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10 Easy Ways To Become More Energy Efficient

September 22, 2012 by Trish

If you’ve somehow managed not to notice the amazing worldwide downturn in the past 4 or 5 years, then it’s probably best you keep on doing what you were. However, if you haven’t been living in a cave without a TV or radio, you’ll know that times are tough for many. Economies have been faltering, and growth in many countries has all but stopped, so now is the time to make your household more efficient and asve some money. Here are some easy tips to help you out:

1 – Install an Energy Monitor
As the world slowly becomes more aware of the need for energy saving, energy monitors are getting cheaper and cheaper. Some companies now give them away at reduced rates or even as freebees, so see if you can get one on the cheap. They are quite easy to install usually, and allows you to easily monitor your home usage.


2 – Reuse Your Water
Showering or using the bath takes a lot of water, and a lot of energy to heat all that water. If you leave the water in the bath when you’ve finished it will stay warm for most of the night, helping to heat the house. Once it’s cooled you can use it to water the garden, or invest in a grey water recycling systems, and use it to flush your toilet.

3 – Be Frugal
As boring as it sounds, being frugal is the best way to save money and become more energy efficient. Put on another jumper, turn the heat down, turn lights and appliances off and bask in the savings you’re getting

4 – Heating Controls
Heating controls work most efficiently when they can be controlled in individual rooms. This can be simply turning radiators off in rooms that you don’t use, or more complicated heating systems that will allow you to program a schedule. Make sure also that you’re not using the timer to keep the heating on for longer than you need.

5 – Turn Things Off
It seems silly, but not enough people do it. Manufacturers have built standby systems into many different electrical items because of our innate laziness, but they use a lot of power over time. Simply getting up and switching things off can save you a whole load of power over the course of a year.

6 – Check The Levels
Read through the manufacturer’s instructions and make sure you’re not using electrical items such as fridges and freezers, heaters, boilers and thermostats on a higher setting that you need. Many people unwittingly run appliances at higher levels than needed, constantly costing them money.

7 – Insulate
If your home is well insulated, more heat will stay in, therefore meaning you need to spend less on heating. It’s simple but it works. Try and target roofs and walls first (especially if you live in older houses), as they tend to be the places that lose the most.

8 – Rechargeable Batteries
As a country, we discard over 600 million batteries per year. They’re costly to purchase in the first place and tricky to recycle. Why not replace all the batteries in the house with rechargeable ones, the electricity costs from recharging them will be far less than the cost of new ones.

9 – Energy Efficient Lighting
Compact fluorescent lighting has become more and more popular in the past 5 years, especially since government directives to phase out filament bulbs has begun. The technology has improved vastly, and now there is little noticeable difference between them and the old style products.

10 – Draught Proofing
Along the same lines as insulation, there are often many places in a house where air can escape. This acts as a heat drain, and hinders the good work you’ve been doing in the rest of the house. Make sure that doors and windows don’t have gaps, and if you can afford to fit new ones look into draught excluders and secondary removable glazing panels.

Image courtesy of: www.flickr.com/photos/jwthompson2
Rob is home energy specialist working for a electricity price comparison site www.electricityprices.org.uk. He is passionate about ecological matters, and loves finding easy ways to save money.





Filed Under: Finance, Home and Lifestyle, Living Green Tagged With: compact fluorescent lighting, draught proof, energy efficient, energy monitor, frugal, insulate, rechargable batteries, reuse water, save money

Insect Repellant Smart Options

September 18, 2012 by Trish

Bugs. No matter what purpose they serve, they can be a giant nuisance. Flies and mosquitoes can ruin a nice outdoor picnic, and certain insects, like bees, can be dangerous to those who may have an allergy.

 

Most people want to kill bugs found around their homes. They want to keep mosquitoes and flies away from their outdoor patio, and they want to keep other bugs, like ants and spiders, out of their homes.


For years, many people have been turning to pesticides or insecticides and other insect removal sprays in order to kill bugs and keep them away from certain areas, but most pesticides or insecticides contain poisons and can be very dangerous to your health.

Instead of putting your health and the health of your family at risk in order to keep pesky bugs at bay, consider using the following smart options.

Outdoor Insect Killer

Mostly known as “bug zappers”, these outdoor insect killers are a great way to keep bugs away from your home and patio without the need for poisonous sprays. Instead, these zappers use a fluorescent light to attract bugs, and when the bug is close enough, the light kills them. There are many different outdoor insect killers on the market, each varying in size and design, so make sure to choose the one that’s the best fit for your yard.

