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"God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." Genesis 1:31

Monday, September 29, 2008

Some Tips

Tips for the week of 9-29-08

1. Bring your thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer that helps your energy cost.
2. Buy a programmable thermostat (note: will try to find some links for programmable thermostats in the future).
3. Use Low flow faucets, shower heads, and toilets in your bathroom.
4. Start a compost in your back yard or roof top.
5. Buy locally made products and locally grown foods. This helps on transportation of such product which brings the carbon emissions down.


Each week I will try to post 5 tips for that week. If you would like to share a tip please leave it in the comments section of this post. Thanks and I hope you enjoy this weeks tips. These tips I pull from various places on the web, magazines, and papers.

Our Next Mission

Well now that I have started replacing the lights, my next tackle was the never ending loads of laundry. We had the washer and dryers that took forever to wash and dry. So around christmas time last year (2007) I had, had it with my old ones and yep you guessed it out to the stores we went. We bought front loading energy efficient models. They are a matching set, up until then we had never had a matching set or brand new ones. They are the Whirlpool Duets and yes I love love love them. I get so much more laundry done at one time then I ever did before. The washer has the capacity of a 6 or 7 loader at the laundry mat and I can do all of our comforters and sleeping bags in it with no worries of the basement flooding. They dryer is a 4 to 5 load capacity (I usually hang the sleeping bags and comforters to dry) which helps even more. One of the best things you can do when doing laundry is limit the use of the dryer when you can. I have a clothes line outside for great days and if I need to hang things on nasty days I have an area in the basement to do so ( in the winter it helps keep some moisture in the house so its not to dry). I have notice that our water bills aren't sky high any more and the light bill has been staying at a good level rate as well.

The other thing we had to do at the time, was our toilet was running all the time. So off to Lowes I went and came back with a better one. Of course its not one of those the cost upwards of $500 and has duel flush (if I were rich then that would have happen but I am not so we stick with the most economical we can). It was a less water per flush model and it only cost from about $100, I think I payed about $125 for everything (bowl, tank and extras) so I thought I did really good there. Of course as with anything do your research on 1 you might be looking at and see if it suits you style, especially if you are just wanting to remodel your bathroom. There are alternatives on everything green for your home. Anything from recycled lumber, to non toxic paints and insulation's, and recycled counter tops. Which is one of my goals to remodel our bathroom and make it eco friendly, as with the rest of the house but that might take sometime to accomplish but I can guarantee that you will be with me thru the whole process. In the future I will be posting sites up on this blog that you can use for researching for all your green needs as you see I have some links up now as I find them I will post them.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Light Bulbs

So the next thing was that we were always replacing light bulbs, so I started looking into the spiral kind as I called them LOL. They are really called Compact Fluorescent Bulbs, they are to last up to 9 or so years depending on the brand that you buy. The package I have in front of me now are the Great Value brand from Wal-Mart. They are energy star compliant and I chose the 60 watt equivalent, these only use a whopping 13 watts. The light output is 900 lumens/energy used 13watts/bulb life 10,000 hours. I did notice a different right off the bat they take a few seconds to light up completely, its kinda of like they go from dim to bright as they warm up. These lamps do contain a bit of mercury and should be disposed of properly. If you have these and need information on how to dispose of them please visit www.lamprecycle.org or call 1-800-378-6998.

I started buying these and putting them everywhere in our house that they could be put. A little side note tho DO NOT replace them in dimmer switch lights. There are warning labels on the packaging saying Do Not use with emergency exit fixtures,or lights; electronic timers, photocells, or dimmers. Yes I will admit it I did just that with a dimmer found out that it would not work by watching the light (it does some pretty funky things and makes some interesting sounds), take my mistake and do not do it lol. I really wanted to find them for our bathroom vanity lights, then one day I was picking up a normal package for the dimmer lights and lo and behold guess what jumped off the shelf at me. Yes you guessed it lights just for vanity's I was thrilled and bought a package. So over the next few weeks a light here and there went out in the bathroom and I slowly replaced them all, 6 to be exact. I immediately noticed a huge difference, before our bathroom always got really, really hot now it only gets warm if the shower or hot water is running, WOOOOOOO WHOOOOOOOOO. So right then I knew these lights would be the only ones I would buy from now on.

Now I have heard that the company's have been working on lights that will work with the dimmer switch lights. I haven't had to buy light bulbs for a while so I haven't looked, as soon as I find out I will post a comment to this post with an update as to what I found. If you would like just go to your local hardware store Lowe's, Home Depot, or Menard's (Menard's is my favorite) and go to the lighting section they usually have the best selection to choose from and you can just pa ruse the isle to see what they have and what might be best for you. Please feel free to post a comment here what you find, I know I would love it but you may also help someone else in their search. If you have used any other kinds that are energy saving that I have not mentioned please feel free to list those as well, to let us know what else is out there.

So in a nut shell you can save quite a bit of energy and money per bulb you replace with these types of bulbs. Please remember that only you know what is best for you I can only suggest you use this type it is solely up to you what lights you use.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Hello and welcome my green blog

Welcome to my green guide. I will post on ways that I have changed things here in my life and family's lives to a "green" way of life. Well the first thing I really did with out knowing it was changing all of our household products to non toxic family, pet, and environmentally friendly ones. Let me tell you a little bit why we had to change those products.

In December of 2005 my youngest son was born and by the time he was 3 months of age we noticed that lotions and other things were irritating his skin while bathing him or after. Suspecting that he was allergic to these I stopped all of them completely. The next thing I notice that he was breaking out in a red rash every time he ate, simple fix really I put him on soy formula. After discussing this with the doctor she suggested that we have him tested for allergens (food mainly).

Well we found out the he was allergic to several things and after being referred to an allergist we finally had it, he was allergic to milk, eggs, and peanuts (all nuts). These reactions to these foods were causing the rashes which the lotions irritated. At the time I worked as a waitress/bartender in a local sports bar and had a regular customer that was talking to me one day and the subject took a surprising turn and we were talking about eczema (which is what my youngest has), she gave me a sample of a lotion from a health and wellness company she was with and lo and behold it started helping him. Before this lotion we were using Eucerin cream and a prescription steroid cream on him.

As most of you know these creams can have some well lets just say YUCKY aspects to them (oily smelly and just out right discusting). We couldn't use but one detergent in our laundry and that sometimes tended to irritate him as well, so she brought me some of the laundry detergent she had gotten from the company and OMG!!! I love it we can use scented and all the softeners, stain removal products. Best of all every product is all natural and environmentally safe. So with my decision to use these products we were on our way to being green without knowing at the time.

If you would like to check out these products please click link at the bottom of this blog post.
http://www.livetotalwellness.com/TammieSpencer