Eco Homes 101

Texan~to_the-Max asked:


The dirty little secret that the Green Crowd does not want to let you know is that Compact Florescent Bulbs USE MORE ENERGY then the incandescent bulbs they are replacing and the have MERCURY to boot.

I want to save energy for the very reason that I want to save money. Long ago I replaced my incandescent old style bulbs with the new energy saving Compact Florescent Light Bulbs ( CFL ). The day I got myself a wattage meter that allows you to plug in different electrical devices and see how much energy they really use I got the shock of my life literally. I checked every CFL bulb in my house in multiple lamps and outlets the outcome was always the same. Incandescent bulbs say 100 they mean 100 and if they say 60 they mean 60, but the Compact Florescent Light Bulb DID NOT -

The CFL which advertise 24 watts was using 105 watts.
The CFL which advertised 13 watts was using 50+ watts
The CFL which advertised 14 watts was using 78 watts
What’s more is that a burned out CFL keeps using energy trying to turn itself on.

I wondered how could this be - WELL the facts are that the wattage use of the CFL bulbs are rated in DC power yet our homes use AC power thus there is a small AC/DC converter in the Compact Florescent Light Bulbs. These AC/DC converters always lose energy in the process of converting energy BUT the push to put these bulbs into every home has meant the need to have LOW COST CFLs and the cost cutting means cheaper even less efficient AC/DC converters.

THE TRUE AC WATTAGE OF THESE BULBS IS SEVERAL TIMES THE DC WATTAGE GIVEN PLUS THEY HAVE MERCURY.

Questions:

Are you shocked and surprised as I was?
Are you in denial like the folks I found in the light bulb aisle as I bought incandescent bulbs to replace the mercury filled CFLs?
Are the “green” people so obsessed with their ECO life style that they push deadly chemical filled energy hogs without thinking about the true consequences?
Has this all been a big conspiracy by the manufactures of CFLs and the Green people the unwitting accessories in this crime?
Finally - What are they going to do with the MERCURY filled CFLs now???
TO MAKE MYSELF CLEAR - these are my finding with my wattage meter which I have verified is working properly. The CFLs in my home are the cheap variety found at Wal-mart and Home Depot and are 6 months to 2 years old for the most part although a few are 4 or 5 years, but many of these cheaper one’s are burning out.

My assertion is this:

1) They use more watts then advertised
2) They use energy even when burned out
3) They have MERCURY

Are they really better if the cheap stuff sold to us as energy savers are energy hogs and mini chemical bombs?
I also wanted to add that I found a dimmer switch cable ( you plug it into the wall then plug your lamp into it and you can dim it from several feet away) was using 250 watts. So check those too if you have them.

SHAKIR

rajah dat asked:


I’m a junior in high school and I know that I will probably end this quarter in tears if I don’t find out how to fix my work ethic and my lack of energy. I’m always sleepy and lethargic, so I get not too much done but for some reason, I have more activities than I did last year.
This year I am in the national honors society, an officer at my school’s eco-club, a regular band student, and I’ll be in Key club, winter guard (flags) and judo as well. I have 3 AP classes and one math class that I know I have to pay a bit more attention in than usual to get a good grade.
My school is pretty laid back, so it’s not too difficult to be at the top of the class. So I’m the top of my class in every class (even though this question may not be the best example)…but I feel with these extra activities, I may lose being the top. I can’t lose that because I’ve lost friends because of this and if I fall, it would be humiliating. But this is a challenge that I hope I can overcome.
For key club, I I need to do service projects every month, must particpate in madatory funraisers, commmunity and school service projects every month, must weed the peace garden twice a month.
For Judo, I have practice from 3-7:30-very difficult for me, I’m usually one of the weaker links but I won’t let that stop me from trying to get better.
For eco-club, we have a meeting everymonday, eco-card making tuesdays and a project every month
national honors society, I need to tutor 4 hours every school week.
band-I need to practice at least half an hour a day and i have sectionals at least once a week
ap classes, I need to study everyday!!
-homework-I need time to do it!!
We have a band Japan trip coming up in 2011, and I need to fundraise for that too!
I’m new to winter guard so I need to practice on my own, and I have two 3 hour practices a a week.
i also have chores at home- the laundry, the dishes, the trash and my room

Please, don’t tell me to lighten my load but if you do have a much heavier load than me or about the same and you make it work. Please tell me how you do it!! Oh and how do you keep up the energy! I’m dying! But I just won’t quit!!! Please, any advice you think might be a bit helpful, let me know! Thank you to those who read all this and decided to take more time to answer. =)

i always would take a nap after school, but now, I won’t have time!!!

