This sixth and last article in a series about what the average person can do about global climate change.

Our desire to help is sometimes all but overwhelmed in light of the huge scope of this problem. Most of us feel like there is little we can do to make a difference. But, when you see it as millions, if not billions, of people like us working together then what you are doing can have a major positive effect.

Really, what can the average person do to help?

In the last five articles we talked about some the things around the house that can be done to help. Most of them were small, easy to do and did not cost much. Some were larger, maybe cost a few bucks and their difficulty factor went up some.

These next ideas are ones that involve small group cooperation and involvement.

Most of us make a list of our weekly, monthly and maybe yearly requirements for food and household supplies. We go to the local shops because they are close and maybe to the big-box mega store once every few months. We also watch for sales or specials to save some money. Even at this level of planning we still run back and forth to the stores more than we really should. All this travel burns up gas; puts wear on the car, eats up our time and puts more CO2 into the air. Not to mention, it costs us money.

For years people in neighborhoods around the country have been working together to shop in a different way, save money and combat global warming.
They have formed “Buyers’ Cooperatives”.

These cooperatives come in two basic types – formal and informal. The informal is where two or more families get together, pool their resources and buy agreed upon items in bulk. Formal cooperatives involve detailed planning on how the organization is going to be formally structured. These include electing officers, writing a set of by-laws to govern the coop and setting dues, meeting schedules and buying trips.

Which of the two is better? That, as with any group, depends on the people involved. If you have the right sort it will work without the burden of a formal structure. If, a jerk or two is in on it, then it can be one headache after another. Beyond the type of coop, just how do these work?

One simple example, without going into exquisite detail, is if two families want to buy rice. They must first agree on what type of rice, how much and the price per pound they are willing to pay. Then, whose car will be driven to the store; gas sharing, where to divide up the rice and how it will be paid for? Credit is not used in small coops “only cash”. You can see that even at this simple level it can be involved. This ˜buying in bulk” concept works reasonably well for small groups and if stores like Sam’s or Costco are reasonably close.

Very large formal coops can involve hundreds of people and get into negotiating with wholesalers for railcar size quantities. Renting warehouse space, insurance and lawyers can be come into the mix.

If you get involved in a coop at any level it can be rewarding. You can save money and help the environment at the same time. The people you meet in coops are usually ones who care about what they are doing and its effect on the world.

I hope you’ve found this series of articles useful in your daily lives and can put some of the suggestions into action.

The earth will thank you.

Think Global – Act Local!

Our desire to help is sometimes all but overwhelmed in light of the huge scope of this problem. Most of us feel like there is little we can do to make a difference. But, when you see it as millions, if not billions, of people like us working together then what you are doing can have a major positive effect.

Really, what can the average person do to help?

In the last four articles we talked about some of the things around the house that can be done to help. Most of them were small, easy to do and did not cost much. Now, it is time to look at some larger, maybe a little more difficult and sometimes more costly things.

As you drive around looking at people’s homes you’ll notice that most of the newer homes have a roof vent. The vent is cut into the peak of the roof to let the hot air out of the attic. Without the vent the hot air in the summer months would act as a blanket.

Most of the older homes don’t have a roof vent but use a vent fan installed at the time of construction. A thermostat triggers the vent fan when the temperature in the attic reaches a set value. If you have one of these fans on your roof – I have only one question for you “Are you sure it’s working?”
These fans are almost never industrial grade and after a few years will either stop working or work poorly. If your vent fan isn’t working it can push your cooling bill up considerably.

I would suggest that you don’t try checking it yourself. These fans are usually in awkward and hard to get to places. You can even fall through your ceiling if you’re careful.

This next ideas are more expensive “most of them anyway”. If your windows are singles paned, vs. the now somewhat standard double paned, you should consider changing them out.

The seals around all of the exterior doors should be checked and replaced if cracked, compressed or missing.

If you have a fireplace keep the flue damper shut when you aren’t using it. If left open it will act as a ˜thermal wick” venting the interior to the outside.
One way to determine if your house is “leaking” energy is to get a thermal evaluation done. This will cost you but it will give you a very good idea of what you need to do. Talk to your electrical company about it and they should be able to recommend some reliable firms.

