Simplehuman Sensor Pump

One of my life hacks is that I try and use the same product everywhere. For example, we have the same refillable soap dispensers in every bathroom, and we purchase one kind of "refill", in bulk. That way when the soap runs out, we have plenty of refill on stock and it's the same in every bathroom. In our house we have 7 places where we have a soap dispenser. Why do I do this? I don't want to think about any of this stuff. When the soap is low there is only 1 thing to do. Refill. When we are low on refill pouches there is only 1 thing to do. Buy more in bulk. I do that maybe 1x every 2 years.

There are other ways to apply this technique, but this post is about Soap dispensers.

What is it?

simplehuman makes a variety of soap dispensers. For those paying attention, simplehuman is also the company that makes those awesome makeup mirrors I told you about on mother's day.

For pumps you have:

• Rechargeable Pumps
• Battery operated pumps
• Hand pumps

The nice thing is you can spend as much or as little as you want, and the soap is all the same. You can buy the soap by the 1 or in bulk. I order them in bulk directly from simplehuman as their prices are the lowest. I hate paying for shipping just like you (Amazon Prime FTW), but for $4.99 I'm willing to get consistent prices on Soap (Amazon seems to have an inventory problem with this company and when that happens 3rd party sellers jack up the prices).

In terms of dispensers, we have a few of the simplehuman Compact Sensor Pump

Amazon just sent me a simplehuman Rechargeable Bath Sensor Pump

And we have a couple of the manual simplehuman 15-Ounce Square Push Pumps (for the adults in our bathroom)

For a Kitchen or high volume soap area, you may want to upgrade to a larger pump (they come in 8oz and 13oz sizes)

The batteries for the non rechargeable ones last about 3-4 months. You can use AA rechargeable batteries, but they don't seem to be as strong as Alkaline. The newer ones with the built in USB charging are lithium ion and should be amazing. But this comes at a large premium over the non rechargeable model.

For soap, we use the lavender soap and we get 6 packs direct from simplehuman.

note: it seems everyone is out of stock of lavender right now, which explains why the prices on Amazon are so high. 

Why did you get it?

We first saw these at my son's pre-school. They use them there to prevent the spread of germs (getting on the soap container/pump) and preventing the kids from dispensing too much soap. Smart. I was thinking, why not get these for our entire house? I have certainly seen my kids use WAY too much soap.

How has it made your life better?

Simple is good. At least that's what I think. And I don't want to think about something as mundane as soap. Finally, this system produces very little "trash" or recycling assuming you are purchasing refills and using rechargeable batteries, the rechargeable pump or the hand pump.

Are you going to keep it?

We've been on this system for about a year now and it's worked out great.

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Wool Comforters

Like many of you, for most of our lives we've been sleeping with down comforters. I'm not sure how widespread others experience this, but personally, most of those nights I would overheat. I tried various "light" and "summer" fill comforters to no avail. A few years ago while shopping for a mattress, the salesperson noted that our problems could probably be addressed by switching out our down comforter and cotton mattress pad for wool. Now when I think of wool, I think of itchy hot sweaters from my childhood. She assured me that wool is one of the best materials to cool (breathable) and warm. So based on that advice we decided to give it a shot. That is when we purchased a Natura "washable" wool comforter.

What is it?

Like it sounds, the Natura World Wash N Snuggle Comforter (Super King, King, Queen, Full, Twin), is a comforter (aka Duvet) that is simply made of wool instead of down. It's "washable" which means you can place it in the washing machine to clean it, without worrying about it shrinking too much. Personally, I don't recommend this, and we'll probably just dry clean it.

While we were at it, we also got a Natura wool matress pad, creating an envelope of wool around us.

Why did you get it?

Our main motivation here was to stop waking up hot. Which happened pretty often.

How has it made your life better?

I can't tell you how different this is to sleep with. We've owned this comforter for 2 years now and I have never once woken up hot. My wife, who is famous for throwing the old down comforter on top of me to escape the heat, has never once done this.

In the summer and the winter we sleep fantastic. The comforter does a great job of regulating the heat.

There are a couple of "gotchas" to note.

• This comforter is "thinner" and not as "full" as down. As such it lies more like a quilt on your bed.
• It helps to have a duvet cover that is close to the actual dimensions of the comforter. As I learned a long time ago, there is no real "standard" size for comforter / duvets. They all range a little here and there. So finding "fitted" sheets for this comforter is important. This is probably a bigger problem for "King" beds since you have both Easter and California King beds but no real difference for comforters.

Are you going to keep it?

We are very happy with this purchase and can't imagine going back to down.

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Vornado 660 Whole Room Air Circulator

It's summer. If you are lucky, you have air conditioning. Most people in Seattle do not. When we purchased our house, one of the first things we did was get AC. Why? Because my wife (and honestly I) can't sleep in a hot room. We have a 3 story, new house. As such it's incredibly well insulated and when it gets hot, it stays hot for a long while. When purchasing our house though, we made the mistake of getting whole house air conditioning because our house was plumbed for it. However in hindsight, that was a mistake. We would have been way better off installing a Ductless Mini-Split system in our 3 bedrooms. This would have provided the correct sleeping temperature in the only rooms that we need cooling, without wasting money cooling our whole house (mostly unnecessary here in Seattle). Ductless mini-split is designed for people that don't have ducting (radiant heat or no heat), but they can also act as heat pumps and heat in the winter. Think of them as basically an air conditioner that can run in reverse to heat as well.

