Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

No Mix Toilets, Not Yet at the Naugas Inn

Saturday, April 11th, 2009

The other day we had a water-conservation sustainability expert at the Naugas. He came down to the check-in desk to thank us for having aerators on the lavatories and low-flow toilets in the rooms. He said that we should investigate high efficiency toilets, which are very low flow toilets that are guaranteed to flush effectively.

He also brought up the idea of no-mix toilets and waterless urinals. He said no mix toilets are porcelain commodes that separate the urine and solids, so they can be recycled differently. He said these were developed in Sweden.

He said that waterless urinals have a special trap that uses oil, so no water at all is needed for flushing.

I told him that we and our guests support protecting the environment, but I don’t think we and they are up for quite that much sustainability.

He said he will soon have an article about the profession of facility management, including physical plant management and maintenance, in a plant-maintenance magazine and that we should watch for it.

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Another Septic Tank Problem

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

This last week we had another septic tank problem at the Naugas. Maybe it was due to all the rain. It sure made things difficult.

As soon as we noticed the drains backing up and the septic tank smell, we went out to investigate. I looked into the cleanout ahead of the septic tank and saw that the sewage level was rising, so we knew the leachfield was not working right. I looked on the septic tank pumpout website to get some advice on how to fix the drainage problem.

In the meantime, we had the guests to worry about. I called American Septic Tank to get their septic tank pumper truck out, and rented porta-potties on the web to keep the guests satisfied.

Within a couple of hours the septic tank was pumped, so we did not need the portable toilets after all.

We were helped by the water conservation measures that we did after the last septic stopup, when we put in lo-flow showerheads, aerators and high efficiency toilets. These meant that out guests put less water down the drain, so the leach field didn’t actually get waterlogged.

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The Battle for American Auto Makers

Monday, November 17th, 2008

We had an interesting debate at the bar last night, over whether or not the government should bail out the American automobile manufacturers. One guy said “heck no” (or something like that), the companies and the UAW have foolishly locked themselves into making giant, fuel-gulping cars that nobody wants. Survival of the fittest, let them sink.

The other guy said that the first guy had it all wrong. He said that the Big 3 lose money making small cars but (normally) make a big profit on big SUVs, so they are doing exactly what any smart corporation should do…maximize profits.

I noticed that they both arrived in imported cars.

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Is It Willie Nelson?! Uh, Not Quite.

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

I just about fell out of my chair when I heard the voice behind me – Willie Nelson! I was sitting at the front desk of the Naugas Resort, but turned away from the counter. I swung around to see…not Willie, but a short, potbellied guy with a bald head. What a shock!

When he spoke, he sounded just like Willie. In fact, he said he uses his voice professionally to do voice-overs for radio commercials. In other words, he sits down at a microphone and reads aloud what somebody else has written…and gets paid for it. He said he does TV and radio commercials mostly, and has narrated a few TV programs.

The one thing he is careful to avoid is pretending to be Willie…he said that can get you into legal trouble.

He said his latest job is an independently-filmed movie promoting the idea that the Biblical Noah discovered America in about 4000 B.C. The idea is simple: Noah had to catch two of every animal on earth and put them in the Ark, and that means that he had to come to North and South America because some animal species only live here. The movie uses a lot of animation to show how this happened, and how big the Ark had to be to hold all those pairs of animals.

Before his Noah, the Ark and America movie, he said he worked on a documentary about biocrude oil. I had never heard of biocrude, and asked him what it is…the same thing as ethanol, or biomass? No, he explained that biocrude oil is a liquid made from plants (like ethanol) but in a different manner. He said that the chemical makeup is a lot like crude oil…it’s thick and dark, like sweet crude. He said the advantage of biocrude is that it can be refined into gasoline and diesel in regular petroleum refineries, so there is no need for large capital expenditures of new refining capacity.

I was impressed that being a voice-over artist could get you an education in such a variety of fields.

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The Birdwatchers…err, Birders

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

A group of birdwatchers nested here at the Naugas last week. Actually, they explained that they prefer to be called birders. They all had their national Audobon Society birding books and stickers, along with binoculars, spotting scopes, noisemakers and recording devices. They were here to do a bird census in our area, and maybe add some species to their birding life lists.

As a stroke of luck, they spotted an unusual species of hummingbird at our hummingbird feeder hanging right out in the yard. It was larger than the ruby-throated hummingbirds, and more purple in color.

They said that the Audubon Society is now fighting to protect bird populations from climage change, through its Together Green website.

The funniest thing I saw (heard, actually) was the bird ringtones on their cell phones. Most people set their mobile phone to give some sort of standard sound or a musical artist, but these folks had downloaded ringtones that sounded like bird calls. When they were goofing around, they would call each other on their cell just to hear the ringtone.

They were a fun group, and we kind of hated to see them fly the coop.

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Mrs. Green – Energy Conservation and Water Conservation

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

One of our recent guests was an energy-conservation fanatic. “Mrs. Green”, we nicknamed her. She was incensed that not all the lights at the Naugas were compact fluorescent lights. True, we still have a few incandescent light bulbs, but most of our lights are either compact fluorescent, floresent or LED lights. We like them because they save electricity, are high efficiency, save energy and are green and good for the environment. Our electricity usage has declined since we started replacing our incandescent bulbs with compact flourescent bulbs, and we are proud of it. And pretty soon, the few remaining incandescent bulbs will be a thing of the past.

She also was not happy with our water usage. She wants us to rip out all the toilets and replace them with high efficiency toilets…yesterday! She says that a high efficienty toilet uses less water than even a water conservation 1.6 gallon toilet, which reduces water usage and would also help our septic tanks. The idea of helping the septic tank got our attention, since it can be an expensive problem to fix a septic system out here.

Mrs. Green left in a huff, but we actually appreciate her ideas for saving the environment and going green.

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Septic Tank Problems at the Naugas

Friday, June 20th, 2008

The Naugas is an all-around nice resort, except it would be nicer if it had no plumbing problems. Being located in the country, it has a septic tank instead of city sewers. At first I wondered, “What’s a septic tank?” I went surfing and found a site with all kinds of basic information about septic tanks.

Septic systems are used by houses and resorts in the suburbs and rural areas for onsite wastewater disposal. They are usually buried close to the building and have a leach field that disposes of the effluent by letting it seep into the ground. Some septic systems are conventional (anaerobic) and others are aerobic. Some have leach fields (leech fields) and others use mound systems. Septic tanks work fine until they quit working, and then fixing or replacing them can be very expensive. Some people are able to fix their septic systems, a do-it-yourself septic tank repair approach.

Most people are not. A pumper truck is hired to suck out the liquid, and then there are various enzymes and chemicals you can add to get them working again.

In our case, we have our tank pumped out by American Septic Tank company. We found them on the web, and they come out the next day (or sooner if needed).

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