Archive for the ‘household energy consumption’ Category

I came upon a small company in Washington, Missouri owned and operated by a retired couple that have developed a filter made for use only on electric clothes dryers which allows the user to return the hot, humid air back into the home during the winter months.

The name of the product is Dryernet and basically recycles the hot air coming out of your dryer ( I wonder if it could be used in Congress) and puts it to use to reheat your home. It also filters out 99.5% of all contaminants including smell. With the extra heat added to the home, the furnace doesn’t have to work as much, the moisture added to the environment gets rid of static electricity and in many cases, this filter shortens the time required to dry the clothes. So, this little filter saves energy for the furnace, saves electricity from the dryer and makes the home environment much better to live in.

Pretty innovative for a little filter that takes no time to install and takes up no more space than what you have right now and will save you money on your electric bill. The product website shows that people are saving 20-30 dollars a month using Dryernet, that being true than the product can pretty much pay for itself in a month or two. Definitely worth talking a look.

Check it out>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> at Dryernet.com and pass it on, it’s always nice to see small companies sprout up from Green Innovations.

bibi

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When the price of gas started going up a few months ago everyone pointed their fingers at the size of our gas guzzling cars. How wasteful they are, the carbon footprints they have, how they contributed to the troubles that the auto industry is experiencing now. While all this is definitely true, does anyone stop and think about the size of the houses we live in and the impact they have on our planet? After all really, how many rooms can we occupy at once?

Since 1940 the average square footage of a house in the US has gone up by 800 square feet, from 1200 sq ft. to 2000 sq ft. That’s and increase of almost 67%. I doubt very seriously that the average number of people in a  household has gone up 67%. In fact the number of people per household has dropped dramatically since 1940. So we have to ask ourselves, is all this space necessary.

Beyond the averages are the no longer rare mega mansions, found almost in every corner of the country. Why anyone would need a 56,000 sq ft home like Candy Spelling, or the 60,000 sq ft mansion sold by Donald Trump for a cool 100mil, or the 66,000 sq ft home owned by Bill Gates is beyond any reasoning that I can find acceptable. But that’s just me.

We seem to like space, to be surrounded by empty rooms that we can walk into anytime we like, but that spend most of the time empty. Maybe it’s a possession thing, or a territorial thing who knows. But the bottom line is that the bigger the space, the bigger the footprint, and the amount of energy that is consumed.

Some Statistics:

• Average Household of 2000 sq ft uses 8900 kw hours of electricity a year.
• Half the energy consumed in a home is for heating and cooling it.
• The typical home is a major source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for over twice as much carbon dioxide (CO2) annually as the average automobile. (ref: HERE)

Maybe we need to reevaluate how we use space, if there is a need for so much of it, and if the space is already there how to share it with others. Back in 1940 the average house was 1200 sq ft and 3-4 people lived in it, in 2003 the average house was 2000 sq ft and 2-3 people lived in it. Not only has our appetite for house space gone up, but also our need for personal space. Not sure what this says about our society, but we have to ask ourselves, are these, luxuries that we can afford to live with or do we need to rethink our needs.

The EPA has a Household Emissions Calculator that you an use to figure out the footprint of your house.

Here are some tips from the EPA that can help you reduce your footprint at home.

bibi

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