I have had a pretty good year with the solar business thus far. Therefore, I decided to roll some of this year’s profits into our own Photovoltaic (PV) system. This idea has been batted about before, including as a battery back up for the sump pumps, however, a few things have developed since then.
First of [...]
Homeowner’s Blog
Home improvement with an eye toward sustainability
Tag Archives: Environment
Installing our Photovoltaic Solar System, Part I
Degradable plastic bags
I was reading something this morning about how the City of Philadelphia is considering baning plastic bags completely. It seems that those thin plastic bags you get from the grocery store are public enemy number 1 when it comes to the battle over the protection of the environment. It is truly fascinating [...]
Smart outlet strip
I did some research a while back on the standby loads around Casa de Catskill. The findings are in the post titled “Kill-A-Watt meter results.“ The worst offender seemed to be the laptop charger and associated accessories. The TV and other equipment was the second worst offender.
Enter the Smart Outlet Strip. These [...]
Where does your electricity come from?
I posted about this once before. The US EPA has a web site called “How clean is the electricity I use,” complete with a place to fill in your zip code and find out.
We pay a lot for electric, it peaked at ¢17.8 per kWh last summer, now down to ¢12.5/kWh. As it turns out, [...]
Happy New Year, enjoy your renewable energy incentives
Let me be the first to proclaim “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” And good riddance to 2008!
Of course, not all of 2008 was doom and gloom. One of the bright spots is congress extended (to 2016) and improved the federal tax rebates for renewable energy systems. As of January 1st, the federal tax rebate is 30% of [...]
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