You can also do-it-yourself by following the Baldwin County EMC’s home energy savings guide. http://www.baldwinemc.com/savings.aspx?id=98

These ideas will help put another dent in your power bill and put less CO2 in the air.

If you have something practical to share that you’ve been doing to deal with global warming and high-energy costs please send it to the email address below. The earth will thank you.

Next time more how to do it ideas for the rest of us.

Think Global – Act Local!

In the last three articles we talked about some of the little things around the house that can be done to help. There are more of them than you think.
I don’t know about other people but I’m a numbers kind of guy. If, by changing what I’m doing around the house means I’m going to save money I want to know how much.

You don’t have to been a mathematician or electrician to figure it out. You just need your latest electric bill and a neat little gadget called the “Kill-a-Watt” or one like it.

This device works with your wall voltage, not your 220v or higher. You plug it into the wall, the device you’re testing in it, and you are ready to go. For monthly or annual figures you will need to estimate how long you have your test device on per day.

The following link will show you in a step-by-step fashion how to use the meter and to make the calculations. This is my kind of site – hey, there are even pictures.
http://the-gadgeteer.com/review/kill_a_watt_electric_usage_monitor_review

Up until now we’ve talked about the small and fairly easy things that can be done around the house to help fight global warming. There are bigger things that can be done that will have larger impacts on your power bill and CO2 generation but they will cost more money to start with.

Right after hurricane Ivan my refrigerator died. It was an old one with no energy saving features so the one I replaced it with had a green star for being easy on power use. My power bill dropped $20 a month.

The new refrigerator cost $350 so the math says in about 18 months it paid for itself in power savings. If I had the kill-a-watt meter back then I would have known exactly what my saving would have been. Plus, the cost of power has gone up since then so it was less than 18 months to a pay back situation.

The same thing can be done with your washer and dryer. The new front loading models not only use less energy they cut down on water use too. Water is getting a little tight in some places around our nation lately, if you haven’t noticed.

These ideas will help put another dent in your power bill and put less CO2 in the air.

If you have something practical to share that you’ve been doing to deal with global warming and high-energy costs please send it to the email address below. The earth will thank you.

Next time more how to do it ideas for the rest of us.

Think Global – Act Local!

In the last two articles we talked about some of the little things around the house that can be done to help. There are more of them than you think.
One more thing that can be done with your hot water heater is to drain it every couple of years. By draining your water heater you avoid shorting out the heating element. This saves buying a new one and the energy it takes to make it.

My parents had a 50-gallon water heater and they never drained it. When they passed away we cleaned out the basement. That heater had about a foot of sediment in the bottom of it and weighed over 200 pounds. The only reason that the heating element wasn’t shorted out was because it was 18 inches above the bottom of the tank. Most elements are only a couple of inches above the bottom. The following link will give some ideas on how to do it yourself. Be careful the water can be very hot. http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/infwaterheater/infdrainwh.html.

Another way to save energy and produce less CO2 is by cleaning the lint trap in your clothes dryer. Most of us remove the lint after every couple of loads but who among us cleans the lint trap itself? If you use one of those softener sheets when you dry your clothes you’ll find there is a buildup on the screen, which will cause your dryer to run longer and use more energy. The next link will give you some details and how to clean it. It is easy. http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/dryer.asp

The last one today is about your ceiling fans. We use them in the summer and they give our homes a nice even temperature. But, did you know that the direction they rotate should change with the seasons? In the summer they should rotate so the air is forced downward. In the winter it is the opposite and the air should go upward. http://www.bobvila.com/HowTo_Library/Ceiling_Fan_Rotation–T941.html

If you follow this simple procedure you can save up to 40% on your summer cooling costs about 15% on your winter heating bills.
These ideas will help put another dent in your power bill and put less CO2 in the air.

If you have something practical to share that you’ve been doing to deal with global warming and high-energy costs please send it to the email address below. The earth will thank you.

Next time more how to do it ideas for the rest of us.

Think Global – Act Local!

