Green Shop

The sun is the most dependable energy source available, providing a consistent and effective solution to home energy. With its reliability, many homeowners are now using solar panels heat their water supplies. These homeowners enjoy the benefits of using solar power to harnesses the sun’s energy, while reducing both heating costs and environmental harm. Thermal solar panels transfer the sun’s radiant energy to a home’s stored water supply.

There are two kinds of solar panel systems that provide households with ample hot water supplies. Requiring little maintenance, these solar thermal systems can last for up to twenty years. In order to make the best decision about which kind of system to install, it is important to understand the two types of systems, direct and indirect solar thermal systems, as well as how the regional weather affects the heating process. With direct solar systems, the sun directly heats the water, while, with indirect systems, pipes transfer the heat to a water supply. Considering regional temperatures is necessary when choosing the best system for one’s home.

In areas where the temperature rarely drops below the freezing point, direct solar water heating systems work best. This kind of system uses an insulated water tank that contains collector pipes. The sun’s energy directly heats the water in the collector pipes. This water moves into the storage tank, eventually heating all the water. This tank of hot water is connected to the home’s water system, supplying it with the necessary hot water. In areas with seasonable climates, direct systems prove most effective and efficient. Little maintenance is required for direct thermal water systems. However in homes with hard water, the pipes may need to be cleaned of any mineral deposits that build up within the pipes.

For homes in regions where the temperature drops below the freezing point, an indirect system is the best solution for solar heated hot water. Indirect solar works through a system of heat pipes installed from the outside to the inside of the tank. These pipes are filled with an antifreeze solution that can resist even the lowest temperatures. The outer heat pipes absorb the sun’s heat and transfer it to the water within the tank. Because it relies on the sun’s radiant energy, there is no fear of cold temperatures or precipitation affecting a household’s hot water supply.

Whether a direct or indirect solar thermal system is used to heat homes’ water supplies, homeowners realize the many benefits of solar power. The sun is the most sustainable energy source, offering clean and reliable power. With low maintenance and high performance, solar thermal hot water systems save homeowners money, while saving the Earth’s valuable resources.

It`s not always easy being green. Green cars cost more, renewable energy sources are expensive to implement in your home and just when you think you`ve got your place kitted out with solar panels and wind generators so you can finally start saving energy and money, along comes the home insurance bill. Anything unusual, whether its modifications on a car or a new sport you plan to try on holiday, will bump up your insurance premiums – and making your home eco-friendly is no exception. However, there are now a host of home insurance providers that specifically market to “green conscious” customers. However, just how good are these deals?

What is green home insurance?

Basically, in reaction to more people becoming eco-conscious, insurers have designed products specifically targeting these customers. Some may offer cover for specific features such as solar panels on the roof or using a renewable energy source for your electricity; while others offer carbon offset schemes to help counter your property`s emissions.
Let`s break them down:

Cover for equipment:

Most insurers won`t cover equipment such as solar panels and wind generators – and if they do, it will normally be with a sizeable premium in tow. Some green insurers however, such as Lloyds TSB, will include features such as for “the repair, replacement and theft of equipment that generates electricity”.

Incentives:

Some insurers offer specific environmental incentives – such as encouraging homeowners to go green after a property is destroyed. Discounts may also be available if your home has specific environmental features.

Carbon offset schemes:

Offered by the likes of RK Shipman and the Environmental Transport Association, these policies “offset” your home`s emissions by contributing to environmental causes such as building wind turbines or replenishing the rainforest.

How can you find cheaper green home insurance premiums?

While these green incentives are all well and good they often come at a price.

So how can you lower your premiums?

The first step is to think about the level of cover you really need. It may be important to cover the environmental equipment in your home but do you really want to contribute to a carbon offset scheme too? Morally it`s great if you do, but you may actually make a bigger contribution to the environment if you find the cheapest home insurance deal and then put the money you save towards a project of your own choice.

If you have a green home it`s important to go that extra mile to lower your premiums to “make up” for the additional cost your green features add to your home. Some straightforward ways to save include:

Increase security:

Reduce your theft risk and most insurers will cut your premiums. This can be done by fitting security devices (although you should ask your insurer to recommend products first) such as burglar alarms and time-switch lights. You could also cut premiums by joining a Neighbourhood Watch scheme.

Reduce fire risk:
Quit smoking, fit smoke alarms and keep fire extinguishers in your home and your home insurer should slash your premiums.

Increase your excess:
Think about how much you can afford to pay in the event of a claim. The more you can afford, the lower your premiums.

Pay annually:
Avoid monthly interest charges by paying annually on your policy.

No-claims:

Build up a discount by avoiding unnecessary claims. If you`re looking for big savings on your premiums then carry out a home insurance comparison every year rather than accepting renewal quotes. Most insurers offer their leading rates to new customers online where they save money on overheads.

