Eco Friendly Energy - Ideas on an Energy Friendly, Cost Saving Lifestyle

With the cost of living on the rise and economic uncertainty continuing to plague the world, it makes sense to keep a lid on living expenses. Getting serious about the cost of how you use energy (electricity) in the home can make real savings. Our biggest expenses are food, house and car but our normal "bills" are a constant drain on our income. If you can get control of your expenses, you can actually save quite a bit of money. There really are a number of ways you can significantly reduce living expenses without cutting your quality of life.

Being self-sufficient in power usage by generating all you need sounds great, but in reality is an impossible dream for most. Solar panels, solar hot water equipment, geothermal or ground-source heating and cooling, wind turbines and so on are all solutions that over time reduce your energy costs. However, setting up independent solar power for a typical older home require tens of thousands of dollars of investment. If you live in a remote area, it can be a part of your chosen lifestyle. Usually, the option of choice is to "dip the toe" so that you can still reduce your environmental impact and make cost savings on your power bill and eco-impact. Here are a few ways you can make a difference.

Start by Getting Efficient
Start by figuring out where all your energy use goes, in your house.
There are gadgets that can measure either the power used by each appliance or the power used by your house. There's a gadget called Kill-A-Watt for about $20 that will read out the power use of the appliance you plug into it. You may be shocked at what some appliances use and seriously think about what needs upgrading, or simply ditching. Alternatively there are power monitors that clip over and record the power second by second, this allows you to check peak use times and appliances and maybe reschedule your habits.

Look for "fossil free" Heating Options
In many places, fossil free utilities are not easy to access yet. When you use, grid electricity, grid or bottled gas, wood and heating oil or propane, all can have a "fossil fuel" footprint. There are commercial "off the shelf" and DIY options for power and or heating. Build a passive solar water heater to heat your home, or research passive solar heat storage and exchange systems and you're well on your way to cutting back on the fossil fuels you need to use in your home. Passive solar can be a simple and cost effective solution.

Take Baby steps to Self Generated Power
Going off-grid in most normal home is as we have seen an expensive option. In some cases there is a good argument for communal rather than individual energy solutions with regard to eco-impact.
But that doesn't mean that with small scale projects for home produced electricity, you cannot make a difference. With a small project of under $200 will get you started with solar power; for a little more, you can effectively take one room in your house off-grid. For about $500, you can look at running a number of smaller home appliances around the house that once used to just add to your bill. Once installed, that upfront cost is good for about 20 odd years of free electricity. If you are in a remote location, smaller DIY solar projects are often the best solution to supply some or all of your power requirements on a small farm or back woods home.