What are your Green household tips?

[Ryan]

To kick off the forum, share any green tips for use around the house!

[seb33]

I don't know if this qualifies, its more for the garden/lawn. Its pretty easy to go organic when fertilizing your lawn. Instead of chemical fertilizers I just use soybean meal or corn gluten meal. You can purchase it from feed stores (its used for animal feed by farmers) and you can sprinkle it on by hand or apply with a drop or rotary spreader. I apply soybean meal at about 20 lbs per 1000 sq. feet of lawn. I get it as a 90 lb. bag for $20 from a place just south of newmarket. Good for the environment and the kids can help spread it!

[mangoman]

I just switched to this detergent and it doesn't cost any more than the other ones out there. I think I picked it up for about $5.50 for the 32-load size at Loblaws the other day.

Biodegradable, no dyes, phosphate-free, plant-based and apparently can get out blood stains!

Link to the print ad:

http://www.brandpower.com/Upages/406...G%20-FINAL.pdf

[sunnybono]

I don't know if this qualifies, its more for the garden/lawn. Its pretty easy to go organic when fertilizing your lawn. Instead of chemical fertilizers I just use soybean meal or corn gluten meal. You can purchase it from feed stores (its used for animal feed by farmers) and you can sprinkle it on by hand or apply with a drop or rotary spreader. I apply soybean meal at about 20 lbs per 1000 sq. feet of lawn. I get it as a 90 lb. bag for $20 from a place just south of newmarket. Good for the environment and the kids can help spread it!

Sounds interesting. What does Soybean meal or corn gluten meal do for your lawn anyways????

sk

[coolCAT]

[QUOTE=mangoman;5711652]can get out blood stains!

QUOTE]

Really? Wonder why you need that...

[CurryToa]

when you use up all the soap and shampoo, add water into the container and use the rest of it =D

hmmm the most basic one... turn off lights even if you are leaving for 1 second, it was proven that you save energy that way =O i guess it also works on television and other electronics =]

[3weddings]

For the most part, I use only Water and Vinegar to clean.

I also own a Eureka EnviroSteamer to clean with only water...love that thing!

[sfu_lifer]

Don't use a desktop. Use a laptop instead especially when you're doing long downloading sessions.
Turn off everything if you're not using it. Every little watt counts.
As much as possible, don't use or buy products with plastic or styrofoam packaging.
Wear heavier clothing in the winter around the house and drop your thermostat a degree or two.
Keeping a lawn green is one of the most wasteful use of north american resources (water + fertilizer + pesticides).

[st7860]

rumour has it that unplugging your power bars saves a lot of electricity that is otherwise wasted.

[brunes]

rumour has it that unplugging your power bars saves a lot of electricity that is otherwise wasted.

I don't buy this - when not in use the only thing in your power bar draining energy is the LED light, which is miniscule.

Here are my green money-saving tips

- Buy programmable thermostats, and set them to turn the heat down 5 degrees at night to 15c while you sleep, and down to 12 degrees or so when no one is home during the day. Set them to start to heat back up to standard 20c a half hour before you arrive home. You won't know the difference. They will pay for themselves in one winter alone.

- Keep curtains closed during the night and open during the day in winter, and the inverse in the summer. You'd be surprised how much this simple thing can save on your heating and cooling bills.

- Turn down the heat 1-2 degrees and get a pair of slippers. Your feet act as a themrostat for your whole body. Warm feet == warm body, cold feet == cold body.

- Don't use a pot larger than you need to when cooking, and don't put in more water than you need to when making things like pasta. You only need enough boiling water to cover the pasta. 1/2 the water to boil will require 1/2 the energy and 1/2 the time.

- Buy CFL light bulbs (DUH).

- Investigate the various government programs available in your area to get your home an energy retrofit at very little to no cost to you.

- Here is a big hidden one - when you go away for more than a day, unplug (or flip off the power bar for) your TV / DVD player / receiver / cable box / PC / anything that doesn't have a clock you'll need to reset. If you are going away for a week or longer, unplug the one with clocks too. All these little micro-leeches are costing you tens of dollars a month in phantom power.

- Instead of leaving it on 24/7, set your PC to go into suspend mode if it hasn't been used for an hour. it will use almost no power, and resume form suspend in seconds. It will not be a noticeable bother.

- Don't keep USB perephrials you hardly ever use (webcam, card reader, bluetooth dongle, etc.), plugged into your PC all the time, as these are always eating power as well (especially the bluetooth dongle). You can plug them in when you need them, that is why USB was invented in the first place.

[Deal]

http://www.blackle.com/
The numbers sound impressive, especially when you consider how little effort it takes on your part.


I'm also keen on trying out Eco Lawn for the yard.
- Less mowing as it's slow growing.
- longer roots makes it hardier needs less watering
- No fertilizer required

Other's I'm still working out the cost benefits:
- On demand water heaters: no more tanks.
- LED lights. Long life, ridiculously low power, but oh, so expensive now. I really like the low voltage wiring aspect. No permits required to wire it.

[st7860]

i meant the black power bricks. even if nothing is plugged into them, they eat power.

[joo]

When making rice, pasta or anything else that involves boiling water:

1. Use a kettle to boil the water. Then pour the water into the pot on the stove. It's much more efficient since no heat is lost from the sides of the element.

2. After you add the rice / pasta, turn the heat down to low. You just need to keep the water at 100C to cook you food. Anything higher and you're just boiling away the water faster.

[Deal]

I don't buy this - when not in use the only thing in your power bar draining energy is the LED light, which is miniscule.

Supposedly, it's all those adaptor blocks that are drawing the power. I kinda see the sense in that, those things are always warm.

- Keep curtains closed during the night and open during the day in winter, and the inverse in the summer. You'd be surprised how much this simple thing can save on your heating and cooling bills.

Even opening them by day and closing by night makes a difference.

- Investigate the various government programs available in your area to get your home an energy retrofit at very little to no cost to you.

I saw this government booth at the recent Home Show:
www.ecoaction.gc.ca

It has all kinds of grants and rebates for retrofitting a home.

- Instead of leaving it on 24/7, set your PC to go into suspend mode if it hasn't been used for an hour. it will use almost no power, and resume form suspend in seconds. It will not be a noticeable bother.

You could save about 50% (about $35/year/PC) according to this Microsoft article

[brunes]

http://www.blackle.com/
The numbers sound impressive, especially when you consider how little effort it takes on your part.

A note Blackle does absolutely nothing if you have an LCD monitor. it will only save you power if you have a CRT.

I'm also keen on trying out Eco Lawn for the yard.
- Less mowing as it's slow growing.
- longer roots makes it hardier needs less watering
- No fertilizer required

Wow this look sinteresting. My first question would be how does it stand up to weeds? Traditionally slow-growing grasses are not very weed-resistant. Also what would the impact be of removing my current lawn just to replace it... But for a new build this would be the way to go!

Other's I'm still working out the cost benefits:
- On demand water heaters: no more tanks.

I am in the process of investigating this one too. There is a lot of conflicting data. Some people say they save money (cause you don't have to heat water in the tank), others say they actually cost money (because it costs so much to heat the water rapidly, and modern water heaters are so well insulated).

I have yet to find an unbiased review.