We’ve been hearing on television news reports and in the papers about what governments are doing to help deal with global warming. These are large national and multi-national projects that address the problem on a very broad scale. But, what can the average person do to help?

 If you’re like me you sometimes feel that anything you do will have little or no effect compared to those big government projects. If you look at it like that, then your efforts have little effect. When you see it as millions, if not billions, of people like yourself doing it together then what you are doing can have a major positive effect.

When we look at the little things that we do and can do everyday like changing the AC filter, using CLF light bulbs and putting insulated drapes on our windows we’ll find that these are ways we can use less energy and produce less CO2. Oh, and we’ll save ourselves money when we do it.

One of things we easily forget to do every month is to change the filter in our air conditioning unit. The unit inside our homes is made to draw room air across a set of cooled coils. Before the warmer room air crosses the coils it passes through a filter. The filter removes lint, dust and pollen from the air. If your filter is clogged the system has to work longer to lower the temperature. Working longer means it uses more electricity, costing you more and putting out additional CO2 at the power plant.

There has been a lot of information in the press recently about compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL). The news is right-on about energy savings and helping the environment by reducing CO2 emissions. What you don’t usually get is all the details about what is out there as replacements for bulbs that we normally use everyday.

Most of us have three-way lamps, overhead lights on dimmer switches and outdoor lighting. These are all available along with the standard pigtail single element replacement. There are even decorator and yellow bug light bulbs. You can find these and others just about anywhere. This web site http://www.1000bulbs.com will give you a good starting point for information on CFL bulbs.

One thing that I learned from living all over our country is that we all want to keep something in or keep something out of our homes “that is heat”. The best way to do that, other than moving twice a year, is to insulate. I’m not talking about walls or ceilings (which are good ideas) but your windows. In an effort to keep the heat out of my house I bought some thick quilts on sale, cut and sewed them to fit the windows and put on wooden rings. I mounted a standard curtain rod above the windows and wa-la, instant energy saving and CO2 reduction.

These ideas will help put another dent in your power bill and put less CO2 in the air.

If you have something practical to share that you’ve been doing to deal with global warming and high-energy costs please send it to the email address below. The earth will thank you.

Next time more how to do it ideas for the rest of us.

Think Global – Act Local!

We’ve been hearing on television news reports and in the papers about what governments are doing to help deal with global warming. These are large national and multi-national projects that address the problem on a very broad scale. But, what can the average person do to help?

If you are like me you sometimes feel that anything you do will have little or no effect compared to those big government projects. If you look at it as just you alone then your efforts have little effect. When you see it as millions people like yourself, if not billions, doing it together then what you are doing can have a major positive effect.

If we look at the little things that we do every day like wash clothes, showering and using electronics there are ways we can use less energy and thereby produce less CO2. Oh, we’ll also save ourselves money in the process.

Though my father has been dead for nearly 20 years I can still hear him saying ˜Turn it off – you think I’m made of money!” The simplest way to save energy is to turn off something if you aren’t using it. This primarily applies to your lighting and electronics. A computer left running all day while you’re at the office will work like a vacuum cleaner sucking dollars out of your wallet and pumping CO2 into the air.

One area in your home where this technique only partially applies is your AC unit. In the summer if you turn it completely off the temperature in your home will rise. It will take more energy to bring it back down to a comfortable level than if you had left the AC on at a higher than your normal level. Example, if you normally have your AC set to 75 degrees turn it to 85 when you leave.

This will use less energy than it you turned it completely off and then back on when you came home. The reason this happens is something called thermal inertia. The easiest way accomplish this is by using a programmable thermostat. Set it once and you don’t have to remember.

When we bathe, wash clothes or dishes we use hot water – most of the time anyway. We seldom think about the equipment used to produce all that hot water. Many of the older hot water heaters were not insulated or insulated poorly. I don’t know exactly when water heaters started to come from the manufacturers with insulation. I might be a good idea to check your make and model numbers against the manufacture’s web site and see.

If it is not insulated you can most likely buy an insulating blanket for yours at most home repair stores – they don’t cost very much. This will help put another dent in your power bill and put less CO2 in the air.

Next time more how to do it ideas for the rest of us.

Think Global – Act Local!