Ten Easy Things Home Owners Can Do to Save the Earth – Home Solar Energy Engine

1. Whether or not you visualize a solar-powered house in your future, you can assess your present home’s solar energy potential by using thermometers. Which rooms are naturally warmer in winter or cooler in summer? “Greenies” consider beyond the names we stick on rooms, and arrange our belongings so people use most time in the rooms that use least energy for climate control. Close doors so that you don’t have to heat or cool empty rooms.

2. If there’s a part of your house that really sucks out heating or cooling energy, like a huge represent window or a twenty-foot ceiling, try to cessation it off during extreme weather.

The ancient venerable (1960s) way to insulate huge, dramatic, odd-sized and therefore single-paned windows used to involve Fiberglas insulation, heavy plastic, and duct tape. While this still works, environmentalists have developed more attractive alternatives. You can have storm windows made to fit the windows you have, or, at a slightly lower cost, you can have insulating material sewn and/or quilted into fabrics that match your decor. If you can’t find local suppliers for either of these insulating options, e-mail me for a referral to a deserving artisan.

3. “Gray water” is water in which you’ve bathed or washed ordinary household objects (using earth-friendly soap). Although humans and most animals can’t drink this water, your plants will probably like it. Organic “dirt” works as fertilizer; natural soap suds alkalize the soil. (Check the soil preference of your plants before trying this thought. Some plants, like blueberries and azaleas, prefer acid soil.) To use “gray water,” scoop up as much as you want to expend, be sure to add bits of food from the sink strainer after washing dishes, and test your soil before using other fertilizers.

4. Never use petrochemical pesticides. They kill natural predators and support pesticide-resistant strains of insects and weeds. Deal with weeds by pulling and digging them up. (Killing weeds is a fantastic after-school game.) Deal with insects by encouraging their natural predators, scenting yourself and your home with natural repellents, and, if you must kill insects, using earth-friendly products made with herb oils and mineral salts. I’ve written more on this theme.

5. Some “greenies” choose a car-free lifestyle. If that’s too complicated for you, there are still many simple things you can do to be a more earth-friendly driver.

In winter, try not to idle your car to warm up the engine. Recent-model cars aren’t supposed to need warming up anyway, and idling wastes gas and oil.

Electric and hybrid-powered cars are ultracool, but those who’ve been able to buy them described that they can be hard to handle. If you buy a traditional gas burner, look for the highest efficiency rating in your selection range.

Some “greenies” are unnecessarily judgmental about people who do in fact need a van (for wheelchair-bound passengers or long road trips) or truck (to haul farm supplies). I personally reckon that the only reason why Jesus would not drive a van is that He might prefer to heal all His disabled followers, who might then capture to show the world how well they could tear. So all I’ll say here is, don’t kid yourself. Driving more car than you need is not cold. If you live alone in the city and share your car with only one passenger, buy the smallest car in your price range.

Read the manufacturer’s instructions for operating your car at its peak efficiency. Failing to withhold the engine tuned, the tires inflated, the brakes tight, and so on, is a perilous kind of “fake economy.” If you want a car, give it what it needs so that it won’t waste gas and oil…or endanger someone’s life.

On the other hand, don’t give your car more than it needs. If it runs well on low-octane “economy” gas, why waste money on premium grade? For some vehicles higher-octane gas is essential; for some it’s wasteful. Know your engine.

6. Always buy local obtain when you can. When you have to shop at supermarkets, scrutinize for fruit and vegetables grown in the U.S. and Canada, rather than in countries that still tolerate the use of the pesticides the U.S. and Canada have banned.

Avoid commercially grown corn, though, unless you know it’s a traditional strain. Too many commercial farmers are now raising corn with genes from disease bacteria spliced into it. While most humans are highly immune to Bacillus thuringiensis, and volunteers have eaten BT culture by the cupful and survived, evidence is mounting that frequent ingestion of BT-spliced corn hurts the human liver.

(BT genes have been spliced into corn because BT causes an extremely infectious, fatal, and apparently painful disease in caterpillars. There is an environmentally sound way to control the caterpillars BT is being weak to kill, corn earworms. Since it involves slit rotation, companion planting, and similar common-sense measures that require more human effort than mechanically planting and harvesting corn, huge agribusinesses aren’t interested. For the latest news on this hot topic, Google “genetically modified corn.”)

7. When you install, repair, or replace a toilet, try to minimize the amount of water used on each flush. Recent-model “dual flush” toilets offer the option of flushing small or large amounts of water, as needed. I would never recommend that anyone forget to flush the toilet, even if the contents are only liquid, but most of the time, less than one gallon of water would preserve the bathroom fresh and pleasant.

8. When you install, replace, or repair expansive electrical appliances, check their energy ratings. Be realistic. Sometimes the machine with the very best energy rating is an itsy-bitsy model your large family would offset by needing to buy three machines, or use one five times a day. If fifteen or twenty members of your extended family intend to use your washing machine, go ahead and buy a gigantic one. As with cars, be an informed consumer; don’t pay for something that burns up more power (and money) than you need.

You’ll find “Energy Stars” on huge appliances as well as small ones. An “Energy Star” means that a scheme does what it’s designed to do at a reasonable level of efficiency. Just as some well-designed late-model vans get better gas mileage than some shrimp cars, likewise, some large appliances bag “Energy Stars” for running cleaner and cheaper than poorly designed small ones. If you’re concerned about rising utility bills, it may pay to talk to someone who is knowledgeable about industry standards, not just pushing the brands sold in his or her store.

9. Instead of wasting petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides to compose grass grow, then wasting petrochemical fuel (and exposing yourself to unfiltered, extremely toxic fumes) to mow grass when it has grown, try planting native “ground covers” that naturally stop in that one-to-six-inch range.

Grass grows in nature only when it’s mown and fertilized by grazing animals such as horses, cows, and deer. When the grazing animals go away, grass is supposed to be displaced by wildflowers, which then give way to bushes, which, after fifty years or so, give procedure to trees. If you don’t have a herd of grazing animals, and you don’t want to spend a lot of time cultivating a whole garden of specially landscaped plants, accept the natural course of nature. Many plants in the “natural ground cover” category hold pretty flowers in spring, and can be pruned around a few showy ornamental plants.

10. Do house cleaning simpler and healthier by using natural soaps, soda, and vinegar solutions, rather than petrochemical-based cleaning agents, when you can. This task will be much simpler if you don’t have carpets (do use thick rugs for insulation, but keep them washable-sized) and if you maintain a low-clutter, wheelchair-accessible style at least in the shared spaces in your home.

“Undyed” or “neutral” color schemes are currently fashionable for home decor. They’re desirable even when they’re not fashionable, because they allow you to use natural, minimally chemical-processed fabrics in your decor and also get the natural cleaning benefits of full sunlight. Many germs and molds die when the sun hits them. Most natural fibres will fade in the sun. But, newly dyed natural fibres usually look excellent next to sunbleached natural fibres, so if all your rugs and furniture are natural fibres, you can celebrate the slightly different color harmony they produce each year.

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Ten Easy Things Home Owners Can Do to Save the Earth – Home Solar Energy Engine

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