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All the advances in green energy technology, creating your own solar energy for your homeis easier than ever has been. A green energy home utilizes renewable resources to provide electricity, hot water, heat and peace of mind. Which in turn will help you save on all your utility costs year round.  

There are numorous ways to implement your green energy home plan and start saving on your costs. The first is solar energy.  In a green energy home you can install solar hot water panels which heat and store water for use and you can install solar panels, which use photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity. These can very costly especially when getting it installed by a professional. But, there are many different resources out there that will teach you how to do it yourself for a fraction of what the cost would be.

 If you are just building your home, a great way to make it a green energy home is to implement passive solar design during construction.  This means taking advantage of south facing sides of the house for heating and cooling.  By installing lots of highly efficient windows and heat retaining bricks and stone on your south facing areas, you are taking advantage of passive solar techniques to develop your green energy home.

Another addition to the green energy home would be a windmill. Windmills are used to generate electricity from the renewable resource wind.  Windmills can be installed on rooftops or in yards and offer pollution free electric.  Windmills can be purchased from retailers or there are a wide variety of affordable kits available for the motivated do-it-yourselfers to handle the implementation of their own green energy home plans. By doing the installation yourself, you will be saving alot and will also be making your home a greener home and create free energy that will always be there.  

The ultimate green energy home would combine all of these resources.  By using wind, water and solar to generate electricity you will be cutting on the costs for your utlities, but you will also be conserving our natural resources for the future and will be making it a greener place while cutting on global warming as well.  To further combine passive solar design and solar hot water systems, you are reducing your energy needs massively and will create a greener future for you and the future for your children and theirs, etc….

A green energy home doesn’t require more maintenance than traditional homes. Actually, in some ways, a greener home requires less maintenance then traditional homes and if needed the maintenance would be half the cost. Solar technologies require little to no maintenance and wind and water turbines require only regular oiling for optimum performance.  There is no better time to create your HOME MADE ENERGY and start saving on your energy costs.

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For decades we have been pumping all these hydrocarbons into our atmosphere and now we are on the brink of a global disaster.
Now most everyone understands that something must change, and pronto! As for myself, well, I don’t have a car and live on a (as I see it) bare bones budget; so what can I do as an individual? Moreover, what can we all do as individuals for one another? Firstly, I would suppose, it all begins with where
you live.
My house is basically a Cracker Box quasi-suburban model; one of those built after WW2;
maybe, the very latest in efficient living, then — but now? Hardly! So, what to do now? Certainly just changing over to more efficient light bulbs and lowering the thermostat are not enough.
Frankly, the costs of every staple commodity are such these days, that the only practical thing to do is to plan ahead, and that means making a small investment in the present. Ah, but the present denotes that one act in the immediate.

Thus, what could be more immediate and (well) efficient, than the web? After all it is worldwide (or so I’m told). Thus, taking into account that the energy crisis not only effects me and my cat (though, she’ll never tell), but the planet; putting one and the other together + what my ultimate objective was and is, I Googled ‘Efficient Energy’. Of course, I had to slog through a couple hundred ads and various fragmented posts before arriving at Efficient Planet.com.

To make a long story short: given, the inefficiency of my own (and cat’s) domicile, I thought
that looking into Solar Panelling might be the direction to go (I don’t have the backyard space
for a windmill or Nuclear Power Plant). Apparently, I was correct in my somewhat random choice of the Efficient Planet site. We have great exposure to the sun here (cat upon her window-sil, especially) and I am kind of D.I.Y. person, so the Efficient Planet e-book: ‘ConvertYour Home to Solar Power’ was really a welcome surprise. However, as opposed to all those other build-it-yourself ‘talk fast/ see you later infomercial TV spots, Efficient Planet’s ‘Convert Your Home to Solar Power’ is a seriously explicable guide to building and installing your own solar panels and power generators. It is systematic, and has great illustrations, and schematics, to boot!

Not to say, that it is all so easy to convert; there is some labor involved, and I can tell you
from experience: your cat will be of no assistance at all! That is unless your plan is to install a scratching post, rather than solar panelling on your roof.
Nonetheless, if you are stuck with ever increasing and decidedly unreasonable home energy costs, like I have been (I won’t count my cat in the mix — for now, anyway)), to that degree where you are just about to give up the place, then, by all means do check out the Efficient Planet line of e-book titles, not just ‘Convert Your Home to Solar Power’, but the others, as well.

Take a look at the newest, most comprehensive guide to off grid living at the Efficient Living website.

Living a greener life is not only good for the planet’s health, it’s good for your health and the health of your family. Maintaining a bright green kitchen – in terms of energy efficiency and energy use, not color – can reduce your carbon footprint, but it can also help you feed your family a healthier, more delicious diet. The way that you shop, cook, serve and clean up after serving meals all contribute to creating not just a healthy kitchen but a bright green kitchen.

