Owner: Updates about our Eco-house building URL:http://www.ourecohouse.info/blog/ Join Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 10:27:11 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: We're building an ecological house and we monitor the progress online. If you want to improve your ecological living, just join the eco forum and share with us how you protect the environment Site statistics:Click here
I like the idea, can I help? 2007-06-03 08:16:22 We’ve received many positive reactions from our donors, forum members and visitors. We’re really happy that you like what we’re trying to achieve.
“I love your site and wish you good luck with it.” ~ Rasputin
Many people asked us if they can somehow help us, not by making a donation because they’re still at school or college or because it’s them who could use some spare cash. It doesn’t matter if you have millions or not, your help is warmly welcome.
“I will be happy to help as I am impressed with the idea.” ~ andy hamilton
Tell about us to your colleagues, friends and family. If more people know about what we’re doing, more people will start to think about their own ways of living and maybe they realize that living responsibly is important because it will be their children who will have to live in the world their parents left them.
If you want to, just copy any green text below and use it in your emails, on forums you&rsqu
We’ve launched a blog 2007-05-31 09:37:25 A lot of things is going on here on ourecohouse.info lately and a simple ‘Info’ page was not suitable anymore. So we’ve decided to launch a blog. It will be easier to navigate in it, easier to use large articles or pictures and you will be able to leave comments.
There probably will be some more adjustments on the blog design, so if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment on our eco forum
Thank you
A bit off topic but 2007-05-16 06:36:39 We’re engaged!
On our fifth anniversary we’ve told our parents. It was the time when they met for the first time. They were so surprised.
Read more:topic
We received a nice rating 2007-05-08 06:34:34 Google has given us a rating of 5 points out of 10 which is very nice rating. It will help us to attract more donors and to achieve our aim more quickly.
There is still a long journey ahead of us so let’s keep going and we’ll get there.
We’d like to thank to our donors and to our forum members who help us with protecting our environment.
Updated website design 2007-04-19 07:32:51 As you may have noticed we have updated our websitedesign
. Hopefully you will like it. We also added ‘Interesting threads’ on the home page so from now on you’ll have a quick access to them.
Tip: If your browser does not show our website properly. Try to click on refresh button and it should fix the problem.
We passed £1,000 milestone 2007-04-02 05:57:27 After 42 days on-line we have passed
£1,000 milestone
. We still have a long and exciting journey ahead of us and we’re really looking forward to it. Ecological living is an important topic and it’s our only way how we can provide safe and clean environment for our descendants. We are happy that we can help pass this message. We would like to thank to our donors who are helping us make a difference.
Green living doesn’t have to be only for the rich 2007-03-04 04:53:16 We’ve received a feedback that green living is only for the rich. It’s partly true but we can do something about that. Do you remember how much did cost to buy a first DVD player? Around £200.00? Or even more? Now you can buy one for £20.00, sometimes even cheaper. And why is that? Because if more people are buying it, they’re producing more of it and manufacturing is becoming cheaper. The same can happen if we start to buy solar panels, wind turbines, environment friendly products etc.
Until that time comes (I hope that it will be soon) it will cost a bit more but this is why we’re going to give 40 of you £10,000. Read more:Green
We just started 2007-02-19 04:51:37 Yesterday, we launched this website. Our aim is to show that modern living is possible without damaging our environment and we would like to give an opportunity to 40 of you to improve your ecological living. We are going to support you by giving you £10,000 ($19,000, €14,000).
We do not have this kind of money so we are going to raise them. Our donors have an opportunity to show own ads here. They will receive new visitors and customers and by supporting us they will also show that they do care about protecting our environment.
We believe that we will receive a lot of responses from people around the world and thanks to different cultures and opinions we will find the solutions to many environmental issues.
If we attract enough people we will also attract many politicians and then we could make improvements on much wider scale.
Thank you for visiting us and thank you for caring about our planet. Your children will thank you later.
No excuses for not having energy saving light bulbs 2007-06-06 10:04:13 Many people still use standard incandescent light
bulbs. A product which was introduced 120 years ago, converts only 5% of energy to light and lasts only 1000 hours.
Tip: Change all your light bulbs to energy saving ones.
No matter if you use CFLs or try LEDs, both will consume much less energy than incandescent light bulbs. Also note that incandescent light bulbs will be probably banned soon (at least in EU and Australia).
