Reducing energy use

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How Much Energy Do Your Electric Appliances Use?

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Or How Much Does it Cost to Run Your Home Appliances? There are two (2) separate costs to home electrical appliances. 1.    The purchase price 2.    The daily operating costs Connect your appliances to the Kill A Watt P3 and find how efficient they really are. The appliance’s energy use is measured in kilowatt-hours, which [...]

Another Reason to Go Solar

Monday, March 9th, 2009

Another Reason to Go Solar: Doing the Home Electric Energy Math Working a solar power system into my budget means I’m always doing the math. Here’s an interesting energy math equation: 1 kilowatt-hour = 1 pound of coal This means that every kilowatt-hour you shave off your electric bill you are refusing to burn a [...]

Solar Power – Is It Right For You?

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Image by reiner.kraft via Flickr Solar Power – Is It Right For You? Do you want a solar powered home? I sure do. Although technology improves and solar panel prices fall, going solar can still be a daunting process. Have you ever wondered if solar power is right for you? Well, Mother Earth News has [...]

Home Energy Conservation Challenge – Week 2

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Home Energy Conservation Challenge –      Week 2 Welcome to this week’s Home Energy Conservation Challenge! If you’re here for the first time, you can find how this challenge works here. Remember our grocery shopping analogy from last week? If not, here it is again: Imagine that you go to the grocery store every week, pick [...]

Solar Energy Find of the Week

Friday, February 13th, 2009

Solar Energy Find of the Week I want a solar powered home. Although my home is not yet ready for solar panels, it’s fun to find small, simple ways to incorporate solar energy into daily life. Take this solar iPhone charger from Sollight, for example. If you’re hiking or traveling with your nifty little iPhone, [...]

Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

Monday, January 19th, 2009

Image by Joshua Davis (jdavis.info) via Flickr Reducing Your Carbon Footprint Did you know you can calculate your home energy carbon footprint? There’s a nifty carbon footprint calculator at BeGreenNow.com. All you have to do is enter your kilowatt-hour usage and/or your natural gas usage for the month (or year). Using the BeGreenNow calculator, I [...]

Solar Panel Prices Fall

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Image by muenzer via Flickr Solar Panel Prices Fall USA Today reports some good news in the bad economy. The cost of rooftop solar systems are down 8 to 10 percent since October. Prices on rooftop solar systems are expected to fall another 15 to 20 percent over the course of the year. This is [...]

Home Energy Reduction Progress

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

Image by thingermejig via Flickr Our Home Energy Reduction 2008 Progress This week I paid my last electric utility bill for 2008. As mentioned in Monday’s post we went off our “energy diet” during the holidays, so the monthly bill was higher than usual. Still, in spite of our holiday energy binge, we used fewer [...]

Reducing Home Energy at Christmas

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

Image via Wikipedia Reducing Home Energy at Christmas Basically, this blog is a journal about our quest for energy independence. We want to go solar but there’s a long and winding road to get there. We set our eyes on the goal and have made small but meaningful changes that greatly reduced our home energy [...]

Home Energy Reduction Diet Update

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

Image via Wikipedia Home Energy Reduction Diet Update My home energy reduction diet has been going well since August. It’s December now. On this cloudy, cold day in South Texas, I’m cold. Setting my digital thermostat to 85 degrees in summer was easily tolerated by this southern acclimatized body. However, the thermostat setting of 68 [...]

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