DYI Green Energy For Homes – Another link request

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

This guys don’t realize it but I have posted about them before. They know what they are talking about.

DIY Green Energy | Home Made Energy

diy green energy for homes Are you sick and tired of having to pay huge energy bills? If you answer yes to this question, then DIY green energy is a sensible option for you. You can begin utilizing free, eco-friendly power and reduce your household power bill by more than 80% while doing your part in saving the Earth.

The most significant benefits of DIY green energy is the ability to make big savings in the long run. Bear in mind though that there are significant start up costs associated with the setting up of solar, magnetic or wind power, and it’ll require a bit of time before you start to enjoy the rewards.

Setting up green energy power is really an enjoyable task that can be done by yourself – there is no better satisfaction than the experience associated with getting this done yourself. The very first time I assembled a residential wind turbine involved a couple of weeks, however the thrill of seeing it working in motion is priceless.

There are numerous methods to construct your own homemade green energy generators online which depicts the procedure and show you which components are needed. Don’t ever doubt yourself and don’t forget that anyone can create a workable and effective machine by yourself.

If you wish to reduce your month-to-month electricity bill, become self sufficient or increase the value of your property, this is all merely an arm’s reach away using homemade energy. It is possible to construct DIY solar panels or wind power generator by using simple, straightforward, “any kid could understand it” instructions. We’ve placed together some terrific information on DIY solar panels and homemade wind turbines that will make a massive difference in saving energy if you put them into application.

Regardless of whether you’ve questions on home made green energy or don’t have the slightess idea what is green energy, we have answers for you here. Before you know it, your free electricity dreams will turn out to be a reality.

More tomorrow.

IEEE And A Link Request – I have gotten a lot of link requests

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

So today and for the next couple, I am going to put up those up here:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid

FERC Issues Major Rule to Encourage Grid Expansion

Fri, July 29, 2011

Blog Post: Most important power grid reform since the power system was opened to wholesale competition

More Smart Meter Pushback

Wed, July 06, 2011

Blog Post: British review raises questions about cost of national rollout and claimed benefits

Planned U.S. Power System Experiment Means Some Clocks Will Speed Up

Fri, July 01, 2011

Blog Post: Will anybody really know what time it is? Will anybody really care?

Flywheels Keep the Grid in Tune

July 2011

Article: Spinning masses face off against big batteries in the half-billion-dollar market for grid stability

Saving Smart Meters From a Backlash

August 2011

Article: Fears of irradiation from antennas threaten to smother smart meters in the crib

More tomorrow

Cool Your House Without AC – Everyone seems to agree on the same list of 10

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

Next week I am going to put up links with groups that have asked to be linked to CES. So to finish out the week, here is the last list of how to keep your house cool. New list the same as the old list, as Henry the 8th would say.

http://pennypincherpersonalfinance.blogspot.com/2011/07/10-ways-to-keep-cool-without-air.html

Sunday, July 24, 2011

10 Ways to Keep Cool Without an Air Conditioner

Anita Sands sent me this the other day. This article is repeated all over the Internet. I am not sure of the original place it appeared – if someone knows and tells me I’ll attribute it. Here’s Anita’s Frugal Roo Page

10 ways to keep cool at home without A/C

Save energy this summer. It’s easy to keep your house cool without air conditioning. Employing a few basic environmentally friendly principals will help keep you cool and will help you save money.

1. Hot Air Out, Cool Air In

The most basic thing you can do to keep your house cooler without air conditioning is to keep as much sunlight out as possible and let cooler air in at night. During the day, keep windows, drapes, blinds, or shades
closed, especially on the southern and western sides of your home. If you have a porch, you can put up large plastic or bamboo shades to cut down on sunlight. Or put awnings on south/ west sides Use saplings or
tree branches that are fairly straight. Set in coffee cans of cement six feet from house. canvas or shade cloth goes from eaves to these poles with a cross beam on it. Use staple gun. Costs nearly nothing.

2. Windows

Use white or light colored window dressings to reflect light. You can also apply reflective slicks to windows to further cut down on light. At night, leave cabinets open as well, as they will store heat.

