Fun (to me) ways to save money at home….
With everything mentioned below, when ever electricity is needed, a simple solar cell could be used, and in fact, used for multiple things since not all of them will be running simultaneously. Harbor Freight has 12v-5w cells for $50 and these can run a fan and/or water pump and still have power to spare.
- Rain Barrel;
Flower beds and gardens need watering and water costs money. How can you get "free" water for the garden? Easy, Nature gives it away every time it rains, whether it just sprinkles or pours down like cats and dogs 55 gallon drums fill quickly and that is far more water than you could use for a garden. Plastic 35-55 gallon drums can be had for free from some places, you will have to do the searching to find them, and others sell them for up to $15.00 each. One rain storm can fill a 55 gallon drum in just a few minutes and you probably will not use that much to water the garden in one day, maybe two or three or four days but not one day, which would give time for mother nature to refill the drum again. Add to this, Some of you may only have a few house hold plants to water so you could go with a smaller container. Down side is the initial costs which will be between $free and as much as you want to put into it. Nah sayers would tell you leaves and other junk from the roof will fall in. Filtering with a simple window insect screen is a start in eliminating that. Then for the smaller things, a piece of cloth is plenty good, and if you want more filtering, it would be easy to design and build one. Disclaimer; Rain water barrels do not make for good drinking water, nor would I consider it for showers or dish water. Though, to fill water heaters as mentioned below would be a good idea. Do an internet search on "rain barrol", and do one on Youtube for other idea's! - Compost;
I know nearly nothing about this so best I can say is consult the god we call Google. I will say with the little searching I did, composts can net you some methane, enough to have a constant burning tiki-torch. And there was mention of other possibilities but my interest was not there long enough to know more. - Hot water;
If you have ever felt the water coming out of a garden hose after it has sat in the sun all day you know how hot that water can be. And since that rubber or plastic hose does not give up heat to the water as easily as metal you can imagine how much hotter that water can become. With as much as $500.00 you can pay for the system in just a couple years and can add quite a bit to the selling price of the house! Talking to the Google god will net you with all the instructions you need and I recommend it simply because of the money saved from this project and because there are many types of heater systems. The one I like is a shadow box with a glass window the size of one side. The shadow box painted black inside will not only heat up quick it will also hold the heat to keep the water hot longer. Using copper tubing zigzagging back and forth to cover the majority of the surface area will insure nearly the best heat transfer to the water and all of this set in the sunlight. One or more heavily insulated tanks to hold the hot water and a copper pipe coiled inside connected to the heater outside. And finally, another copper tubing coil inside the tank(s) for the cold water from the city to be (pre)-heated for the conventional water heater. Here is how the system works; The shadow box heats up and will not only insulate the tubing from the cold outside but will help keep the water inside hotter longer by conduction. The water inside the tubing is a water and antifreeze solution so to keep from freezing on the cold winter nights. The coild in the tanks from the heater will heat up the water (possibly water and antifreeze solution) by conduction. The water in the heater is moved via 12v electric pump powered by the solar cell which is also connected to a thermostat that wont turn the pump on unless the Sun is shinning -and- the water temperature is hot enough to make a difference. The second coil of cold city water is heated by the hot water in the tank(s) and then sent to the conventional heater. This way, under perfect conditions, you can have a family of four using hot water for showers, cloths washing, and dish washing many times without having the conventional heater turn on once before the tank water gets too cold to be useful. Even then, since the conventional heater is still hooked up, if the tank(s) get cold, the conventional heater can still give you hot water. As an aside, if you built a rain barrel like mentioned above, you can use that water to fill the tank(s) and heater. You would just have to buy the antifreeze. - Air heater;
This can pay for it self in less than one season to a maximum of two seasons. And still improve the selling price of the house. This uses the same principle as the water heater where you have a shadow box painted black to absorb the heat and a window glass to hold the heat in. A hole in the bottom to draw in air and a hole in the top to expel the heated air. There are many design possibilities so I will only discuss one of the simplest to describe. Build an eight by four foot by 4 inch shadow box on the side of your house. Drill a four inch hole through the house on the inside-bottom and inside-top. Paint the innerds of the box black and place a eight by four foot window glass in front of the box. The lower hole will draw in the cooler air near the floor, the black area will heat up the air in sunlight and rise creating the suction for the cooler air and pushing the hot air out the top hole. Place a flap of plastic over the top hole to allow the hot air to flow inside the house but will close the hole when the sun goes down for the evening. This size of solar air heater will heat up comfortably a 320 square foot room (heater surface square footage times 10 = square footage room to be heated is the very basic rule of thumb). Ad an electric fan hooked up to a solar cell and a thermostat and the fan will only run when the sun is out and the temperature inside the box is high.