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Simon
Simon

Green Consumer: In your home

As a person and consumer you have the power to do something about climate change. Never forget or think otherwise. Sure you may wonder how much you’ll actually help by replacing your CFLs, recycling etc but in the end all small things path up to something bigger and more meaningful, especially when many join in.

This is part three of a series of posts explaining and giving advice on what you can do to combat climate change from your home, in the store, when you travel and on your spare time. All the things listed are easy to do, some things will take a little longer, but most of them will help save you money (besides all the positive effects on our earth).

Your home is your castle!

Green Consumer: In your homeBan incandescent light bulbs

Whole countries are lining up to ban incandescent light bulbs and replace them with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Maybe your country hasn’t embraced this bright idea yet, but your home can. Switch to low energy efficient light bulbs and help save our environment while you are saving money for yourself.

Choose green energy

If you have the option you should search for a green electricity supplier that can deliver clean and renewable energy. Just be sure that the energy doesn’t come from any nuclear reactors.

Compost and recycle

Today you can recycle everything you consume, from food packages to batteries and old TVs to your old furniture’s and much more. When you have gotten into this thing called recycling you should take the next “big step” and compost your food leftovers. When buying new furniture‘s consider to give away your old furniture’s to friends, relatives or to a charity.

Hot in here?

We usually have it unnecessary hot than we actually need in our apartment. Decreasing the temperature in your home with just one degree lowers the energy usage with around 5%. Put on some clothes or have some fun in the bed with someone instead of increasing the temperature. And when you are away longer periods from your home don’t forget to lower the temperature even more. Here in Scandinavia it’s enough to keep 21 degrees in our living rooms, 18 degrees in the bedroom and around 5-10 degrees in storage spaces and garage.

Fill it!

When doing your dishes or laundry fill everything to the top. Never run half empty dishwashers or washing machines. If you don’t wash the dishes with hot water before, a full dishwasher eats less energy than doing [the dishes] it manually. When doing the laundry use 40 degrees instead of 60 degrees.

Don’t stand-by

Shut off all electric gadgets such as your TV, DVD player etc instead of having it on stand-by mode. Also don’t forget to plug out your chargers when they are not in use.

Low-flow

Install low-flow showerheads and taps in your home. A low-flow showerhead can save up to 50% of your energy usage. Taking a shower is, ordinary, much better than taking a bath.

Old freezer is bad freezer

You can save a lot of energy by replacing your old freezer or/and fridge to a more energy efficient one. Also be sure not to have it to cold in your freezer. Every degree below -18 degrees increases the energy usage with 5%.

Image credit: seier+seier+seier. Image licensed under a

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You want to truly make your home green, but no one uses the technology that is always readily available. You don't know how many people I see, bitching about "green this" and "green that"....these trophy wives "going green" because it's trendy, as they drive off in their new H2 getting 9 mpg. Here's the deal, if you want cheap/free energy, we have the technology, and you can build a conversion kit, to go on any engine, that will convert your engine into a machine that uses WATER as fuel. That's right, you heard it....water. You can uses electrolysis to convert water into the flammable HHO gas, which burns hotter and cleaner than anything, and the only exhaust is...you guessed it....water vapor. I'll be featuring a book that shows you how to do this on my website pretty soon. Alternative Fuels have been around us our entire lives, so has the technology. Also, this same conversion kit is being implemented in the U.S. Military as we speak, making HUMMERs that run on both water, and gasoline or diesel. This isn't science fiction folks, it's science fact. The Bottom Line is this....with this simple vehicle conversion, you can get another 60% out of your vehicles gas mileage, and get more horsepower out of it too. For your home?? You can set up a generator to run on this HHO gas. There is a product that converts the water into the gas, that can power your home generator. Or, just convert your regular 10kw generator that will run most of an average size home with the conversion, and run your generator on water, powering your home. You'll never pay for electricity again (unless of course you want to). Anyway, it's possible, sometimes expensive (about $7,000) for an HHO generator, and for a natural gas run 20kw generator wired to a home is pretty pricey too.....but hey, go green!

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It's not always easy changing one's entire lifestyle to suit the environment. We have become so used to our every day luxuries that we don't stop to think about the effects those luxuries might have for future generations. If you're like me, you want to make a difference, you find that it is a lot easier to to "green" when it benefits you. Saving money, electricity, etc are motivators for people to do something that helps the environment. The easiest thing a person can do to help out is change your incandescent lightbulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). How can this really benefit you? Well I found this nice little incandescent to CFL savings calculator online at a web site called SpringLight CFLs. This will show you the conversion charts and tell you exactly how much you can save by making the switch. I have also heard people talk about not wanting CFLs because of the light quality that they produce. Did you know that CFLs come in three different type of light output? These are called color temperatures and they have soft, bright and daylight. Want to know what would work best? Check out this SpringLight Color Temperature Chart. I replaced every bulb in my home except for a couple ceiling fans, which are dimmable. That is my only drawback with CFLs right now is that they don't seem to have any that are dimmable. Anyway, this just shows that you don't have to completely change your life to help the environment. You can start simple by changing your lights and feel good about making a positive impact on the world. Heck, you can even help save more by staying off the street. I bought my CFLs online at the SpringLight CFL Store

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Great conversation on small tips to make a big difference. Nothing like taking a huge hit to the pocketbook on energy and food to inspire a planet full of people to get thinking about consumption. Great home energy conserving products are getting huge amounts of attension these last few years with heating and fuel costs going sky high. When fuel costs and heating costs were low nobody cared how much energy they were using or wasting.

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