3. Be a Fan of the Fan

Moving air is cooler air. At night, place fans in windows to bring more cool air in. Ceiling fans can also make a big difference. In terms of cooling, even a one-mile-per-hour breeze will make you feel three to four degrees cooler. In terms of energy savings, if you run a ceiling fan full-blast for 12 hours, you will only spend about $10 a month in electricity. Ceiling fans have two settings, one to pull air up (for winter use), and the other to push air down. Make sure your ceiling fan is blowing down.

4. Turn Your Fan Into an Air Conditioner

Another easy way to cool your home without air conditioning is to place a bowl of ice or a frozen milk jug With WATER! in front of one or more fans.

5. What’s Hot in Your Home?

It’s one thing to keep hot air and sunlight out; it’s another to identify the appliances in your home that generate heat. If you aren’t at home during the day, it is easier to simply shut off as many electric appliances as possible. If you spend more of your day at home, try to use heat-generating appliances only during the coolest part of the day.

Go there and read more. It is a really informative blog for those that like to save money.

More next week.

Tomorrow Is The Last Day – Getting my AC fixed

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

But that is no reason to stop putting up all these ways to cool your house tips. This one is down to earth and includes 2 big ones I had forgotten, closing off unused space and compromise. Unless you live alone you know that comfort is probably only about half of what you will get, unless you and your housemates response to temperature is all the same. That is hardly ever true. Anyway how cool is the title of this blog. I think she should meet the
Gardening Nude lady myself.

Air conditioning vs. fresh air: 10 ways to “keep our cool”

At the start of every summer, as the temperature rises, my husband and I seem to have the same discussion… when to turn on the air conditioning!

This is never an easy discussion (okay! read: argument!) as this is the man who wears shorts and t-shirts around the house when it’s 19 degrees outside in the dead of winter.

I prefer the open windows and doors, and want to breathe the fresh air. To this my husband responds “Babe, it ceases to be fresh as soon as it’s 85 degrees with 70% humidity!” Well, it’s still fresh but I guess it does cease to be RE-freshing!

Just like heating your house in the winter and whether you do or don’t choose to crank the AC, there are ways to keep your house cooler, stop some of the cool air loss and use less energy in the process:

Close blinds or curtains in various windows throughout the day to prevent the sun shining in. If it’s coming in, so is the heat.
Use ceiling fans. They circulate the cool air and don’t use a lot of energy.
Program your thermostat. No need to keep it blasting in the evening or when you aren’t even home.
When it’s cool outside at night, shut off the air, open the windows and take advantage.
74 degrees is all you need. This is a bearable temperature, and if you can tolerate it higher, do it! Each degree saves 3-4% on your cooling/energy expenses.
Don’t worry about unused rooms. Close the windows, doors and vents in these rooms, and block the bottom of the door if they aren’t
frequently occupied

ceil fan

Run appliances at night. This includes dryers & dishwashers that give off heat. Avoid using your oven… give it a rest and grill instead! And if you do use the stovetop, be sure to use the exhaust fan to take away the heat.
Turn off unneeded lights, TVs, computers, etc. when you aren’t using them. They all generate heat too.
Keep heat generating appliances away from the thermostat (TVs, lamps, etc.). They’ll make the thermostat think it’s hotter than it really is.
Don’t chop down trees that shade your house. They simply keep a house cooler. And even plant strategically. Shaded AC units run more efficiently, but just be sure not to block the airflow.

I do try to take my own advice. It’s not always easy (living with my husband who compensates by turning up the ceiling fans to “jet speed”) but it’s a compromise we always seem to manage when it all “boils down”!

Sorry for the clumsy post but I am at the library so I do not have time to pretty things up. More tomorrow.

Cooling Your House Without Air Conditioning – This is a huge list

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

What the last list lacked. Big ticket sugestions, this one over does. Still it is pretty comprehensive. Nobody yet has mentioned paint your roof white. I can not put all of it up because it is so huge. Please go and see the rest at:

23 Tips for Keeping the House Cool

a Care2 favorite by Annie B. Bond

Adapted from Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings, by Alex Wilson, Jennifer Thorne, and John Morrill.