Anyway, what's done is done. We have a problem though. Our bedroom is quite large (with vaulted ceilings), and on a moderately warm day (> 76) our room gets beaten by the sun, and with the vaulted ceilings doesn't really cool down enough by the evening. After a few years of pondering a solution, it turned out some old school tech was all that was needed. A Fan.

note: scheduled for a different / future post is our wool duvet and bed cover, which probably has had the most profound impact on our sleep comfort.

What is it?

The Vornado 660 Whole Room Air Circulator is a Fan, but it's not really designed to blow air at you. It's designed to circulate the air in the room. And boy does this thing move air around. It turns out that air movement (or the lack theirof) is the primary reason our room didn't cool down. Our ceiling would collect hot air, and that hot air would fall as the day went on, crushing the ability for our ducts to push enough cool air to keep things comfy.

You can see from the photo, that this thing looks nice. It comes in White and Black [$99 @ Amazon]. We chose white for our room. It's not a nice looking as say the $300-$400 Dyson Fans, but the cost / benefit to this guy is kinda nuts in my opinion.

The reason it's tilted up because you are supposed to "point" it at say the corner ceiling of your room to get air circulating. You do not point it at your bed for example.

Why did you get it?

I got this particular Fan because of the rave reviews on Amazon, and my general familiarity with Vornado. I wanted to love the idea of getting a Dyson fan, but the reviews are pretty mixed and the cost is pretty high.

How has it made your life better?

We've had this Fan for a few weeks and my general observation is that it's cooled our room about 3-4 degrees. That's a pretty substantial difference for us.

I have placed it within the vicinity of our duct, and so it managed to capture cool air (roughly 50-60 degree) and blow it straight up to the vaulted ceiling, pushing the hotter air down back into the room.

The fan has 4 speed settings. The lowest setting produces a very comfortable flow of air with minimal noise. The 2nd setting is a bit stronger with a bit louder, but tolerable noise for sleeping. 3 and 4 are left for mega hot days (80+ degrees outside) and we leave it on 3-4 during the day and then 1-2 at night.

Are you going to keep it?

This should last a good long time. We plan on getting a smaller model for our daughter's room which has a different problem. Too cold in the winter as her room is over our garage, and it tends to be a cold spot in our house.

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S'Well Water Bottles

Credit goes to my sister for this find. What is it?

S'Well Water bottles are high quality stainless steel, vacuum sealed bottles. They are shaped like a normal bottle, and are totally spill proof. And they don't sweat at all when adding cold liquid or ice.

Why did you get it?

We try and avoid bottled water as much as possible and travel with and use re-usable bottles at home and work. I wanted a bottle that would keep cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot without a lot of added bulk or weight. I also wanted something that was not going to be complicated to clean or assemble with straws, attachments and whatnot.

How has it made your life better?

The S'Well bottle is really high quality. We have a few of the Matte series (Black and Pink) as well as the stainless naked one and then a "His" and "Hers" collection that stays by our bedside.

If you are looking for a nice gift or to get started I'd recommend The His & Hers Set.

The most striking things about these bottles, besides their good looks and functionality is that they keep my water cold or at room temp for hours. They don't sweat either. I have left ice cubes in a hot car for hours to find my ice cubes still in the bottle later in the day.

For me, this is the most unexpected benefit of a vacuum sealed bottle. On hot days or in a hot car I don't end up sucking down hot water.

Are you going to keep it?

This is a very high quality product (and quite expensive for a bottle) and we are really happy with them. When the kids are a bit older we plan to get the small 9oz bottles for them. Right now they are still using the Kleen Kanteen kid bottles.

I think these would make a great gift BTW. The Evernote Team happens to sell green logo version of these bottles. You can do the same though their custom order program.

Preventing a washing machine flood in your house

This post was inspired by a conversation today with some co-workers about the fact that rubber washing machine hoses eventually fail, and what happens next is up to you. A few years ago, when I was getting a new home owner's policy I read about what causes the biggest losses (and problems) for homeowners.

Turns out water has a lot to do with it. Rubber washing machine hoses don't last forever. They are under high pressure and the solenoids open and shut dozens of times during a cycle. Cheap rubber hoses (the kind Sears uses when they install your washer) that cost a few dollars can fail if not replaced every few years. A safe number I heard was 5 years.

Well if you are like me, and live in a newer multi-story home, changes are you have a washer on your second floor. It's an incredible convenience if you have kids. Anyways the thought of a hose bursting on the second floor made me nervous.

I learned of these devices that you can purchase that have a water sensor and can then shut off the water supply and notify you via an audible alarm. I purchased and installed one of these Floodstop Washing Machine Valve Shutoff Kits a few years ago. It's been working great. One day some water got behind the washer and the Flood Stop worked flawlessly.

You should probably also invest in good quality hoses.

If this isn't enough protection for you, then you might also want to protect the washing machine discharge from flooding. You can do this by getting a Furman Power Relay and cut off power to the washer, thus shutting off the drain discharge when a leak is detected.