It’s Easy Being Green

Summer is just around the corner and that means things are beginning to heat up.  But, before you flip the switch for that air conditioning and start sucking down electricity like a cool lemonade on a 90+ degree day, take some simple steps to save money and energy.  Making sure your a/c unit has a clean filter will not only cut down on indoor air pollution and allergens in your home but also save you some cash.  Clean filters not only ensure that your a/c is working most efficiently but will also save you 1% to 2% on your total electric bill to run the unit.  It may not sound like much but it will add up in the long run.  Also, when you change your filter make sure to vacuum out the filter compartment to pick up all that extra dust.

When it comes to buying filters, if your unit can take reusable filters that will also reduce on waste.  Reusable a/c filters can be popped out, rinsed with water and placed back in the unit for another use.  If you’d like to buy filters that are made from recycled materials, look for the “Merv 8″ brand.  They make a filter in just about every size you might need.

Here’s four more tips showing you it really can be easy going green:

5. Adjust your home’s thermostat to be lower in winter and higher in summer. Learn how to heat and cool your home simply by venting windows at certain times of the day and when it’s cold, bundle up and put on your sweat pants!

6. Clean and replace dirty air filters in your home’s heating and cooling system. A dirty air filter can use 5-percent more energy while your a/c unit is running.

7. Replace the standard incandescent light bulbs in your home with the new compact fluorescent bulbs.

8. Help your water heater to be even more efficient by wrapping it with an insulating blanket specifically designed to go around your water heater.

Check back tomorrow for four more easy green living tips!

Five days and counting to Earth Day so enjoy the easy ways to go green tips I post as we head to the big celebration:

1. When it comes to doing the dishes with your dishwasher, use the energy-saving setting. If your dishwasher is older and doesn’t have one of those settings, just let the dishes air-dry. Don’t use the heated option.

2. Reduce the energy needed to wash your clothes by washing in cold or warm water, not hot. We do all of our laundry with cold water, sometimes warm if some stain treatment or sterilization is needed and we’ve never noticed a problem with our clothes!

3. To save on energy used to heat up hot water, turn your water heater down to about 120-degrees. I have to confess, that’s a hard one for us to stomach because we love our hot showers and baths!

4. As you replace appliances in your home, pick out on the best energy efficient appliances. A lot of new appliances carry the Energy Star label which tells you that particular appliance is designed to save you money. If you’d like to learn more about what appliances to look out for, head over to the Energy Star website.

There are thousands of sites spread across our globe where groundwater supplies have been contaminated due to dirty factories, military installations and the dumping of toxic waste.  These so-called superfund sites are left to sit until the expensive cleanup operation can get underway and have undoubtedly a harmful impact on our environment and supplies of drinking water.  But one scientist at Rice University has come up with an amazing solution, one that could leave at least part of our planet gleaming!

Chemical engineer Michael Wong developed a gold detergent that is amazing effective at cleaning up water contaminated with toxic waste.  No, this isn’t a hundred dollar bottle of soap that the likes of Paris Hilton would bathe in twice daily!  Typically cleanup of these sites containing the cancer causing chemicals TCE and PCE costs millions of dollars and it never really gets rid of the problem.  TCE is an industrial solvent used to clean greasy machinery and while it smells sweet, the after-affects are anything but.  The current cleanup method is simply a process that moves the chemicals to another spot.  The federal government has suggested that just to clean up the 1,400 military sites would cost $5 Billion.

Wong realized he could combine gold particles (molecule sized) with palladium (another metal) and sprinkle the resulting mixture over contaminated water.  What happened was pure genius!  The gold detergent broke down the TCE and PCE and turned them into a more eco-friendly gas, ethane, and chloride salt.  The gold detergent works about 100 times faster than the current groundwater cleanup method which involves pumping water through charcoal filters to remove the TCE and PCE.  Wong and his partners at Rice will now deploy the system at an actual cleanup site to see just how effective and cost-efficient their gold detergent can be.

A lot of people want to cover up or get rid of odors in their home whether it’s from cooking, pets, smoking or the occasional dead mouse you haven’t been able to locate yet.  But it seems the easiest thing to reach for to improve the smell of our homes are room sprays over loaded with fake fragrances and chemicals.  It’s super easy to freshen the smell of your home while keeping it more natural by using essential oils.

