Reduce your electric bill through appliance specialization. Most people in the western world  have any number of specialty appliances. Simple things like your toaster, basic microwave, counter top grill (like the George Foreman Grill), toaster oven, crock pot, and grandma’s pressure cooker to more advanced (or more expensive) things like your, rice maker, bread machine, counter top induction cook top hot plate and the convection microwave.

There are more but for the focus of this article I’ll stick with the kitchen appliances. I include the pressure cooker (even though it’s not an appliance) due to it’s efficiency enhancing qualities for the ol dinosaur cook stove. I use the term “dinosaur” due to it’s archaic power usage qualities. Yes, I know there are modern convection/steam oven w/induction cook top stoves that are as efficient as it gets but because they cost in the $4000.00 range they are out of the grasp of most folks or are more than most folks are willing to spend. Besides the fact that utilizing the fore mentioned appliances in an appropriate manner nets even an higher efficiency and you already have most of them tucked away in your cupboards.

For example lets take a look at the toaster. Have you ever seen someone making toast in the oven when there’s a toaster sitting on the counter? So then you have to ask “So, what’s wrong with the toaster?” You inevitably get a response something like “Oh, it needs to be cleaned” or “It’s not big enough” or “It’s too slow for this many servings”. Ok, then lets do the math. The average toaster is rated at around .5 kwh and the standard oven is rated at around 4.5 kwh. The toaster will toast 2 slices in about 1 minute. The oven will toast the 2 slices in about 3.5 min but you probably won’t use the oven for just 2 slices so lets base our numbers on 8 slices. Now, the same oven will toast the 8 slices in the same amount of time; 3.5 minutes. Note that the oven will need to be pre-heated for approximately 7 minutes. So now our oven is up to 10.5 minutes. The toaster on the other hand is at about 5 minutes for all 8 slices. Now lets look at the electrical usage. The oven is 4500w/60 minutes equals 75w per minute times 10.5 minutes equals 787.5 total watts. My local utility charges close to 10 cents per kwh so the oven is costing us $7.88. The toaster is 500w/60 minutes equal 8.333 watts per minute times 5 minutes equals 41.67 total watts. So the toaster is costing us 42 cents. Just 3 uses of the oven in this manner would pay for a new toaster. I hope I’ve made my point.

I could make the same point for every kitchen aid listed above and with a little effort (in dragging your kitchen aids from under the counter) you could save a proverbial ton of cash and as an added benefit have just that much less green house gasses to be released into the atmosphere. If your on the grid, that is. If you’re not on the grid then it is that much less stress, wear and tear on your wind solar system.

S. Alan

http://www.discoverthewind.com/?ID=990653

http://www.neutralexistence.com/?ID=3e2428cf

These are some of the better blogs and forums and sites that I’ve come across and contributed to.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/

http://greenliving.about.com/

There is definitely no shortage of postings and general information on the use or reuse of gray water. My intentions here are to provide some basic information and give my opinion as to the proper use and collection of  the gray water.

For those of you that may be new to the term “gray water”, it is the waste-water from your home or business that doesn’t come from the commodes or urinals. This is the waste from the sinks, the showers, the dish washer, the clothes washer or any other source of non-potable (POTABLE: EPA standardized and regulated water deemed suitable for drinking) water with the exception of “brown” water.  Which is as mentioned above, as being from commodes and urinals. For the purpose of this publication, to be used for the supply water in the making of brown water.

The use of gray water or re-use  of water doesn’t sound very sanitary or very appealing until you consider the facts. Depending on how each gray water system is configured they can save a typical water user (business or home) 45 to 55% of the users water usage. Persons whom  indulge in long showers, run the dish-washer with small or partial loads, run just 3 or 4 items in the laundry wash, wash their cars on a regular basis, maintain their hot tub and pool and water their lawn will not see  much benefit. Frankly, these folks need all the help they can get when it comes to cutting back. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for their success……. or apparent success. But I digress.

The point here is that for as little as around $250.00   most any diy er can put together a basic gray-water recovery system that will pay for itself  in less than 18 months. That is, if you’re on a municipal water supply and paying $40.00 a month for services. Even if you happen to have a Well it’s money well spent due to increased pump life and the obvious advantage in both scenarios of the savings of life’s most precious resource………. our fresh water.

I’m not going to go into detail here but I will go into where I would draw my gray water from for the purpose of re-use because I haven’t seen anyone else address this.  Think about each source of gray water, the kitchen sink, showers, bath room sinks, dish washer, clothes washer, air conditioner condensate and rain water. Yes, I consider rain water to be “gray” due to the methods in which we gather and store it.

First on my list is the kitchen sink. I would not use this waste water unless it can be strictly controlled to which side or where the food scraps go. If you want to use the kitchen sink water then I recommend using fine strainers and starting a compost pile and/or worm bin. If you are living green already then you probably already have these.

Second, the showers should be left out. This would be a great source except that everyone I know and have heard of, urinates in the shower. Yes, men and women alike. That may be a shock to someone out there but I doubt it. So as far as I’m concerned, the shower is already “brown” and completely unusable.

At this point, the rest of my list represent the sources that I believe stand to serve well as gray water to be captured and become supply for “brown” water. This water supply could even be used to water your lawn. I don’t know if it’s true but I’ve heard that a bit of soap in your lawn water is good for it. Maintaining a “gray” water recovery system would also gain you points in the “Personal Sustainability Test”. More on that later.

I could write a whole other story on the capture and use of rain water but that too is for another day.

One point of interest: I love the Discovery Channel show “Myth Busters” for which one episode they did super fuel myths. One of which was the “hydrogen fuel injection system”. They were not able to make it work. They did make a motor run (half haphazardly) on pure hydrogen. Now comes my personal evaluation of the “Myth Busters”. I personally have done and seen done several of the “myths” that were under investigation completed, done, successful or what ever you want to call it. They (the myth busters) were not able to make happen under any circumstances. I reiterate that I have done on a several occasions several of their myths. The only logical reason I can come up with is that their insurance company won’t allow them to take on that kind of responsibility. After all, if just one wing-nut was to do physical damage to anything or anyone then they (the Myth Busters) would be liable.

So, chalk it up to entertainment because none of us want either thing to happen.

http://greenecoplaza.com/

I have personally experienced the benefits of the “Supplemental Hydrogen Fuel Injection System” . The system I had was on an Olds 98 3.8L v6 automatic. It, much to my amazement, consistently got 40 mpg on the hwy and 34 mpg around town. Before I had installed the system the car got 28 mpg hwy. I installed it myself in about 30 min. with no problems. WOW, Check out Neutral Existence they have several models to choose from.

http://www.neutralexistence.com/?ID=3e2428cf

Stick it to the man. More precisely the Water Man, or it could be your local utilities board. Just a little thing that anyone can do to save roughly 30% of your H2o usage and even if you rent. Its one of the few things that even the renters can do. It’ll take about 10 min. maybe at the most and will even help your electric bill, providing you have an electric water heater.

All you have to do is go around to all your sinks, crawl underneath, find your supply valves (all sinks should have these but I have seen them without) and dial them (hot and cold) back or clockwise restricting the flow. If you open your tap about about 3/4 so you can watch you adjustment take effect it will aid in keeping you from dialing it down too far. My preference is a nice smooth flow, just enough with hot and cold on so as not to splash or spray at all.

Just a little FYI, If the valves feel more than a little stiff then I would recommend leaving them alone.

S. Alan

http://greenecoplaza.com