We also don’t want to hear excuses that you cannot afford buy them because they are expensive. Detailed calculation on our eco forum tells completely something different, just have a look.
Some might complain that CFLs contain mercury which is also harmful to the environment, that is true and you’ll need to recycle old CFLs properly. But mercury emitted from power plants during generating electricity to feed your incandescent light bulbs could be even higher as you can see from the diagram below.
There are various shapes of CFL light bulbs including can
Solar panels explained 2007-06-09 09:49:28 Basically there are two kinds of solar panels. Solar
collectors which heat the water and then there are photovoltaic solar panels which converts solar radiation directly to electricity. Both systems use completely different technology and they are related only because they’re using sun as a source of energy.
Solar collectors (or solar thermal panels) as mention above are used to heat water. Basically it’s a area where water flows on the flat plate or in tubes and solar radiation is used to heat up the water. There is a layer of insulation and often a black absorber plate to make sure that the most of radiation is used. When the water is heated then it’s stored in boiler for further use.
Solar collectors could supply you very large amount of your annual heating needs for a very interesting price.
Photovoltaic panels on the other hand converts solar radiation directly to electricity. The technology is more advanced and materials are more expensive.
A single crystalline
Buying a photovoltaic panel 2007-06-15 13:28:20 Alright, you’d like to buy a photovoltaic panel or even several of them to reduce your electricity bill and to lower pressure on the environment but where to start?
First, you should decide how powerful panel you need. Let’s say that you need to power 100W appliance. If you buy a 100W panel will it really deliver 100W? Actually, it’s a bit more complicated. Solar radiation varies from place to place, fluctuate under different weather conditions, etc.
It was necessary to create a standard how to label photovoltaic panels and it was agreed that their output will be measured under these conditions:
power density (amount of solar radiation) of 1000W per square meter
temperature of the module or the cell is 25 °C
How can you find out how much solar radiation your area receive? There are maps which will show the average annual solar radiation. Below is a map of Europe.
From the map you can easily find out the 100W panel will produce around 200W in the South of Spain but Read more:Buying
Wind turbines and birds 2007-06-24 05:17:30 Many people are afraid that wind turbines kill a huge number of birds. Opponents of wind power often use this argument to stop development of wind farms but is it really the true?
It is estimated that each year in the USA
57 million birds die in collisions with vehicles
1.25 million in collisions with tall structures (towers, stacks, buildings)
more than 97.5 million in collisions with plate glass
4 million to 10 million night-migrating songbirds in collisions with telecommunications towers
household cats in the U.S. are estimated to kill 100 million birds each year
In comparison each wind turbine kills 0 - 2 birds per year at worst.
Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) figures show that total installed wind energy capacity in 2006 was 74,223 MW
Let’s say that every wind turbine has a capacity of 100kW (usually they have more - even over 1500kW), it gives us around 742,230 wind turbines worldwide.
Let’s count with the worst scenario - 2 killed birds per turbine per year
Win
The exams are finally over 2007-10-20 11:10:51 We’re happy to announce that our exams
are finally over. It was a tough year (especially the second half). Now we can fully focus on our eco-house again
LED it be a shiny Christmas 2007-11-10 03:03:47 In the following days and weeks, many of us will take out the Christmas
lights from the last year and you might notice that the bulbs are broken and there are no spare bulbs to replace with. So, you decide to buy new ones. But before you do that, let’s spend a little time on thinking.
There are several options you have.
Option 1 - buying new lights with standard bulbs
Pros - cheaper to buy, warm light
Cons - high energy consumption (your electricity bill will be higher, more CO2, SO2, NOx, etc. emissions), risk of fire if near the fabric, you probably end up buying new lights next year because they brake more often (more rubbish in landfills)
Option 2 - buying LED lights
Pros - they consume only 10% of electricity and live 10 times longer compared to standard lights, no risk of fire if near fabrics or burns if accidentally touched
Cons - more expensive to buy (but they save on electricity), colder light
Option 3 - not buying new lights at all
You’ll save on the electr
Merry Christmas 2007-12-23 07:11:54 We’re wishing you a merry Christmas
and less pollution in the new year 2008.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1712157328
Petr and Vera
PS: Don’t forget to turn on your speakers Read more:Merry
, Merry Christmas
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