-Toshio...off to stare at the sun...
I’d love to go solar, but I’m a city dweller in an apartment and don’t own my roof or my access to the grid. Help! How can I go solar?
i’m sure i can’t be the only girl now obsessed with exactly how an to calculate the carbon footprint of an espresso machine in a year. you people are genius!
As a sustainability consultant here in Australia I’m interested in arguments that can be used to reinforce people’s decisions to become more sustainable. Your tips are often very handy and pitched at the mainstream. I often tell my clients that the proposed changes will increase the value of their home but there is little research on this (at least here in Oz). So I would like to use the quote about the $20K increase in capital value of the house for each $1K reduction in energy bills. But this would be much more useful if there was some hard research to back this up. Could you send me a link to the research that supports this claim?
Amanda-
You may be able to purchase green power in your area. See http://www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/buying/buying_power.shtml. Also, try searching the Tip Library (http://www.idealbite.com/tiplibrary/). We’ve done tips on going solar outside of the home (eg. camping equipment: http://www.idealbite.com/tiplibrary/archives/sun_dial_up/).
Malcolm-
The info comes from a report released by the Appraisal Institute you can check out here: http://www.icfi.com/Markets/Community_Development/doc_files/apj1098.pdf. More research is available here: http://www.icfi.com/Markets/Community_Development/doc_files/apj1099.pdf.
I don’t know why the solar panel option is labeled as a “Billionaire Biter” option. If you own your own home, it is well within a home equity line of credit to install a kilowatt of power. Especially if you do the work yourself. That would supply half the electricity of the average home. It would probably supply all of your daily use if you don’t use the air conditioning and have energy star appliances combined with CFL bulbs.
Anyway, here is an addition to the tip. Switching all your exterior lighting to solar will help. You can find a wide range of path, spot and security lighting in solar models these days. You can use them to light your yard for hours on a single charge which makes them great for summer entertaining and you can probably do the entire yard for less than $500.00. There are great styles to choose from as well. You can find them at any home improvement store or online at most lighting retailers. I’m just looking for some solar LED holiday light strings now. But everything else in the yard is solar, including my two fountains.
Posted by: Wayne | September 20, 2007 at 08:00 AM