Archive for March, 2010
Everyone knows that conserving water is important, and many people take steps to save water in their house by doing things such as taking shorter showers or checking for leaks. While this is a critical step in the process of making our lives more environmentally friendly and protecting a precious resource, it is only part of what you can do. Did you know that most wasted water is outside your home? Here are some ideas to help you prevent wasting water in your yard.
With the spring planting season approaching and people pulling out their lawnmowers and getting them ready for the summer, it is important to remember a few simple tips. Don’t cut your lawn too short or it will dry out quickly and turn brown. Instead to save water and have healthy-looking, green grass that the neighbors will be jealous of, raise the blade of your mower to three to four inches high. This allows your grass to have a shaded root system, which allows it to retain more water. Many people like to fertilize their lawn in the spring but beware! Fertilizer, because it encourages growth, makes your lawn very thirsty and it is easy to over-fertilize, causing your grass to die rather than thrive.
If you plan on planting around your house, consider native, drought-resistant plants. Not only are they easier to maintain, they will give your home a more natural atmosphere. Make sure to mulch your beds and around your plants since mulch helps control weeds and insulates against water loss. Consider installing drip irrigation, which is a much more efficient way to water since it delivers the moisture directly to the plants roots. My husband used an old hose with holes punched into it to water my beds of roses last year. This also kept my flowers from developing mold on the leaves from over-watering. In the summer, your lawn generally only needs water once a week, and a good soaking rain can extend this period for up to two weeks. When you do need to water your lawn, it is best to use a sprinkler in the early morning to prevent evaporation and allow the water to soak into the ground. Remember to only water your lawn for about thirty minutes to avoid oversaturation.
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About the Author:
For more information about water conservation, please visit <a rel=”nofollow” target=”_blank” href=”http://www.centralbasin.org/“>Central Basin</a>
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I looked around, but all of the solar panels I found were really expensive so I decided to wait on going solar and just enjoy my cheaper, less polluting and much more fun way of commuting.
Several months ago I decided to take another look at solar and, while I found solar panel prices are still pretty high, I began reading about how to build your own solar panel. After searching extensively on the internet, I decided to take the plunge and give it a try.
I bought and reviewed all the guides
There is some free information out there, but it tends to be incomplete, not specific enough, or not very easy to follow. I bought one of the online DIY solar panel guides and while it was OK, I found it a bit lacking in detail. So I bought another one and found this one to be very complete and with step-by-step videos, very easy to follow. I decided to share my experience building my homemade solar panel to help other people so I bought all the guides I could find and reviewed them all.
The guide I chose
After buying and reviewing all of the guides, I decided to use GreenDIYEnergy. Why? There are really two reasons. First, it is by far the most comprehensive. There are 17 different components ranging from ebooks to spreadsheet to videos that cover all the important details. The videos are the second reason. They are DVD quality and take you through the whole build step-by-step from start to finish.
How I did it
I ordered the solar cells online and bought the rest of the materials at my local hardware store. I used the measurements and layout suggested in the guide and followed along with the videos through the build process. It was actually easier than I thought it would be once I got the hang of it. It only took one weekend to build the panel and that includes buying parts, cutting and painting the wood, soldering the cells, construction and wiring
How much did it cost?
The total cost for my solar panel was $129. I actually spent more than I had to on the solar cells and bought ones that came pre-tabbed to make the build easier. I also had to buy all the wood so if you have some scrap plywood laying around and tab the cells yourself you could definitely build your panel for less than $100. I looked at some solar panels for sale online and I saved between 50 and 75% by building my own.
After building my panel, what do I recommend?
If you’ve been thinking about building a solar panel, I would definitely recommend you give it a try. The tools you need are pretty basic: saw, screwdriver, soldering iron (you can pick one up at Radio Shack for about $20 if you don’t have one). The whole project was pretty easy with the help of the Green DIY Energy guide.
I think the soldering is probably the part that most people would be worried about. The soldering is covered in a lot of detail in the videos and it is all easy soldering of big wires. After the first cell or two I got the hang of it and the rest went pretty quick after that.