Most people assume that just by purchasing eco friendly products or perhaps growing their own vegetables they are in fact being “green”. However not all 60 plus million Britons have the luxury of owning a garden or a plot of land.

So how can city workers cook and eat in an eco friendly manor?

The main problem with city works, much like me is that during lunchtime’s convenience takes priority over eco friendliness every time. It’s not that I don’t realise the amount of plastic bags being used on a weekly basis or how the food has been cooked but as I said what’s a guy to do?

Well since the start of 2009 I have been “eating eco” and saving money in the process. During 2008 on any given day I would have typically eaten the following:

1. A Coffee – £1.20

2. A Muffin – £1.50

3. A Sandwich – £2.50

4. Pack of Crisps - £0.50

5. Chocolate Bar - £0.50

6. Canned Drink - £1.00

So in total I would have spent in the region of £7.20 PER DAY! Not only did I realise the amount of money I spent a month for pretty mediocre food was £144.00 but the amount of waste accumulated was horrendous.

How to solve the problem and save money?

Simple, spend around 1.5 hours on a Sunday and cook 2 dishes making 5 portions. Visit any main supermarket and buy a pack of plastic lunch containers, these tubs are re-usable and tend to last for months at a time. A typical lunch for me will now include:

1. A green tea (tea bag) - £0.03 per bag

2. Porridge (multi pack) - £0.20 per sachet

3. Spaghetti/Chilli/Pasta/Stew – On average £1.00 per portion

4. Chocolate bar (one step at a time) - £0.50

With only an extra one or 2 hours effort you could save your monthly cost on food by £109.40 per month – that’s what I did. If you wanted to take it a little further you could make your own muffins or cook your own potato crisps but doing this is very achievable! ac

Introduced as part of the Government’s Green Transport Plan, the Ride to Work scheme enables employees to avail of bicycles and safety equipment loaned to them by their employers. This is a tax-free benefit, designed to encourage less pollution and healthier staff. Anyone is eligible to take part, including businesses in the private, public and voluntary sector, as long as the employee is part of a PAYE scheme.

The idea is your employer purchases the cycle and any necessary equipment such as lights, horn, panniers, etc from one of the many participating cycle dealers for a VAT free amount. The bicycle is then given to you on loan for a stated period, usually a year or eighteen months.

During this loan period, you pay for the bicycle in regular instalments, which are automatically deducted from your salary. However, these payments are tax-free and known as ‘Salary Sacrifice.’ This is where you agree to a temporary reduction in your salary to cover the cost of the repayments. At the end of the loan period, you may purchase the bike and any accessories from your employer for a ‘fair market value.’ Generally, this equates to around 5% of the original cost of the cycle.

At least 50% of the bike’s use must be for work journeys but you are free to use it for personal and leisure purposes the rest of the time. There are huge savings to be made on the cost of most bikes so it’s a great incentive to get fit as well as doing your bit for the environment at the same time, particularly if you loathe that daily commute!

For more information visit the UK Governments Ride to Work Scheme

This is a great eco invention which is really quite a simple idea but yet very effective. The Ecoblock Squat Garden Candle acts as a natural garden light, which to be honest would look great over the Christmas period or perhaps on bonfire night.

To use the Ecoblock garden candle all you have to do is make sure it’s fixed on stable ground or a driveway, light and watch the slow burn of this eco garden light

You don’t have to be the Jolly Green Giant to raise a green child.  There are many simple things that you can do everyday to directly or indirectly influence your child’s environmental awareness.  Now, more than ever, it is more important to ensure that our earth is in good hands with the next generation.