Essential oils are just oil extracted from a particular plant or botanical through distillation.  By buying an essential oil warmer (usually powered by a candle or power outlet) you can scent a room with natural fragrances.  They won’t only make your house smell good they’ll also help your mood too!  Here’s some suggestions:

Would you like to lift your mood and spirits?   Try Almond Extract, Lavender, Orange Blossom, Vanilla or any other scent you like.  If you’d like to reduce anxiety, try Roman Chamomile, Lavender or Orange Blossom.  If you want to reduce agitation, try Lavender or Lemon Balm.  If you want to feel revived, use Rosemary.  It’s easy to find essential oils at local stores and Googling the term “essential oil” will show you a ton of online retailers.  One simple way we freshen up our home is to simmer a small pot of water on the stove with orange slices and a pinch of mulling spices.  The orange spice smell infuses your entire house and I think smells pretty darn good.  While mulling spices can be expensive, one tin has lasted me more than five years for the occasional air freshening.

Do you have a natural tip or trick to keeping your home smelling fresh without the use of chemicals or overpowering room sprays?  Let us know about it and share your tip too.

Here’s a little treat to share with all of my readers.  I’ve talked about Green Cleaners in the past but now you can actually get a free sample of one of those products.  Head over to the Ecover website to enter for a free sample of an eco-friendly cleaner.  You can also register in their contest to have your home completely cleaned top to bottom in an eco-friendly way.

This week our car decided it wasn’t going to start on a very random basis.  We had been out running errands all morning and decided to stop at Sam’s Club and stock up on our usual grocery staples like milk, eggs and bread.  When we got back out to the car 20 minutes later it acted like the battery was dead.  Perhaps it was karma coming back to bite me after I muttered a profanity at all the people fighting over who was in line at the only two check stands open.  After munching on fresh fruit and potato chips in the parking lot for half an hour, our roadside assistance showed up and jump started our car.  Home we went!

Once we pulled in, I turned off the car to see if it would restart.  As luck would have it, dead again.  I had a co-worker pick me up for the ride into town and I schlepped my battery to the auto parts store.  It tested ok (as it should since it was only a few months old) and they informed me it must be my alternator.  Fantastic!  I knew I was either looking at a very long weekend and close to $300 for one silly part or about $600 to have a mechanic do it for me.  I guess I was in vapor lock mode.  My girlfriend and I decided we would tackle the alternator together making the experience more fun with the two of us at each other’s side.  Four hours later we were steaming hot mad and hadn’t removed a single damn part.

We finally decided we were defeated and that the car was going to have be towed to a mechanic where we would shell out the insane amount of money to have a mechanic do it for us.  I reconnected the battery cables and thought why don’t I just try starting the car.  I did and it started.  We let it run for about 30 minutes while we got ready to head into town, not wanting to shut it off again until we got to the auto parts store.  We pulled into the parking lot and the helpful clerks tested our electrical system.  Their tests showed everything was fine.  The battery was great and the alternator was putting out plenty of juice so they told me to clean up the cables and battery posts.

We did just that and it only cost us $4.00 as opposed to at least $300.  We bought a battery terminal brush, mixed up a quick concoction of 1 cup warm water and 1 tablespoon of baking soda, grabbed the vaseline and headed to the garage.  As it turns out, making sure your battery has a good electrical connection is super easy and takes just a few minutes.  First, disconnect the negative battery cable from the terminal and set aside.  Next, disconnect the positive cable.  With a paint brush, wipe on some of the baking soda solution.  As it comes in contact with the battery acid buildup it will bubble and sizzle.  This is a natural reaction so don’t get worried.  After you let the backing soda neutralize all that buildup, wipe it off with a clean towel.  Apply the baking soda solution to the wire rings that clamp to the battery posts and wipe clean.  Use the battery terminal brush to help scrape the extra stuff off both the clamps and the posts of your battery.  Once you’ve cleaned all the surfaces, reattach the positive cable and then the negative cable to your battery.  It’s that simple!

I also ready many anecdotes involving pennies.  Supposedly if you place a copper penny near each battery post it will attract the corrosion from the battery acid to the coin as opposed to the posts and cables.  I haven’t tried that but I guess it couldn’t hurt.  What a weekend!  We grew together as a couple once more after getting seriously frustrated with our weekend’s car repair.  I guess we were technically successful though since the car is running again!