QUANDA

Jackson asked:


Our Eco-Club at school needs ideas for a “Green Christmas”. What are some things we can do to make the holiday season at our school more eco-friendly, or how can we influence people to make ecologically-sensitive decisions at home during the holiday season?

PATCH

Elle asked:


MSI WindTop AIO 19″ All In One System - AE1900-09SUS
Leading the Trend with Touch Screen
Touch-optimized Application to Renew Your Experiences on Photo Browsing and Data Entry
Webcam-optimized Motion capture Fun Games
Ready for Instant Messaging and Video Call
16:9 Wide Screen and SRS Premium Sound to Get You in Home Theater
Trendy and Glassy Design
Eco-Friendly Features
Intel 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor on board
Windows XP Home
160GB SATA Hard Disk Drive, RPM5400
1GB DDRII 533MHz SDRAM on board

Dell Inspiron 537 Desktop PC:
Intel Celeron 450 processor
2.2GHz speed, an 800MHz frontside bus, and 512KB L2 cache
4GB of dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM system memory at 800MHz can handle today’s demanding applications
640GB hard drive Stores up to 181,000 photos, or up to158,000 songs, or up to 76 hours of HD video
DVD read/write optical drive
Burns CDs and DVDs in multi-formats while it plays movies and music
10/100 Wired Ethernet and 56K PCI data/fax modem
Lets you connect to a broadband modem using the Ethernet port or connect to dial-up service using the built-in 56K modem
17″ diagonal widescreen flat panel display
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD integrated graphics

HP Pavilion MS214 all in one Desktop PC
AMD Athlon X2 3250e dual-core processor offers 1.5GHz speed, a 2000MHz System Bus, and 1MB L2 cache
2GB of PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM system memory is enough memory to handle demanding applications
320GB SATA hard drive, rated at 7200 rpm, stores up to 90,000 photos, or up to 79,000 songs, or up to 38 hours of HD video, and more
LightScribe SuperMulti DVD optical drive plays and creates CDs and DVDs
LightScribe can create custom labels and etch them onto LightScribe-enabled discs
Connects to a broadband modem using the 10/100/1000 Ethernet port
Connects to your wireless network with the built-in 802.11b/g WLAN
18.5″ diagonal widescreen HD LCD
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics with 256MB graphics memory. Up to 895MB Total Available Graphics Memory as allocated by Windows 7
10.1

Additional Features
Front-panel 15-in-1 memory card reader
USB 2.0 (7), eSATA (2), headphone and microphone ports, IEEE 1394, LAN, Digital Audio out, microphone/line-in/line-out
Built-in Webcam with microphone array
HD audio with 2.0 sound capabilities; high-performance 2.0 speakers

Software
Genuine Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Microsoft Works 9
Cyberlink DVD Suite Deluxe
HP MediaSmart Software Suite
HP Total Care Advisor 3.2
HP Easy Backup
Norton Internet Security 2009 (60 days of complimentary live updates)

PAOLO

Cheveldi asked:


If you had an open roof system that had the roof mounted above the “ceiling” would the much better attic air flow make the home cooler?

Like this home in Spain.

http://www.d-earle.com/residential-architecture/eco-house-spain.php

THEMA

SOUTHERN GUNNER asked:


Man-made Causes of Global Warming
Man-made causes probably do the most damage to our planet. There are many man-made causes of global warming. Pollution is one of the biggest man-made problems. Pollution comes in many shapes and sizes. Burning fossil fuels is one thing that causes pollution. Fossil fuels are fuels made of organic matter such as coal, or oil. When fossil fuels are burned they give off a green house gas called CO2. Also, mining coal and oil allows methane to escape. How does it escape? Methane is naturally in the ground. When coal or oil is mined you have to dig up the earth a little bit. When you dig up the fossil fuels you dig up the methane as well letting it escape into the atmosphere.

Another major man-made cause of Global Warming is population. More people means more food, and more methods of transportation. That means more methane because there will be more burning of fossil fuels (if you’re into gas burning cars like our planet is), and more agriculture. If you’ve been in a barn filled with animals and you smelled something terrible, you were smelling methane. Another source of methane is manure. Because more food is needed to feed the population we have to raise food. Animals like cows are a source of food which means more manure and hence more methane. Another problem with the increasing population is transportation. More people means more cars, and more cars means more pollution. Also, many people have more than one car. There are definitely ways of raising animals and farming that use no manure and no methane. Once we realized the problem we should have stopped immediately using manure. Instead we choose to continue killing the planet. We are a very stubborn race.

