Lately everybody seems to have videos on their websites. Usually I find it distracting from the real information I am trying to get. But, every once in a while you find a video that you feel everybody should view. If you want to know more about how the government is handling global warming you need to watch this fun and informative video. Take a few minutes out of your day to make a difference for you planet.
Striper Wars: An American Fish Story User Reviews Send this to a friend Striper Wars: An American Fish Story Manufacturer: Customer Rating: List Price: Varies based on product options Sale Price: View Sale Price Availibility: View Product Availability Buy Now Product Description Product Details No details are available for this product Video Reviews No video......
Watch the unit prices at the grocery store Last night I bought a couple boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese because my wife likes "the real thing" once in a while. (Yes, she knows that the generic brand is cheaper but she can taste the difference, and no this point isn't negotiable.)If given the choice between (a) individual......
I have written about LED lights before, I am a great fan. They use less energy and are quite bright, as opposed to some energy saving light bulbs. Now I have found a great home improvement product that will save you time, aggravation and money. Outdoor, solar powered, LED lighting. Now you can place a light post at the end of your driveway without running wiring underground or hiring an electrician, plus this is real lighting, not just accent lighting so you and your guests can really see your way in the dark. No leaving the light on before you leave for work in the morning, the lights come on automatically at dusk and shut off at dawn. All this for about what you would pay for conventional lighting and no electrician and no electric bills now or in the future. Be the first in your neighborhood to have the greenest outdoor lighting available.
22 Ways To Energy Efficiency, From The Free To The Expensive. From one of my favorite sites, Co-op America, here are 22 steps you can take -- each with the energy savings you can achieve each year. Pick the ones you'll do to get your first 10% energy savings. (These energy savings assume an average US home, which uses about 11,000......
Green Home Improvement Tips The green home improvement movement is very strong these days. It seems that no matter which direction you look, you’ll find some new article being written about it. Some of the articles are written by people that are very gung-ho about ecologically friendly home improvement. There is nothing wrong with......
My wonderful husband has taught our German Shepherd, Duke, to open and close the screen door by himself. It originally started innocently enough. We were remodeling downstairs and often times my husband would be carrying heavy things in and out and nobody was around to open the door for him. Duke would jump through hoops of fire for my husband and quickly mastered this trick. The problem is that now the remodel is over, I refuse to use the energy to turn on the air conditioner so the doors are always open, and now Duke uses the screen door as his private doggy door. Needless to say the screen has been pushed through and ripped and is now a public mosquito entrance.
I decided to go online and see if any of the local stores carried that pet screening that stretches instead of ripping when an animal jumps up. What I found is a great energy saving screen. A company named Phifer, that makes the pet screening, makes a whole line of screening and fabric. I never even knew there was something called weave technology, where the type of fabric woven in different ways can have different effects. The one that caught my eye was the Super Solar Screen.
The company claims the Super Solar Screening reflects 90% of the suns heat and glare, improves daytime privacy, and still allows for excellent outward visibility, not to mention it keeps the bugs out. Sounds like the claims on an infomercial, but at the Home Depot site the product had been rated and review by two individuals. Both reviews gave the screening 5 out of 5 stars and both said it performed as advertised.
This will be a huge benefit for a house like mine that faces northwest. I get full sun at my backdoor every morning in the summer; I don’t like to open the door and shades because it raises the temperature in the house. Then in the late afternoon I get the full effect of the sun as it gets ready to set so I have to close all the doors and shades on that side of the house. I am hoping with my Super Solar Screen, I will be able to get airflow from the windows and doors without the heat and glare from the sun. If I decide to turn on the air conditioner it should not have to work as hard with the Super Solar Screen. But maybe with the heat and sun reflected away from the house I won’t have to turn on the air conditioner at all. Sounds like a huge energy saver to me.
As for my screen door, apparently there is no pet friendly screen that can hold back a German Shepherd. I am going to replace the screen with the Super Solar Screen and buy pet guards to keep Duke from going through it.
Green Screen: Making The Impossible Possible Green screen is one of the most well liked techniques employed in the creation of films. How often have people been awed by the fantastic antics done by super heroes on the enormous screen? Many have wondered how heroes are able to jump from a tall building without getting hurt,......
22 Ways To Energy Efficiency, From The Free To The Expensive. From one of my favorite sites, Co-op America, here are 22 steps you can take -- each with the energy savings you can achieve each year. Pick the ones you'll do to get your first 10% energy savings. (These energy savings assume an average US home, which uses about 11,000......