1. Limit the amount of trash that your child needs to dispose of.  Wrap school lunch foods in reusable plastic containers, such as Tupperware, rather than plastic baggies and cling wrap.  Send regular utensils rather than disposable utensils.  Explain to your child that by not having garbage to throw away after lunch, she is helping to take good care of the environment.  Ask her if she notices how much garbage ends up in the trash bins at the end of the lunch period.
2. Set a good example by using reusable bags when you go shopping.  When your child shops with you, she will learn that this is part of the shopping process.  Make sure that your child has a bag available as well, so that when you go shopping for birthday gifts, or she uses her allowance money, she will have her own bag to use.  By the time your child is old enough to go to the mall with her friends, it will be second nature for her to grab a reusable bag before heading out. Remember that reusable bags can be a part of your shopping routine in all stores, not just the grocery store. Keep extra bags in your car, so that you will always have them on hand.
3. Save boxes, egg cartons, old magazines, and junk mail. Search online or in library books for fun projects that you can do together using recycled items.  Designate a box for these types of items, so that your family will set them aside, rather than throwing them away.
4. Have your family use a chalkboard or dry erase board for messages rather than leaving paper notes.
5. If you and your family are running errands within a reasonable distance from your house, consider traveling by bicycle or on foot instead of driving.
6. Use Freecycle.org to get rid of unwanted items.  Designate a box or a small storage area in which your family can set aside items for donation.  Involve your child in this process as well, so that she understands that the items will go to someone else who can use them, rather than in the garbage.  Go through her unused toys and outgrown clothes and have her help select which items should be given away.
7. Teach your child to conserve water by turning it off while she is brushing her teeth.
8. Remind your child to turn off lights when she leaves a room, in order to conserve energy.
9. Make it a family rule that whenever a family member watches television, it is his or her responsibility to turn it off when they are finished watching a program.
10. Explain to your child how planting a tree and/or growing some of your own food helps the environment.  Involve your child in planning and maintaining a garden; size does not matter.  If a garden is not realistic, even growing an indoor plant will help your child to understand the cycle of nature.
11. Get outside.  Instead of going to the movies or playing video games, go to the park, go for a hike, or go for a bike ride.
12. Get your family involved in a town clean-up day.
13. Have your family check out magazines at the library, rather than subscribing to them.
14. Avoid using paper plates and cups at family gatherings.  Encourage everyone to help out with clean up.
15. Set a good example.  Actions speak louder than words.

1. Christmas wrapping paper – just be careful when you unwrap presents on Christmas day, a little bit of care and you can reuse the same paper the next year. As well as help save paper this is a great way to save money too!

2.    Turkeys - Buy your Turkey from a local butcher that you know produces their own meat. This should be preferable over the big supermarkets that mass produce millions of turkeys each year. Buying locally will reinvest money into your local economy and more often than not the turkey will be organic or have been fed on natural feed –plus I guarantee it will taste better.

3.    Christmas Trees – Instead of taking your dead Christmas tree to the local dump you can reuse it for your household use. Depending on the size of the tree you can break the arms into chippings and use on your flower beds, using the main trunk as firelighters or small logs.

4.    Christmas lights – Instead of using the traditional Christmas fairy lights why not consider solar fairy lights? They run entirely on solar power and can be used outside as well, although they may not be as bright as normal Christmas lights they run in a close second!

5.    Cooking – When cooking your Christmas roast be sure to keep your lid on your saucepans, this will help the vegetables cook quicker and it will also help save you energy and money!

I regularly visit Flickr to look for great inspiring photos and this week was no exception as I found some really breath taking images of trees. You might think trees are pretty boring (if completely necessary to our survival) but I’m sure you’ll agree that what you see below shows some of the true beauty nature can throw at us.  To enlarge the images just click on them:

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Environmentalism has, in recent years, grown indisputably in terms of both popularity and awareness. Yet despite ubiquitous calls for environmental-friendliness and even widespread activism pushing for increased legislation, exhaust emissions persist to be one of humanity’s most obstinate problems today. And with each car on average producing more than 2.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year and an estimated population of 1.2 billion motor vehicles in the year 2030, it’s no wonder why traffic fumes are often considered the biggest environmental perpetrator of them all.

The implications on humanity are severe and not limited to long-term effects. The Beijing 2008 Olympics in China have, if anything, brought to light how the issues of pollution are startlingly real and often manifest to uncontrollable proportions before authorities are can gather the necessary resources or political will. Consider also the instances of London, Los Angeles, or California – all of which are well known cities that in recent years have received strong media criticism over poor pollution records. Inevitably, we are increasingly living in a world where smog and haze are becoming the most prevalent aspects of society.

Even then, aesthetical issues may actually be the least of our worries. Perhaps one of the more alarming problems, or at least to individuals, would be health-related complications. Traffic emissions, for example, are now known to dramatically increase the potential risk of a fatal blood clot known as DVT, or deep vein thrombosis. Asthma, respiratory complications, and even heart or lung disease are also some of the more commonly known health effects of long-term air pollution that are associated with exhaust emissions.

These numerous issues, however, are comparatively inconsequential when contrasted against the controversy surrounding climate change. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth sparked worldwide debate when he pointed out, among other things, how carbon dioxide emissions may eventually lead to widespread flooding, droughts and even steady increases in global temperature should current trends persist.

The problems of pollution, exacerbated by exhaust emissions, hence seem to promise a depressing and bleak future ahead and cause little wonder to why some even go as far as to condemn the motor vehicle to be mankind’s worst invention. Environmental degradation has since ceased to be a domestic affair, but has instead part of an exclusive group of global challenges that Kofi Annan famously coined as problems without passports.