Puzzling out how to keep your house as cool as possible during these hot summer months? Trying to remember the conventional wisdom but not quite sure how it goes? Those window fans, for example, should they be placed to draw air in or out? Upwind or downwind of the dwelling? And what about windows, shades, and awnings? Are windows on the North side of the house better left closed or open during the day? Are awnings better than shades?

Find out the answers to these questions and more, right here:

The recent heat spell on the East Coast dredged these questions up for me, and I am sure these questions are seasonal for many of us. Efficient cooling saves money, energy, and the quality of our lives.

Turning to Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings by Alex Wilson, Jennifer Thorne, and John Morrill of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has provided a wealth of answers to just these questions and more. I’ve compiled 23 tricks about how to keep a house cool to reduce the need for air conditioning from this book, as well as a few from The Real Goods Solar Living Sourcebook. These tips are really useful.

1. Reduce the cooling load by employing cost-effective conservation measures. Provide effective shade for east and west windows. When possible, delay heat-generating activities such as dishwashing until evening on hot days.

2. Over most of the cooling season, keep the house closed tight during the day. Don’t let in unwanted heat and humidity. Ventilate at night either naturally or with fans.

3. You can help get rid of unwanted heat through ventilation if the temperature of the incoming air is 77 F or lower. (This strategy works most effectively at night and on cooler days.) Window fans for ventilation are a good option if used properly. They should be located on the downwind side of the house facing out. A window should be open in each room. Interior doors must remain open to allow air flow

More tomorrow.

How To Cool Your House – These people really miss some big ones

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

These guys skip some of the bigger ticket items like taking windows out of service, and buying a dehumidifier, closing off the upper floors of your house and pumping cool air from your basement using your furnace fan. Still you have to start somewhere.

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/10-ways-to-keep-cool-without-air-conditioning-a-planet-green-roundup.html

Reading Mickey’s interview Author Stan Cox Explores Some Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World makes one think about what the alternatives are. Planet Green and TreeHugger have covered many of them; we round them up ten of them here.
Use awnings.

According to the Washington Post, The Department of Energy estimates that awnings can reduce solar heat gain—the amount temperature rises because of sunshine—by as much as 65 percent on windows with southern exposures and 77 percent on those with western exposures. Your furniture will last longer, too.

We noted in Planet Green last spring that this can translate into a saving of cooling energy of 26 percent in hot climates, and 33 percent in more temperate climates where it might even make air conditioning unnecessary.

Plant A Tree.

I don’t own an air conditioner. The house immediately to the south does it for us, completely shading the south side of our house. What it misses, a huge ancient maple in its front yard gets, so in winter I get a lot of sun in my window, and in summer I am always in shade. A tree is as sophisticated as any electronic device around; it lets the sun through in winter and grows leaves in summer to block it.

Geoffrey Donovan studied it in Sacramento, and calculated the savings.

“Everyone knows that shade trees cool a house. No one is going to get a Nobel Prize for that conclusion,” says the study co-author, Geoffrey Donovan. “But this study gets at the details: Where should a tree be placed to get the most benefits? And how exactly do shade trees impact our carbon footprint?”

Plant Vines.

Frank Lloyd Wright once said “a doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.” It turns out he could have been a mechanical engineer, for it is surprising how effective vines are at keeping a house cool. With the new weatherization grants, the salesmen are out peddling ground source heat pumps to keep you cool for less, but really, free is better.

Vines such as ivy, russian-vine and virgina creeper grow quickly and have an immediate effect; according to Livingroofs.org.

Climbers can dramatically reduce the maximum temperatures of a building by shading walls from the sun, the daily temperature fluctuation being reduced by as much as 50%.Together with the insulation effect, temperature fluctuations at the wall surface can be reduced from between –10°/14°F to 60°C/140°F to between 5°C/41°F and 30°/86°F. Vines also cool your home through envirotranspiration, described in our post Be Cool and Plant A Tree.

Please read the rest for more. The next idea “opening your windows” might not be such a good idea.

More tomorrow if I live.

My Air Conditioner Failed – So this week it is personal

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

Our 26 year old York air conditioner failed on Saturday. We had it recharged 2 months ago but it did not hold. It was worth a try because it had never been tapped before. Now we have to get a new one. I spent an hour today taking 2 east facing windows out of service to help cut down on the heat load. They don’t really talk about that here.

