Green building into their home designs.  In fact, I suspect that pretty soon, it will be difficult to sell a new home that has not been designed with some level of Green building.  However, if a home is built with attention to the “Green” details, but ignores the importance of Feng Shui principles, there will be an overall lack of design harmony and this can lead to all sorts of problems.   

You may be asking yourself why “harmony” and balance are so important.  These are two words that start to sound pretty generic unless we add some real life examples to your understanding.  We have to take a step back and consider the impact of how a place makes us “feel” when we enter it.  This is essentially what Feng Shui is about.  Does it feel inviting, peaceful and pleasant or does it make you feel like your brain is being scrambled?  How could your financial success be impacted by one versus the other?  How about your love life or even your health?  If you think that these things are immune to the design of your surroundings, think again. 

How does a newly married couple with no debt experience a home that is missing two life areas that relate to money and love?  Two failed businesses and a divorce in less than six years might sound coincidental unless you recognize the impact of the home’s design flaws.  Even though the house was built with the highest attention to energy saving that was available at the time, it was not enough to save the businesses or the marriage of the couple.  My point is that building Green and not fusing it with Feng Shui principles is a mistake.  Divorce and business loss may be on the rise, but the marriage between Green building and Feng Shui is one that is poised to stand the test of time.

For more information about Logynn and building homes using Feng Shui and Green building, go to www.greenfusionfengshui.com or call her directly at 281-235-2382.

This is cross posted from my Active Rain Blog for my regular Turning Houston Green Readers.  Hope you enjoy!
Everyday it seems that Green is becoming more and more mainstream for Home owners so I thought I would take this time to update everyone on my Home Energy Usage Reduction over the past 9 months.

Some of you remember my Insulation Experiment where I had a company come out and and Blow in Dry Cellulose to R-38 in my attic last June?

Well, that was the beginning of Greening up my home.  I tracked some of my Usage Reductions on AR, but I wanted to compile everything…

On top of Insulation, I also changed out the Light Bulbs that I use most in my home to CFL’s.  Believe it or not, I really did see a small reduction on my bill.

Also, just a few minutes ago I posted about Houston’s Amazing Green Secret!  The company that comes out and Seals up your home to have less air leaking out of your home…here in Houston that would be the cool air.

Well, the company came out and put new Weather Stripping on my Front and Back Doors, did some Caulking, Sealed up my A/C vents where I was getting hot air from the Attic…and the thing that I still can’t get over…

When these guys did the Blower Door Test they realized that the way my HVAC system was designed it was actually circulating air from my ATTIC, not my HOUSE!  My A/C was pulling air from my attic and dumping it in to my home, wreaking havoc with my allergies…and killing my electric usage.  AND YES, they fixed that.

Not only did it help tremendously on my bill, it was..if you read the post…FREE!!!

Now, how has all of this over the past 9 months translated in to dollars?

Let’s See.  I just received my April Electric Bill and I switched companies to get a Lower Rate recently so I have to go off of kwh usage to be accurate here…but one neat thing this new company does is put a really neat chart to track my usage for 12 months back.  I don’t have to go searching through files.

It shows that my April Bill in 2007 I was billed for about 2300 kwh.  (Holy cow!)

This month….  Ready?   1177 kwh! From April last year to April this year that is appx. 1123 kwh Reduction…for the average Electric Rate in Houston that alone is $168 difference!!!!  FOR ONE MONTH!

Now I have to say that I am SO curious as to exactly how low I can get my Electric Bill.  I’m wondering if I can get it close to back in the day when I had an apartment…and rates were 1/2 what they are now.

What’s next on the agenda for Reducing my Energy Usage?  I’m looking in to a Solar Attic Fan to lower the Temperature in my Attic Space to help my HVAC cool better.  Stay Tuned.