Thankfully, the notion of pollution being uncontrollable is merely a myth, though it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy if too widely accepted. Hydrogen-powered cars, where water undergoes electrolysis to produce a mix of hydrogen and oxygen, are merely some of the more relevant examples of alternative technologies becoming increasingly developed today. “Going-green” is quickly ceasing to be an idealistic concept but a pragmatic one with rising fuel costs and the realization that oil wells will eventually run dry. The odds are surely stacked against us, but if history is any indicator, mankind’s ingenuity may eventually triumph yet again.

The consequences of exhaust emissions are real, damaging, and drastic. And supposing we truly recognize that, now might just be our last chance to make that clarion call for change.

Tips for Families Going Green

Living Green isn’t as difficult and expensive as many people think. Here are a few simple things your family can do to ‘Go Green,’ and preserve our environment and natural resources in the process.

Recycle - Children can easily learn to throw their plastic, bottles, and paper into designated bins. Make a game out of it – take them to a thrift store and find some funky containers to serve as your recycle bins. Place the bins in accessible places so children are more likely to use them. Talk with them about the threat to our natural resources if we continue adding waste and using resources, even if you think they’re too young to “get it.” Eventually, they will get it! Make sure you check your local municipality to find out exactly which products can be recycled. If your area doesn’t recycle particular things you use, consider finding a friend who would be willing to take your recyclable containers and put them out with their recycling, or find a local school or church that has a recycling program. Some large health food chains have collection bins for products that local municipalities typically do not recycle.

Keep your eyes and ears open for local recycling programs to recycle things like paint, batteries, computers, other electronics, etc. You can typically find these programs listed on your local news station sites, and at local “big box” electronic store sites.

Consider offering your used (working) appliances to women’s shelters and churches that will donate the appliances to needy people. Sometimes these programs will take appliances that aren’t working, fix them, and then donate them.

Don’t throw away old clothing. Go to your local elementary school or a local church or synagogue, and inquire about families in need. Or take your used clothing to a local thrift store.

Consider using recycled products for your own personal use – during minor and major home renovations; buy used clothing; buy products made from recycled materials; buy used electronics.

Turn off the Water - When brushing teeth, only use water to wet and rinse the brush and paste out of your mouth. When shaving, fill a cup with a small amount of water to rinse out the razor. Only turn the water on to rinse the soap/cream off after you’re finished. Turn the shower water off when soaping up. Run the shower water initially to get wet, and then to rinse off. Your family can save thousands of gallons of water this way!

Consider replacing an old hot water heater with a ‘hot water on demand’ type hot water heater. While these hot water heaters are definitely more expensive initially, in the long run they are much better for the environment (you won’t use all that water trying to heat the water up to a comfortable temperature!), and they will cost you less money in heating bills.  And don’t forget to turn the temperature all the way down when you go on vacation (and ideally, whenever you are not using hot water).

Turn out the Lights - When you leave a room, turn out the lights (don’t forget the TV!). Replace as many light bulbs as you can with low energy bulbs. These bulbs use up to 90% less electricity than standard bulbs (how’s that for saving money?) and typically last about 10 times longer.

Unplug - Did you know that even when household appliances, electronics and lights are not in use, they are still using energy? Did you ever notice how battery chargers, cell phone chargers, iPod chargers, etc., are warm if they are plugged in but not charging anything? That is because they are using energy in passive mode (that is, even when they are not in active operation). Your microwave has to use energy to keep the clock ticking. So does your oven and your coffee maker. Same with your alarm clock. One plasma tv can cost as much as $160 per year when not in use! You can help save up to 75% of power consumption simply by unplugging unused lights, electronics and appliances (okay, leave the fridge plugged in). Another alternative is to put lights and electronics that are in close proximity onto a power strip. Then get in the habit of only turning the power strip on when you need to use something on it.

Use cloth instead of paper. Paper products clog our landfills. Whenever possible, use washable plates and napkins (and make sure you use eco-friendly products and minimal water to clean them!). Put the paper towel rolls away so children aren’t tempted to use them. Keep a dishtowel in plain sight. Only buy single-ply toilet paper and instruct your children on using as little toilet paper as possible when using the bathroom. If you have a child in diapers, consider using cloth diapers.

Use natural cleaning products. Most households already have everything they need (like baking soda, vinegar, and soap) to clean naturally. These products are cheap and environmentally friendly ways to clean your house. And they work! If you need to buy cleaning products, make sure you read the labels carefully to ensure you are actually getting chemical-free products. And don’t forget to check the recyclability of the container!

There are many more ways your family can go green – like eating one meatless meal a week, composting raw food waste, bike/walk instead of drive, carpool, buy used (including appliances and electronics). You will find that once you change your habits, being green really isn’t very difficult!

And remember, you don’t have to do it all. Every little bit helps.