Based on my experience building my solar panel, I highly recommend GreenDIYEnergy. It is by far the best DIY solar panel guide available. The step-by-step videos make it easy for anyone to build a solar panel with basic tools in about a weeked for under $150. If I did it, you can do it too.
What is included in GreenDIYEnergy?
Videos
The videos are the best part of the package. They were shot in Boulder, Colorado and they cover the entire DIY solar panel build step-by-step from start to finish. The videos are large, DVD quality, downloadable videos, not the smaller videos you have to watch online that you’ll find in other packages.
To put it simply, the videos look awesome. They are nice and big so you get to see all the important parts with lots of detail and he goes through everything step-by-step.
He covers the parts and tools you’ll need, building the container, soldering the solar cells together, assembling everything, wiring and finishing. At the end, he connects the panel up to a voltmeter and you get to see it produce electricity!
Ebooks
The ebooks cover the different parts of a home solar system, building a solar panel, solar electrical, installation, solar tax credits, solar consumers guide, building a home wind generator, wind map resources and websites and more. There are over 200 pages of information and pictures and diagrams are used throughout.
There’s just a ton of information here. Pay particular attention to the diagrams showing the layout of the solar cells in the panel and the section on where to get the parts you’ll need.
The directions in the ebook go hand-in-hand with the videos so I would recommend watching the videos all the way through and then using the ebooks as reference while you’re building the solar panel. The ebooks go through the different types of solar cells, which ones to use and where to buy them cheaply.
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About the Author:
Conclusion GreenDIYEnergy is the highest quality, most complete DIY solar guide avaialbe. The package includes DVD quality videos, over 200 pages of pdf ebooks, and Excel spreadsheets – 17 components in all. Using the ebooks and videos, I was able to successfully build my own solar panel. By following along with the videos like I did, you can build a solar panel too. If you’ve been thinking about building your own solar panel, I highly recommend Green DIY Energy. Click here to visit my #1 DIY Solar Guide Pick. http://homemadesolarpanel.newonline.us
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Many people ask how burning firewood impacts the environment. Usually their biggest concerns are with the ideas of deforestation and climate change. In the short term, we know that burning wood can make things smoky. But for the long term affects on climate change, we can only speculate.
The problem of smoke can be manageable. Much of the smoke problems are caused by inefficient burning. With modern wood stoves you should be able to burn wood with very little or no visible smoke most of the time. This can be accomplished by burning dry wood with small hot burning fires. Using smaller pieces of wood can go a long way here.
In some parts of the world, burning wood does contribute to deforestation. But in first world countries like the USA, Australia and most of Europe, burning wood does not contribute to deforestation in most cases. In most cases when firewood is harvested, trees are replanted or grow back naturally from seed, or with some species new trees sprout back from the stumps after the trees are cut down.
Much of the time firewood is produces from forest wastes that come from harvesting trees for making other products like lumber. Or it is cut from excess trees that were thinned to make the remaining trees grow better. In some cases cutting trees for firewood can actually enhance forest health or utilize material that would go to waste otherwise. Of course there are exceptions and some people will harvest firewood irresponsibly. It all comes down to consumers choosing responsible sources.
For climate change and greenhouse gases, firewood is considered to be carbon neutral. Burning wood is part of the natural carbon cycle. When a tree dies naturally ,the wood decays or gets burned by wildfire. In both these processes, the carbon in the tree is released into the atmosphere as CO2. Since the trees that grow in its place absorb CO2 as they grow, there is no net increase in CO2. This is no different if it happens naturally or if you burn the wood in your stove. So as far as we know, burning wood does not contribute to greenhouse gases the way burning fossil fuels do. Of course this is only when firewood is harvested responsibly.
Learn more about burning firewood logs.
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Talk about firewood and wood heat and get your questions answered in our firewood forum.
Compare different tree species with these BTU of firewood charts.
How Does Burning Firewood Affect the Environment?
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