Since CO2 contributes to global warming, the increase in population makes the problem worse because we breathe out CO2. Also, the trees that convert our CO2 to oxygen are being cut down because we’re using the land that we cut the trees down from as property for our homes and buildings. We are not replacing the trees (trees are a very important part of our eco-system), so we are constantly taking advantage of our natural resources and giving nothing back in return.

TAUJA

Dan P asked:


Here are the specs:

15.6-Inch Notebook (AMD Sempron Si-42 2.1GHz, 2GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, DVDSMDL, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64 Bit)
DVD Supermulti Drive
Eco Button - save power at the touch of a button

Heres the pic: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XWEUw2c9L._SS400_.jpg

Price:£329.00
On amazon.co.uk

Is it good for some gaming, like active worlds, runescape full screen HD and Habbo Hotel?
Activeworlds and runescape require a more powerful pc/laptop than habbo hotel.
I use it for gaming regularly and I have a tight budget. The max I’d spend on one is £330 so that fits nicely into it.

Also whats the difference between 2ghz and 2.1ghz?
And it has webcam built in, does tht mean it’s got a mic built in too?
I don’t worry about the operation system (it has win 7)

Thankyou.

PHEMIA

Lord Sesshomaru ✿殺生殿✿ asked:


READ THE ARTICLE (Source: Yahoo’s Home Page) AS IT IS BOTH INFORMATIVE & AMUSING.

Polluting pets: the devastating impact of man’s best friend

PARIS (AFP) – Man’s best friend could be one of the environment’s worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

But the revelation in the book “Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living” by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

Combine the land required to generate its food and a “medium” sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) — around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4×4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.

To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.

“Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat,” Barrett said.

Other animals aren’t much better for the environment, the Vales say.

Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.

But Reha Huttin, president of France’s 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says the human impact of eliminating pets would be equally devastating.

“Pets are anti-depressants, they help us cope with stress, they are good for the elderly,” Huttin told AFP.

“Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don’t eat meat, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?”

Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs — the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars — says defiantly, “Our animals give us so much that I don’t feel like a polluter at all.

“I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.

“I don’t want a life without animals,” she told AFP.

And pets’ environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.

With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.

Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faeces cause high bacterial levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.

And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo — owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.

But despite the apocalyptic visions of domesticated animals’ environmental impact, solutions exist, including reducing pets’ protein-rich meat intake.

“If pussy is scoffing ‘Fancy Feast’ — or some other food made from choice cuts of meat — then the relative impact is likely to be high,” said Robert Vale.

“If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower.”

Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areas and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals’ blood.

As with buying a car, humans are also encouraged to take the environmental impact of their future possession/companion into account.

But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.

“Rabbits are good, provided you eat them,” said Robert Vale.

KIHO

David asked:


These are the pregnant ladies who do the following:

1) Have already designed the home school curriculum for their unborn
2) Have a “home birth”… and let their other children be present in the room while it happens. And has invited you to watch that movie with Ricki Lake with a group of other pregnant women.
3) Preach to everyone about the evils of vaccinations and how you cannot trust the scientists who make them.
4) Preach to everyone about eco-friendly baby products and cloth diapers because you MUST trust these other scientists who support global warming.
5) Generally every single aspect of pregnancy you choose to discuss, she has a “book” to recite to you about how you are doing it wrong and she is the only one who can educate you on how to do it right.
6) Carry around a copy of the appropriate breast feeding laws in your state so if someone in a restaurant or assembly is moderately uncomfortable having some woman they don’t know whipping out their tit, she can show them the card ensuring her continued breast feeding rights while never understanding one little bit that you are just a little uncomfortable.
7) Come to think of it, she has absolutely no idea that anyone besides herself has any feelings, thoughts, important comments or ideas about anything, period.

Don’t lie and say you have not met this woman!
My point about vaccinations and global warming follows: For some reason these type of people will fight to the death to make vaccination scientists look like fools and that you must fight against this vast conspiracy to poison our children.

BUT, the scientists who support eco-friendliness are 100% honest, truthful, no hidden motives, and should be trusted completely without hesitation.

I just don’t understand how they can support such silly logic.

LUPITA

Cool MD asked:


My laptop is “Sony vaio VGN-FW170J and its processors are
(Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor (2.26GHz), 3MB L2 cache
Genuine Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1
16.4″ widescreen LCD with XBRITE-ECO technology
4GB of pre-installed RAM & a roomy 320GB Serial ATA hard drive
Blu-ray optical drive.)..
…………So tell me can i play GTA 4 on my laptop with this processor?

YAKSH or YAKCHH