Citronella Candles

Citronella candles come in many different shapes and sizes and are a great way to keep bugs away from your patio. They look like regular candles, so they can fulfill their duty while still providing a nice ambiance. Citronella candles generate a scent that repels bugs, and while you can smell it, the scent is not overpowering.

Mosquito Dunks

Nobody like mosquitoes, and they can turn a nice outdoor experience into an itchy nightmare. Mosquitoes like water, and if you have a pond, bird bath or other standing water near your home, you’re going to have mosquitoes. You can fight them by placing mosquito dunks into these water sources. These rings are about two inches in diameter and can kill mosquito larvae up to 100 feet away.

Off! Clip On

A few years ago, Off! created a clip on bug repellent. This device has a repellent inside and uses a fan to propel the repellent out around your area. It works the same way as bug spray, but without the nasty pesticides and insecticides and definitely without the nasty bug spray smell.

Exterminators

If you have a major bug infestation near your home, hiring an exterminator to alleviate the problem can also be a smart option. Exterminators are knowledgeable about bugs, and along with taking care of your infestation, they’ll also find the root of the problem to better alleviate it. Plus, exterminators have different methods that can help you remove your bug problem in a safe way.

Don’t let a bug infestation kill your outdoor or indoor activities. Instead, use one of these smart options to help you safely remove bugs from your home.

Prepared by Mariana Smith from Franklin Pest solutions. Learn more about their work and consider incorporating some of their tips for daily bug-free living.

Filed Under: Home and Lifestyle Tagged With: bees, bug zapper, bugs, citronella, clip on, exterminator, flies, insect repellant, Insects, mosquitoes, nuisance, repel

Tools to Organize Your Recipes Online

September 15, 2012 by Trish

After exploring this topic I found out how incredibly helpful all the available websites are for making recipes useful. Given that technology plays such a major role in our lives, what better way to employ its attributes than organizing recipes? Many even offer meal planning and grocery shopping venues. On the other hand, for some of us nostalgics, there’s still nothing better than curling up on the couch with familiar cookbooks and locating well-loved yellowed, stained pages describing how to prepare the very best comfort food in the world. But maybe the next generation would appreciate it if I actually took time to put them in one of those amazing helpful organizational tools.

  • Grocery Shopping on the Fly

I picture a mom with one night for grocery shopping. That’s the evening without ballet, gymnastics, sports, horseback riding, or piano lessons. Since her time is so scarce, and valuable, organization is a must.  An additional look at her favorite websites and she not only has favorite recipes, and meal plans, but a grocery list whose items appear as they do categorically from one side of the store to the other. Now if only all that efficiency would just translate into someone shopping for her without charging for the service.

  • Online Recipe Shower

In recent history, brides have actually asked if there was a way for them to have a “Recipe Shower” online. Not a formal party, but a way to send tried and true “food friends” to the betrothed. This might be a good way for truly busy or out of town guests to “get together” before the wedding. I wonder how it would work; could someone let me know.

  • Helpful Websites

After researching several websites, it appears the best places to go for organizing those wayward recipes includes places where recipes are readily available to your computer, have menu suggestions, nutrition notes, and make grocery lists from needed items. Mentioned below are various helpful sites. The first ones, to my knowledge are free: Springpad; Evernote (free in most frequently used platforms) and its add-on, Say Mmm;  Dropbox; Food on the Table; Our Groceries (free Android app); Pepper Plate Recipe, Menu, and Cooking Planner; and Google Docs. As you know, Google Docs is not exclusively for recipe organization, but does provide useful tools. Other less cost effective websites include: Paprika; Meal Board Meal and Grocery Planner app; Plan to Eat (not free after first month); AllRecipes; Spark People (meal plans and nutrition) and last but not least is Pinterest. Therefore, besides organizing recipes, this myriad of websites, and many more I’m sure, can do everything except actually cook the meals. Sometimes you might even find a chef preparing a meal, or entrée, you find interesting…those are especially enjoyable and helpful for those cooks-in-training.

  • Vintage Cooks

With online networking and helpful recipe exchange sites equipped with comments on the palatability of various dishes, cooks can drool while they plan. As much as it pains this seasoned chef to admit it, more cookbooks may slowly be finding their way into the antique shops. But I do find it quite gratifying to be able to use both cookbooks and websites; makes for such a well-rounded cook.

Gareth Shaw is a professional chef and writer who loves to blog about everything from the best ways to keep your recipes to tips on serving quick, healthy meals.

Filed Under: Home and Lifestyle, Recipes and dining Tagged With: allrecipes, cooking, cooking planner, dropbox, easy, efficient, get organized, google docs, grocery list, meal plan, menu, organize recipes, our groceries, pinterest, planning, recipe shower, spark people, springpad, time saving, websites

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