Personally I would love to run my house on solar, but aside from efficency and purchase costs I have minimal places to install.  Shingles won’t work on my roof and I get snow quite frequently.

I’ve thought about installing a solar water heater on the roof as I have full southern view and this may translate easily to electrical solar power I’d have to see.

While the product is not in the market DOW hopes to have them relased soon.  You can take a look at their Solar Power (not solar powered) website http://www.dowsolar.com/

Then something came up on my radar. 

My town Weatherly, PA has applied for preliminary permits to see if we can put in a hydroelectric plant that would generate 1,000 times the amount of electricity that the town uses.  The excess would be sold to a local utility. 

WOW WOW WOW!  This would be MULTIPLE WINS in my book.  Reduce reliance on outside power sources, reduce electric rates and with the latter stimulate business in town and increase the tax base.  ALL AROUND A WIN. 

Granted this is a 30 year old idea and that it’s only in the preliminary stages but not to bad for an old quiet northeastern PA town!I’m going to try and get ahold of Harold over at the borough for more comments.  

Some info about these changes, and more about the plant, and some more about this green solution.

• For any cord (either the one from the appliance or an extension cord) look for cracks or holes in the insulator from one end of the cord to another.  Since some of these cords haven’t been used since last summer a quick inspection can find problems before they turn tragic.
• Make sure that the prongs are straight and in good condition.  Bent, broken or loose prongs can start a fire or cause your breaker to blow.  Also make sure that the third prong isn’t bent or cut off.
• Make sure you have the right sized cords. We all have those two wire cords lying around the house that we usually end up plugging our lamps into.  Which is what they were designed for and not much more.  A small table fan or phone recharger is all that you should really be plugging into these cords.  Overloading them by stringing them together or putting something to heavy on them is a recipe for disaster.
• While they may be MORE expensive the heavy duty appliance cords are worth their price for the safety they bring.  It’s a good rule of thumb for AC units to not use an extension cord greater than 6 feet.  Better yet plug the appliance directly into the wall.   You can usually find these heavy duty appliance cords at your local hardware store.  They will have 3 prongs and have a rating on them in watts.  If you have a doubt ask for some help.
• Finally don’t plug your AC into a power strip.  Not only can you overload the power strip you could destroy the other components on the strip.

While these tips may not save electricity that much they DO make your house a LOT safer in the long run.  So take a few minutes to make sure that your cords are all in good condition.

But now the question is to power down or not power down.  For YEARS I’ve always kept my computer on.  Running day and night.  Haven’t had a problem.  But then if I count the number of hours I am away from the computer and the amount I’m on one I begin to see large gaps that I could theoretically power down.  From my experience as a help desk person powering down your computer does very little in the way of reducing the computers life.  The hard drives spin less, the fans work less and pull in less dust, less heat is generated and a LOT less power is used.  The suspend mode is a good step.  I’ve been using the hibernate function which also works pretty well.  I turn off my computer at night and on in the morning before coffee.  

Now when you’re working on your computer is there a way to reduce your usage.  First run only what you really need to run.  Turn off or uninstall anything you don’t really run.  For example there is a system such as BOINC which allows you to ‘donate’ spare CPU cycles to find alien life, cure cancer and AIDS, find prime numbers and dozens of other projects that ordinarily would require a super computer but instead use the consolidated spare CPU cycles of thousands of volunteers.  While a GREAT way to help projects that would ordinarily not have the computer resources they need. Running these makes your computer work harder and in turn use more electricity.  That cool screen saver that has 3d stuff zooming everywhere looks really cool.  But that also uses a LOT more electricity than the Blank and tons more than the Turn Off Monitor.    

Turn off components you don’t use. Printers unless you’re printing right now turn them off.  They suck power. Unplug unused USB devices (e.g.  your iPod or WebCam) when you’re not using them.  USB powered devices do suck juice from your computer and your wall. 

So in summary

• When turning off your computer cut the power to your peripherals.
• Turn off your computer when not using it.  It WILL survive.
• Don’t run anything extra such as P2P, Grid Computing and Screen savers unless you have to. 
• Turn off and unplug your extras (printers, cameras, mp3 players) when not in use. 

These should reduce your electric consumption.

I have 2 kid who have rooms at the top of the stairs and one really likes night lights.  I also have a disabled wife who needs light when moving about the house.  The way our house is situated we don’t get a LOT of outside light and leaving lights on all the time is NOT a good idea.  So in addition to replacing bulbs I got a bunch of LED night lights with light sensors. My daughter had a nightlight she loves so and was able to find a replacement LED bulb.

I used LED bulbs instead of incandescent and florescent bulbs for energy savings.  While an LED bulb may cost about $2.00 more it lasts 10x as long and uses 1/10 the electricity.  By getting lights with light or motion sensors the lights are ONLY on when darkness prevails.  This is also helpful in some rooms where the compact florescent bulbs take a minute or two to warm up.  You still have a bit of light.  

So far things have been good.  We can still see and we are turning off  more lights but not losing the luxury of illumination.  A stubbed toe is NOT a good thing.

I think my next step with this is to see if  I can get some Solar cells and run some of these lights from solar cells that gather light from the sun and interior lights. Recycling some used light how cool would that be?

To give an idea of the savings I’ll describe what I WAS doing.    Starting awhile ago I was running 1 60W bulbs 12 hours a day in the bathroom ceiling fixture as a night light (this would be on when people would be in the bathroom and during sleeping hours this costs about $30 a year.  I replaced this with a 14W CF which saved about $23 yearly.  Finally I used a 2 watt LED nightlight with a light sensor so it’s ONLY on when its dark.  Running this way costs less than $1 a year TOTAL. 

Another example in the downstairs bathroom I placed another one of these night lights.  Before we would keep the 2 14W CF bulbs burning as they would take about 2 minutes to warm up in the winter and just kept the habit up throughout the year.  This cost almost $30 a year the 2W nightlight runs about $2 a year.  Granted we DO turn on the overhead lights still but now we are in the habit of turning them off during the day and at night when we are not in the bathroom.  The warmup period is also not that bad as we have the nightlight to compensate. 

A few things of note as a I went through the Internet trying to troubleshoot my problem that can save money and energy.  First off CLEAN YOUR FRIDGE!  Not only that science experiment in the back but also behind and under the fridge.  This allows for air flow around the condenser coils.  (These may be a set of wires and tubes on the back or underneath the fridge.  Along those lines make SURE there is a adequate airflow around and inside the fridge.  Look for vents that may be blocked by food items or ice.  If possible check to see if ice (or even dirt) is building up on the evaporator coils (usually in the back of the freezer behind a panel.

Another tip is to really let your fridge rest and defrost every so often.  This means empty all the food out of the fridge and freezer.  Open the doors and let it sit for 24 to 48 hours.  (Yep that long)  This should allow for any ice build up in the doors, on the evaporator coils and anywhere else to melt off. 

Well I’m off to go and get a new fridge as the old one while it can be repaired would cost more than it’s worth.