So here are the standard tips on cooling your house without AC. I will be doing this for the rest of the week.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/care2/422/10-ways-to-keep-cool-at-home-without-a-c.html

10 ways to keep cool at home without A/C

By Chaya, selected from Hometalk

Posted Tue Jun 21, 2011 12:18pm PDT

Save energy this summer. It’s easy to keep your house cool without air conditioning. Employing a few basic environmentally friendly principals will help keep you cool and will help you save money.

1. Hot Air Out, Cool Air In

2. Windows

3. Be a Fan of the Fan

4. Turn Your Fan Into an Air Conditioner

Another easy way to cool your home without air conditioning is to place a bowl of ice or a frozen milk jug in front of one or more fans.

5. What’s Hot in Your Home?

Keeping your electronics on a power strip provides a quick way to “power-down” before leaving for the day.

7. Light Bulbs

Please. If you are still using incandescent lightbulbs you are insane. That means at least 80 member of the House Of Representatives. But then you knew that. Please go to the site and read the rest. Has some interesting links as well.

More tomorrow.

Automated Residential Systems – Here is a good example

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

Again these type systems are not for lower or working class families. They need basic energy conservation techniques and ultimately to be moved off the grid. But for those who can afford it this is pretty cool.

http://www.magnumenergysolutions.com/resident.php?top_menu_id=1

Venergy home is a complete home automation solution. The Venergy system allows homeowners to control all the lights in their home from a series of self-powering switches, Thermostat HVAC control, and electronics connected to the Venergy outlet. In addition the home owner has complete home automation through the Venergy software for entertainment, security alarm, cameras, real time smart energy monitoring and much more!

New Home Construction or Retrofit Benefits:

Reduce build costs in new construction with the Venergy new home 16 channel controller, which eliminates the need for switch legs.

100% whole house dimming, which results in dramatic energy savings and extended bulb life with the Venergy new home controller

Because all switches are 100% movable, homeowners can change switch locations any time they want or need to.

Terminate Standby power to electronics with the Venergy outlet.

Know to the kHw or penny how much energy your home is consuming with the Venergy Smart Monitor.

Turn on lights, control temperature, monitor your home while out of town with your iPhone, Blackberry or web browser and the Venergy software interface.

The Venergy home automation solution is a simple retrofit or new construction system which provides the home owner with basic or advanced control as they desire.

An Explosion Of Middle Class Energy Services – Not for the poor

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

By the way, I do not mean this as a critic. As income rises so does energy wastage. They have bigger house and bigger stuff all the way around. So damping this residential sector is critical. But this requires some money.

http://www.ecologices.com/

Slash Your Energy Costs!

The healthy, energy-efficient home of the future is here today! EcoLogic Energy Solutions is proud to offer the most advanced spray foam insulation systems for residential and commercial construction. We offer over four different types of spray foams, including soy-based, to meet your needs. Through the use of spray foam insulation, EcoLogic transforms an ordinary house into a modern day, high-performance home. The results speak for themselves. A home or building insulated with spray foam is up to 50-70% more energy efficient than a similar structure using fiberglass insulation!

EcoLogic has assembled the most experienced, knowledgeable, and professional team in the region. We are committed to helping people save money, live in a healthy and comfortable home, and reduce their impact on the environment. We follow through with our commitment by donating a portion of our pre-tax profits to charities dedicated to helping safeguard our environment.

Whether you are a homeowner, architect, builder, or contractor we invite you to explore our site and give us a call at 203-889-0505.

Save money on residential heating and cooling

We are proud to provide rating services to qualify new homes for the ENERGY STAR® label. ENERGY STAR qualified new homes are substantially more energy efficient than homes built to the minimum code requirements. Even in states with more rigorous energy codes, the U.S. EPA ensures that ENERGY STAR remains the symbol for truly energy-efficient performance. These homes are good for businesses, consumers, and the environment.

More tomorrow.

Residential Energy Services – The Green Home way

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Doug Nicodemus

This site offers a lot of features. Most of the cover page is one of those fancy slick every changing happy pictures type power point presentations so I will spare you that, but they have a lot of really useful information so:

http://www.greenhomesamerica.com/