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. – Helen Keller
Sometimes people don’t vote because they think “one vote can’t change anything”. I think the 2000 election proved that wrong, but some people still don’t believe. Now is your time to be counted by your elected officials. If you want this country to move forward with cleaner energy contact you Congressional Representatives and Senators today. It only takes a minute but can help save the earth a life time.
Alternative Energy For Homeowners As home heating costs rise, and energy in general gets more expensive, many homeowners are turning to alternative means to power their homes. While many systems require a lot of effort to implement, there are quite a few that can be easy to install and quite economical. Whether it is......
The 7-Day Turnaround, Day 4: Slash Your Expenses This is the fourth article in Frugal Dad’s week-long series, The 7-Day Turnaround: One Week to Change Your Family's Financial Destiny. Each day brings a new step to implement and help you get control of your finances. At this step in your 7-Day Turnaround it is time to take a......
When it comes to clean energy, saving our environment and living green, the best and only place to start is energy conservation. For every unit of energy saved, a unit of energy does not need to be produced. That sounds so very simple, yet I see it over looked time and time again. People are so impressed with the newest solar product, the next residential wind turbine or if hydrogen technology will replace natural gas, that they forget that all this technology can replace a greater percent of our energy if we use less energy to begin with. In other words energy conservation and efficiency are very often more economically worthwhile than renewable sources and also helps bridge the gap between demand for and availability of renewable energy.
We have all seen list after list of ways to save energy around our house; these should not be pushed to the side because you “did” the list last year. Like all maintenance around the house, conservation cannot be done once and forgotten about, that is why they call it maintenance. There are always new products coming out that can make energy conservation easier, more efficient and more affordable.
My attic is always the first place I look when thinking about energy loss. I have a cathedral ceiling in my living room and just never feel comfortable in the room during the cold winter months. Obviously I have insulated but I still just feel the heat escaping. So I went up to the attic at night leaving the living room lights on and the attic lights off. Bingo! I was able to identify several areas that were not completely insulated around the recessed lighting (make sure your recessed lighting fixtures are rated to have insulation around them). Next I went up to the dark attic on a very sunny morning, before the heat made it unbearable. Again, Bingo! There were a couple of places along the eaves where I could see daylight. Once these were fixed I started looking at different insulation products for attics that were DIY friendly and wallet friendly. Two products caught my eye: Super Insulating Radiant Barrier and the Battic Door Attic Stair Cover.
The Super Insulating Radiant Barrier is a fold out, insulating, reflective product that goes over your current insulation and/or over the roof rafters to create a barrier that actually radiates heat back down to the living space.
The Battic Door Attic Stair Cover is an insulating box that goes over dropdown attic stairs and keeps heat from escaping. This product is a huge improvement over ones of days gone bye. I have had a similar product for about fifteen years and can see this will pay for itself in very short time.
Take time to look at these and other energy saving products. A dollar spent today could save hundreds over a life time not to mention helping to save the environment. Never under estimate the heat, or cooling, loss in your home. Keep vigilant about conservation, any energy saved is energy that does not have to be produced.
15 Products that save Time, Money, and Space The holidays are quickly approaching and that means shopping season is in high gear. Good luck going to a mall. It's too crowded for my taste. I'll be getting almost all of my gifts on Amazon and Ebay. For the rest, I'll pick up gift cards from the local drugstore.......
Renewable Energy From An Old Concept by Michael Edwards When doing the research for a article on new green products, I was unaware of many of the different ways to convert the energy of the sun into electrical power. I have written about solar cell or photovoltaic cell systems, so let's look at another type of......
In a June 1st article by Dan Cook, in Arizona’s The Daily Courier, he wrote about a Habitat for Humanity home that had been built as a “net-zero energy” house.The idea is to use smart building products and techniques, as well as alternative energy sources, such as solar, so that the house does not use any energy from the grid or fossil fuel. This is a whole new niche in the building industry and there is an unlimited amount of products and services to choose from. The problem is that builders and prospective homeowners, we don’t know which products are proven, or will work in our situation, or have a chance to see the product installed or talk to a builder who has actually installed the product.