Shopping Tips for a Greener Kitchen Buy local when you can. It means less fuel was used to transport your food, and less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Shop at farmers’ markets. You know you’re buying locally, and contributing to the local economy as well. Keeping local farmers in business is good for everyone. Skip “serving size packs” of food and buy in bulk. It reduces the amount of trash going into the landfills. Bring your own bags. Every plastic bag you don’t use is one less bag in the trash. For an added bonus, many stores will take 5-10 cents off your grocery bill for every bag you bring. Look for the recycle symbol on products that you buy in plastic bottles to make sure you’re buying containers that can be recycled. Green Cooking Tips Raw foods use no energy at all in preparation. Serve fruits and vegetables au naturel as snacks and desserts. Use the right size burner for your pots and pans. Don’t put a small pan on a large burner – it wastes up to 40% of the energy used to heat the burner. Think small. Use the smallest cooking appliance possible when cooking. A full-size oven wastes a lot of energy heating empty space. Try a counter top oven or slow cooker to use less energy when cooking. Skip the food processor and electric mixer for small jobs. Some of the best kitchen appliances use no energy at all – an old-fashioned egg beater, for instance, can whip cream or egg whites with just a little elbow grease. Don’t preheat your oven. Most modern ovens heat quickly enough that preheating is redundant. Serve It Green If you must use disposable dishes and serving ware, use paper which can go into your compost, or look for post-consumer recycled materials. Using fewer dishes means washing fewer dishes – less energy needed for cleanup. There’s no need to dump vegetables from the cooking pot into a serving dish. Garnish food with edible fresh flowers and herbs from your own garden. Gardening is one way to reduce your carbon footprint by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Serve food when it’s ready to avoid having to keep food warm. Green Kitchen Cleanup Tips If you only have a couple of plates and cups, wash them by hand instead of running the dishwasher. When hand-washing, fill the sink instead of washing and rinsing under running water. Compost fruit and vegetable peels and leftovers. Good for your garden, good for the planet. It’s actually kinder to the environment to run the dishwasher for a full load of dishes than to wash them by hand. Recycle as much as possible – glass, cans and cardboard are all recyclable. The more you recycle, the less goes into the landfills to clog up our earth.

With energy prices on the rise and global resources diminishing, more and more people are making efforts to conserve energy, water, and other resources. While some of the ways you can conserve can be expensive, below are some great, low cost ways to reduce your consumption.

1. Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs – $3.50/bulb

Compared to traditional incandescent light bulbs, compact fluorescent light bulbs use 75% less energy, produce 75% less heat, and can last 10 times longer. According to Energy Star, if each household replaced just 1 light bulb in their home, we could save enough energy to power 3 million homes for a year, save more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

2. Use Water-Saving Faucets, Showerheads, and Toilets – Free to $350+

Water-saving faucets, showerheads, and toilets can all help conserve water usage. Many cities now require faucets, toilets, and showerheads to conform to their water usage standards, with some even offer low cost solutions for homeowners. A water-efficient toilet can save between 8,000 to 18,000 gallons of water per year. And a water-saving showerhead alone can save up to 3,000 gallons of water, eliminate 1,000 lbs. in carbon dioxide emissions, and reduce your water bill by $50 per person per year.

3. Change Your Air Filter – $10/filter

Dust and dirt that clog air filters can reduce their effectiveness and make your heating and cooling system work harder. A system with a clogged filter consumes more energy and has a shorter lifespan. Recommendations of how often to change your filter range from one month to three months depending on how often you use your air conditioning and heating system and how fast dust accumulates on the filter.

4. Install a Water Heater Blanket, Lower the Water Temperature – $20

Traditional water heaters keep a large amount of water inside at a certain temperature, usually 140 degrees Fahrenheit. In order to reduce the amount of work required to keep hot water in the system, you can reduce the standard temperature to 130 degrees and install a water heater blanket. A water heater blanket wraps around the water heater to reduce heat loss by 25-40%. Be sure to keep important information regarding maintaining the water heater visible when you install one of these.

5. Programmable Thermostat – $40

Heating and cooling can be as much as half of your energy bills. A programmable thermostat that has multiple time settings can help you reduce your bills by turning off your heater or air conditioner while you’re at work and can reduce their usage during sleeping hours. This feature alone will help you reduce your heating and cooling bills by $150 a year.

6. Weather Stripping and Caulking Around Windows and Doors – $20-$50

Some older windows and doors don’t have proper weather stripping and some estimate that this can account for 46 percent of annual heat loss. Applying weather stripping and caulking around windows and doors can serve as a cost-effective way to keep your home cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

While these methods can help you conserve energy at your current home, you may want to put green features into considering when searching for your next home.