save money Category
April 13th, 2010 by ecojoe in construction, eco footprint, energy conservation, green construction, reusing, save money, solar power
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January 9th, 2010 by ecojoe in electric, energy conservation, save money
Have you ever wanted to save money on your heating and cooling bills without sacrificing your precious comfort? What to do?? I, too, was in the same boat as you, until last weekend when I installed a programmable thermostat.
“What’s the big deal about a programmable thermostat, anyhoo?”, I hear you ask. Well, I’ll let the good ol’ U.S. Department o’ Energy tell you:
[During winter], by turning your thermostat back 10°–15° for 8 hours, you can save about 5%–15% a year on your heating bill—a savings of as much as 1% for each degree if the setback period is eight hours long.
Gadzooks. If your average power bill is $70 a month during the 4 coldest months of the year, a programmable thermostat can save you between $14 and $42 during those 4 months! Not to mention the painless energy savings.
But it doesn’t only conserve energy and save money during the winter, oh no. During those hot months, you can set the temperature higher while you’re gone, and have it cool down more when you’re actually at your house. Voíla, even more energy and monetary savings!
Read instructions carefully when installing a programmable thermostat
Me and some friends tried to install my thermostat on one of the coldest days of the year. We wired everything up perfectly, but the heat wouldn’t come on. A day later, my friendly neighborhood electrician fixed the problem by reading the manual and figuring out that you had to tell the programmable thermostat that we had a heat pump. Dang, that one night without heat was a cold night
indeed, but I learnt a valuable lesson about reading instructions.
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November 17th, 2009 by ecojoe in animals, cleaning, paper, reusing, save money
Cats. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. These fine feline friends are great pets, but when it comes to cleaning up their god dang litter, that is certainly not the cat’s meow.
Not only is cat litter not great fun to clean up (and buy), but most clay-based kitty litter is made from clay that is strip mined from the Earth, which is horrible for the environment. The U.S. Bureau of Mines estimates that in 1994 alone, approximately 1.5 million metric tons of clay was mined to make clay cat litter.
A good way to avoid clay litter, and to reuse, is to just use old newspapers as cat litter. Here’s how to make your cat(s) some homemade newspaper cat litter.
1) Sprinkle some baking soda on to the bottom of an empty litter box. This is optional, and helps absorb some of that atrocious cat pee smell.
2) Tear newspaper into narrow strips (less than an inch wide). Pro tip: It’s a lot easier to tear vertically than horizontally.
3) Use your hand muscles to tear those newspaper strips into pieces that are about half a foot long. Use a ruler if you want to, kitty will appreciate the extra precision.
4) Make it rain. Flutter, throw, or somehow get all that newspaper into the cat litter box. It should be over halfway full (it’ll flatten a lot when it gets wet).
Et voila, you are finished. It’s recommended to change the wet newspaper daily, or else it’ll stink up your house. Hopefully your cat will give the newspaper litter the ol’ thumbs up, and you’ll be on your way to a greener kitty litter box.
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August 6th, 2009 by ecojoe in books, green business, paper, recycle, reusing, save money
The green movement is making inroads even in the lil’ town of Garner. I was in the library last week, lamenting my near-illiteracy while I looked for the picture book section, when I saw Read the rest of this entry »
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May 18th, 2009 by ecojoe in green business, recycle, save money
Note: Since it was a phone interview and I didn’t have a recorder, his answers (and my questions) are not exact quotes, but are pretty close to what was actually said.
A little while ago, I had the good fortune to talk with Aaron Vronko, the CEO of RapidRepair, and ask him a few questions. For your 411, RapidRepair buys your broken small electronics and uses their parts to repair other people’s gadgets. A prime example of a business that helps the environment while also making money. But let’s get on with this here entrevista…
Joe (Me): So, what does your company repair?
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April 22nd, 2009 by ecojoe in event, green business, reusing, save money
In celebration o’ Earth Day (Fun Fact: Earth Day was started by someone named Gaylord), Swaptree is planting a tree for each trade completed today. “‘Old on a tic”, you might exclaim, “Just wot is this ‘Swaptree’ thing, anyway?”
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April 8th, 2009 by ecojoe in food, green business, reusing, save money
To make a long story short, I won’t have internet at my house ’til Friday, so yesterday I went to Swift Creek Coffee House to leech off their wireless internet.
So as not to be a complete scrub Read the rest of this entry »
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