We purchased our Watts Zero Waste Reverse Osmosis system in 2008. It has been running fine until recently when the pump started leaking. I did a search on the internet and found that most people just replace the pump. I felt it was a waste to replace a perfectly functioning pump when it is a… Read More…
Category Archives: Think Green
Going Green part 4: Saving Water
I wrote about saving water a while ago and it’s now up for a review. Now the City of Minneapolis has online billing and historical usage data available. Anyone can go to their website and plug in an address and look up the water usage. They measure water usage in Units of water, where 1… Read More…
Going Green Part 3: Saving Electricity
There are some easy ways to save electricity and some not so easy ways. Let’s start with the easy ways first. The easiest (and cheapest) way to save electricity is to unplug everything that you are not using at that moment. Many devices stay in “stand by” mode ready to be turned on (kind of like… Read More…
Going Green Part 2: Saving natural gas
Here is part 2 of the basics of saving energy: Saving Natural Gas. Here in Minnesota, we use natural gas for heating our homes, as well as hot water. What are some tips to reduce our natural gas usage? The obvious is to turn down the heat. Everyone always says to turn down the heat… Read More…
Going Green Part 1: Energy Audit
What is a home energy audit? An energy audit is a way of evaluating a home’s energy performance. It pinpoints where energy is being used, and where it is being wasted. This report can help you increase your energy efficiencies by showing where you can improve your home, and how you can lower your utility… Read More…
MPG round 2
I posted about MPG a while ago and thought I would do an update now. This is now more relavent than ever since gas is over $3.50 per gallon. I know people talk about hybrids a lot nowadays. But is it really worth the extra dollars to buy a hybrid over a non-hybrid? I’m going… Read More…
Green Designation
I have officially gone green! NAR’s Green Designation, to be exact. What is NAR’s Green Designation you ask? The National Association of Realtors (NAR) created this real-estate specific designation for REALTORS to learn about issues of sustainability and energy efficiency and how they pertain to the housing and real estate industries. The training is a… Read More…
Green Business Conference
The Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce is presenting the Greening Your Business Conference that is coming up in April. This years conference will include two free energy workshops, breakout sessions, and a Leadership in Sustainability Awards ceremony. It also includes an exhibit hall for businesses to share their green products and services. This year, Mayor… Read More…
Solar Monitoring site
Our solar system has been running about a month now. It is comprised of 11 PV panels, each with its own inverter. These inverters are made by Enphase Energy and have monitoring capability built-in. To monitor production, Enphase has a data gathering box called the Envoy. The Envoy goes out on the powerline network and… Read More…
Solar Report
We’ve been up and running for about a week now. Our solar system has a monitoring system so that we can see how much each panel is producing. It will be tracked on the web, but for now, I have manual access. Looking at the data, there is one panel / inverter missing. Either the… Read More…