From Guest Blogger Heather: Renewable Home Energy Tips For Your New Home
There are quite a few options after moving to utilize possible renewable energy sources around your home, such as wind turbines, solar panels and more. In most cases using solar panels is the popular choice for heat, lighting and electrical power.
If you have enough land with strong and steady winds you will be able to generate a good amount of electricity using a wind electric system. All it takes is a wind turbine to charge things up. There are other options of course, such as geothermal energy or even a ground-source heat pump. This will help you heat up and cool your home down. It saves energy even if its not a renewable energy source due to using the earth’s surface
You can go far beyond that by simply buying your energy from renewable sources, like power plants using the wind, sun, geothermal and other sources if your area has them. You should check with the local utilities about possible solutions if you can.
For small touches, you can install some pathway lights with solar power as a start to the renewable energy overhaul of your home. These will save you a good deal of electricity as well as making them independent from the local power grid and you having to turn them on as soon as its dark.
You can also make use of solar power to heat up water. Whether its a hot tub or a pool, you can use that heat to lower your electric bill. The same goes for a container of water made of metal or other materials that heats up in the sun, allowing you to use the rays to warm the water up during hot days. The operating costs of combinations like these will be very low, allowing you the best possible solutions by harnessing the sun’s energy.
On the other hand, installing smaller wind turbines in the range of up to 20 kilowatts will give your home a steady amount of electrical power, while using micro turbines of up to 500 Watts may serve to power up the batteries of your vehicles when you need them to.
Long-term saving solutions include larger and more useful solar panels. You can easily install them on your roof or on the ground around your home. You will need to make sure you do so at a side which receives the most natural sunlight at all times. There are even updated and new systems you can install that seamlessly integrate themselves in the roof of your home, making them less visible and very useful.
After a move you may also consider what type of system will go best with your new home, such as the stand-alone or grid-connected one as well as the safety of its installation. Make sure you work with a solar contractor to ensure things are handled right. Make sure things are installed right and that surrounding plants have been trimmed to let the sun in.
A Guest Post from: Fulham Home Removal Services
As a person who has both a personal and business interest in “Going Green” and believer in renewable energies let’s be realistic about the negatives that go with solar, wind and some other types of what are called clean energy sources. I see more and more hype on solar yet is the public really aware of the millions of pounds of hazardous waste generated in the making of solar panels? There are tons of pollutants generated in trucking all this waste to hazardous storage sites around the country. Wind power is limited in many ways also and only works best when the wind is blowing at a certain level. Without getting into detail wind generators have many negatives, few positives and are not even feasible in many places. What happens to solar and wind turbines when a tornado, hurricane or other violent forms of weather and acts of nature occur? They are destroyed. In my opinion more thought and use of in the ground geothermal (ground source geothermal) should be considered and used. Especially DX (direct exchange) geothermal using environmentally friendly R410a refrigerant instead of water based type geothermal which uses a glycol mixture in the water. DX geothermal has also been proven to be more efficient and user friendly for the residential sector and small business commercial use. While water based has it’s uses for larger commercial markets (which DX geothermal is not really feasible for) either one is mainly underground and protected from acts of nature, they are energy wise much more efficient than any fossil fuel or air to air type heating and/or cooling system and have the ability to produce domestic hot water very efficiently. As with any type of system there are a few negatives with geothermal also but much more practical for more applications and geothermal has a long usage lifespan with few repairs and maintenance. Let’s face it, all types of “Green Technology” is a plus over what the majority of the world is presently using but realistically there are negatives that go with most of them that the industries producing them do not want publicized. While more R & D is in need to improve all these technologies I sometimes wonder; Do the negatives sometimes outweigh the positives to be realized? Hopefully not!