That is why I found this article interesting. If the companies offering these great new innovative energy saving products donated them to Habitat for Humanity, we would all benefit. First the company would win, getting actual exposure to the public with their product, as well as goodwill, for donating the product. Any builder interested in the product could donate their time to help install the product at the Habitat for Humanity job site. This gives them goodwill for helping, but also gives them experience with new products and techniques that they can sell to their clients. The homeowner wins because they are buying a product that they have seen work and are having it installed by someone who has had experience with the product. The recipient of the Habitat for Humanity home wins with lower or no utility bills. And last, but not least, the environment wins every time we do not use fossil fuel to power our world. This could be the ultimate win-win situation.
Solar Power Systems That Serve Entire Neighborhoods. Dear EarthTalk: I know of solar power systems that people can put on their roofs to generate electricity or heat water. Are there systems that serve whole neighborhoods? Collective bargaining is a good strategy when looking to get the best price on a given product or service. Solar power is......
The Reality Of Working At Home On Your Computer I think most people would love to work At Home. After all who doesn't want to pick their own work hours and have more time to spend with family and friends? There are some pitfalls you want to avoid like the plague. The first few years I was trying to......
According to Boston Business Journal, Boston’s Museum of Science announced this week that it will be putting a wind turbine laboratory on its roof. Apparently they have already done wind studies for a year and have come to the conclusion that there is not enough viable wind in their location to create any meaningful electricity. They already have two turbines up and intend to put up three more of varying shapes and sizes ranging from 7 feet to 40 feet. The idea is to “demonstrate small wind turbines that could be erected on small businesses and homes”.
The problem is that small wind turbines cannot be erected on any building, ever. Mother Nature is a very formidable force to deal with. Any and all wind turbines have an incredible vibration; this can cause both structural and noise problems. Roof top turbines have been known to cause nails to vibrate right out of the roof. While the museum roof may be substantial enough to withstand this, with a full time maintenance crew, the average home is not engineered to withstand these forces.
Second, there is no usable wind on a roof. When you see a small wind turbine on a roof spinning wildly, it looks like it would be generating plenty of power. The truth is, all that spinning is the turbine trying to find a steady wind in a very turbulent area. Wind is invisible, and most people don’t understand what they can’t see. Think of a stick lazily drifting down a calm stream, making slow but steady progress, then there is a rock in the way, the stick goes around the rock but gets caught twirling in the eddy behind it, there is a lot of movement, but no progress. Wind is the same way, once it hits an object, such as a house or a tree; there is wind turbulence behind the object. Another way of looking at this is a sailboat in the lee of a bluff. You feel the wind on your face, it feels strong, but the sail is slapping madly and the boat is going nowhere. A wind turbine is the same way as it searches for the wind in the turbulence.
The Boston Museum of Science would be doing the public a huge favor by teaching the physics of wind and turbulence using smoke chambers and roof mock ups to show how a nail or a screw can be loosened due to vibration. They should teach the benefits of clean wind energy when placed in the right location and the uselessness of putting it in the wrong location. With all my heart I hope the Boston Museum of Science is not advocating building mounted turbines, not only would they be putting the public at risk physically and promoting a waste of money, they will be putting a black mark on wind energy when these turbines never produce any meaningful electricity.
Look for an upcoming blog on proper wind turbine location.
For more information check out the Warwick Wind Trials data on building mounted turbines.
Gleneagles Golf Course Today I played Gleneagles Golf Course in McLaren Park San Francisco (map). This course is a hidden gem. We played on a Friday morning at 7am and no tee time was required. Unbelievaable! Jack Fleming was the architect. Founded in 1962. 9 holes (but 2 different sets of tees to......
Prefab Wednesday-The mkLotus By MKD Architecture. Well, it looks like Michelle Kaufmann has done it again with the introduction of the mkLotus prefab house. As I have mentioned before, Kaufmann's designs are among my absolute favorites in the prefab world, even if they are a tad pricey. This new mkLotus design is spectacular, with lots of......
I just read a blog this morning on how salmonella is unchecked in the frozen foods we buy. The article was more politically oriented and I don’t want to get into that. But it brought up a good point about global warming.
If you buy a head of lettuce grown in California and you live in Maine, how does it get to you? Think about this, the soil is prepared and the lettuce is planted using large fossil fuelled machinery. Then there is mega amounts of water wasted as huge sprinkler systems water the crops and everything in between. Then there is that wonderful fertilizer, the kind you wonder what it contains. Then we get our trusty underpaid, underappreciated immigrant workers to harvest the crop and package it for shipping. Then it is sent to a refrigerated distribution center and put into large, refrigerated trucks to be sent across the country, using diesel fuel all the way. Now once it is on the other coast it goes to another distribution center and sent out in another truck. Finally, about a week after being picked it goes on your grocery store shelve.
