Similiar to our orange staple free stapler

Here at Harrity Real Estate Services Inc we are often taking steps to reduce our impact on our environment.

In this industry, we are notorious for wasting paper. With email, online billing, and a good solid web based property management software we’ve done well to reduce our paper usage.

Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to go paper free, contracts still need to be signed on hard paper (although digital signatures are out there, most everyday business and individual clients don’t have one).

Since we’ve cut back our paper all we can, we’ve decided to cut back on the staples we use to hold our paper together.

During a recent business trip to Halifax I found myself in a store that sells

Staple Free Example

environmentally friendly produces (mostly recycled or reused goods). There is really a lot of neat stuff. I bought a notebook, the cover is made from and old book cover and the paper inside is recycled. On my way out I looked at my receipt to find that it was stapled…but no staple….amazing!

So I went back and asked the cashier how she did it. She pulled her trusty little stapler and showed me how it worked.

Naturally I bought one, and use it several times a day. The stapler can staple about 4 pages of paper, anything over that we use a paper clip.

How does it work?

The device punches a small hole (threes sided) in the paper, along with a small slit behind the hole. Then it takes the paper from the hole and slides it up through the slit in the paper. This all happens in one quick motion.

Since coming back to Saint John, I’ve seen them sold at Indigo and I would imagine they have them at Staples Business Depot.

I recently completed the Home Energy Efficiency course provided by the National Association of Green Agents and Brokers. The course talked mostly about the building envelope, and air movement throughout the home (or building). It also talked about how to go about stopping the leakage of warm air in the winter, and cool air in the summer.

Coming from the oldest incorporated city in Canada, I know we have many old buildings using up a great deal more energy then they should be. Although there can be some major work to make a building more energy efficient, there are many easy steps you can take to patch up areas that leak warm air from your home.

A trick I learned on how to find drafts in your home, is to buy a couple sticks of incenses. Light the incense (then blow it out), hold the stick near any break in the wall (doors, windows, light switches, plugs, vents, etc). If the smoke catches an air current, you see this and know you’ve got air leaking in or out. It’s best to do this on a windy day, as your results will be more obvious.

If you find some drafts, contact your handyman and he can come by and fix them for you!

From the NAGAB, here are some reasons why it makes sense to go green: http://www.nagab.org/green/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=conservation

To have an energy efficiency audit of your home visit the Efficiency New Brunswick website.

If you’re a client of ours, I would be happy to discuss what we can do to help improve the energy efficiency of your property. Just contact us.