That head of lettuce has probably used more fuel to get to the store than you used to run errands this week. A better option would be to buy local produce. Now that summer is around the corner, numerous farmers markets will be selling their goods. This not only saves all that waste of shipping your lettuce across the country, but it feeds the local economy and environment.
Better yet, grow your own. Especially if you have young children, this is a rewarding endeavor. You will be teaching your children a life long lesson that no school could possibly teach, not to mention children are more likely to eat vegetables they grew. As an added bonus your children will not be ingesting dangerous chemicals from artificially fertilized food. There is nothing more satisfying than eating produce you grew yourself and knowing you helped the environment.
Why Buy Toxic Products When There Are Healthier Alternatives? OK, I get it - you don't buy that climate change could be happening or that coal-burning power plants do any damage to anyone. Point taken, I will leave you alone...after I say this: Even if you don't believe any of the hype, wouldn't you rather buy products that are......
How To Choose & Buy 'Green' Gutters For Your Home. Dear EarthTalk: We will need to replace our house gutters soon. What are our best options from an environmental perspective? First understand clearly why your gutters need to be replaced. Are they rusted or broken? Are the fasteners no longer holding them in place? Or have the gutters leaked and......
Haven’t you always wanted to go to a convention and find out more information, but you just couldn’t justify the time and expense of going? Now is your chance. Virtual Energy Forum is offering a free two-day converence on clean energy. No plane trip, no hotel room and no credit card bill!
Just sit down at your computer and wonder through the convention. Catch a live presentation by a keynote speaker or ask a vendor some questions. All while sitting at your desk, you can learn the latest about the most important issue facing the world.
This is your chance to find out how you can make a difference in clean energy without wasting any of your energy. Sign up today for free at Virtual Energy Forum. They can’t make it any easier than that. Set the date June 24th and June 25th, 2009.
Quick Green Reads For The Weekend Volume 147. I will be headed back east in the next week for the holidays, so posting will probably be a little sporadic once I hit the road and spend time with family. Just an FYI. Oh, and if you are still in need of picking up any gifts for friends......
Study Shows Homeowners Using Landscaping to Save Energy and Water In this current day and age, where common activities among people include the tightening of wallets and the fearing of soaring energy bills, almost everyone has had to adopt some substantial practices inside and outside of their own homes. Americans are also incorporating techniques in their landscaping that are allowing......
Great news on wind. The American Wind Energy Association had announced 2,800MW of new wind energy installed in the first quarter of 2009. This is awsome news for renewable energy and puts us on our way to reaching President Obama’s goal of 25% of our electricity coming from renewables by 2025.
But we still have some major obstacles, the largest of which is the lack of updated, smart grid transmission lines. Unfortunately, most great land wind in areas with smaller population densities. We need to get this great power to where it is needed. We need a renewable energy standard (RES). Everybody who wants a cleaner, healthier future needs to write their Congressmen, their Senators and President Obama and demand what we voted for, a RES today.
Home Solar Power Owners Get Credit In 2009 If you are thinking of getting home solar power in 2009, then the good news is that the number of federal and state incentives for having an energy efficient home has never been greater. The bad, of course, is that many of us are strapped for cash or home equity......
Buying Green Power From Your Utility Vs. Going It Alone. Dear EarthTalk: Iâd like to know the relative electricity cost of utility scale solar and wind plants versus rooftop residential solar. In other words, how can I know whether to subsidize my utilityâs alternative energy plant or renovate my own home? Making such a determination is complex, but you could......
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Striper Wars: An American Fish Story User Reviews Send this to a friend Striper Wars: An American Fish Story Manufacturer: Customer Rating: List Price: Varies based on product options Sale Price: View Sale Price Availibility: View Product Availability Buy Now Product Description Product Details No details are available for this product Video Reviews No video...... 
Watch the unit prices at the grocery store Last night I bought a couple boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese because my wife likes "the real thing" once in a while. (Yes, she knows that the generic brand is cheaper but she can taste the difference, and no this point isn't negotiable.)If given the choice between (a) individual...... 
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