For some people, camping is a way to get back to nature while for others it means bringing out the big toys and having some fun. For the people who bring out the big motor home equipped with satellite television, cook tops, refrigerators and other neat gadgets, camping can leave a negative impact on the environment. For the people who wish to camp and do so while leaving the smallest ecological footprint possible, there are some clever tricks to keeping your camping green and safe.

LED Flashlights and Lanterns
LED lights are the most energy efficient light source currently available for flashlights and lanterns. They produce a brighter sustained light while still using less battery power than a traditional flashlight. In fact quality LED flashlight can provide over 600 hours of light from one set of regular AA or AAA batteries. The combination of battery savings and bulb efficiency results in up to 90% less energy consumption than any other flashlight. LED lanterns use the same bulb technology making them a good idea for having around the campsite as well.

Wind-up LED flashlights are an even more environmentally-conscious light source. These are fairly easy to use. All you have to do is wind them up to create power creating friction and turn it on. These lights dont put out as strong of a light as a regular LED but they are an excellent option for short hiking excursions.

Cookware
Dont use styrofoam cups while camping, no matter how convenient they may seem. The same goes for paper plates and disposable plastic forks. Instead, camp with reusable dishes and utensils and wash them after each use. This will drastically decrease the amount of trash you burn (bad for the enviro-gases pollute the air) or throw away (plastics dont biodegrade quickly, overfilling our landfills).

Recycle
Think about what you do at home to be ecologically friendly and institute it on your camping trip. Keep paper bags or bins around for recycling. You can then easily take this stuff back with you and recycle it appropriately when you get home. Also, consider composting your trash in a bucket if you can.

Go Low -Tech
A tent and sleeping bag is far more environmentally friendly than a motor home or camper trailer. Motor homes require large amounts of fuel and energy to keep in operation every day. With the cost of energy and fuel where it is right now, your camping trip could cost you a lot less if you consider more green camping alternatives.

You can enjoy a true outdoor camping excursion more if you do it electricity free. Leave the games, portable TVs, and computers at home. Pack a cell phone or PDA in case of emergencies but turn it off or just plain leave it alone. Every little bit helps when it comes to reducing how much energy we consumer every year.

Cookstoves
Unless youre allergic to smoke or have strong asthma symptoms, the campfire is still the most ecologically friendly way to cook food. Fueled grills require propane or electricity to operate. Campfire requires wood that can be easily picked-up off the forest floor and a light source. It may not be practical to cook everything you want on a fire but you can use it for some things to help reduce the amount of time you cook on a fueled cook stove.

Going on a green camping trip can actually be one of the more fun vacations you take this summer. Look into ways you can help make less of an impact on the environment the next time you venture out into your home states mountain country or forested parks.

~Ben Anton, 2008

Household items, whether they are appliances, cleaning supplies, or groceries, make up a significant portion of the average persons expenses. Not only can the purchase of these items cost a bundle, but often using these items can be expensive as well. One way to cut down on the costs of running a household is to purchase appliances that can save money while using them.

Buy Do It Yourself Appliances

Avoid paying extra for services, such as getting meat and cheeses sliced at the deli, by purchasing an electric food slicer. Three pounds of sliced roast beef costs $23.97 if purchased at the deli. The same amount of roast beef can be purchased in the meat section for $ 13.21, baked, and sliced at home. The electric food slicer not only can save hundreds of dollars in deli meats and cheeses, it also allows anyone to slice their own bread, vegetables, and fruits. A bag of sliced carrots for can be purchased for $ 1.99 or pound of whole, fresh carrots can be purchased for $ .79 and sliced at home. The prices for an electric food slicer can range between $34 and $470, but luckily, the inexpensive ones work just fine and are often smaller, taking up less counter-top space. The larger, more expensive, machines are only necessary for a person who does catering from home. No matter which electric food slicer is chosen, the savings generated by owning one will make up for the purchase cost in no time.

Avoid Products Requiring Refills

The dust buster is back! While products like the Swiffer are all the rage right now, the extra products that need to be purchased in order to use it can really break the bank. There is a different cloth for dry surfaces, wet surfaces, and dusting. A brand new Swiffer would need to be purchased if carpet needed to be cleaned, along with all of its accessories. Unlike the Swiffer, the classic dust buster is a one-time buy that can take care of messes on both carpet and hard floors. For $24.95, the dust buster takes away the need to buy replacement wet cloths, dry cloths, duster cloths, or another appliance to clean the carpet. And as for that stain on the kitchen floor? A paper towel or a sponge will work just fine.

Its All About the Energy

And of course, appliances that use less energy cost less money to run. One way to find energy efficient appliances is to look for the Energy Star Label. This label, which can be seen at http://www.energystar.gov, appears on appliances that meet strict energy efficiency criteria determined by the US Department of Energy and the US Environmental Protection Agency. The Energy Star label can help you find almost any appliance with the exception of water heaters, stoves, and ovens. People that choose to use energy efficient appliances see significant drops in their utilities bills.

Home Improving with Solar The Important Concept of Gain

Youve decided to pursue a solar home improvement, but arent so keen on the idea of putting panels on your roof. No worries, you just need to understand the concept of gain.

I Gotta Gain Some Heat

Ill cut to the chase gain refers to how you generate heat for your home without solar panels. You can think of it as gaining heat by manipulating the power of the sun. There are three categories of gain: direct gain, indirect gain and isolated gain. So much for the mumbo jumbo, what are we really talking about here?

Direct gain refers to improving your house in a manner that allows the sun to[drum roll]directly provide power in the form of heat to your home. For instance, if you install large windows in the south facing side of your home and put down heat storing flooring such as masonry, you are pursuing direct gain. The sun will directly heat the home through the windows during the day and will also heat up the flooring. As the sun goes down, the flooring will continue to radiate heat. The advantage of direct gain is it is fairly easy to implement. The disadvantage is it only works during the day and for a few hours afterwards if youve put in a heat storing flooring material.

Indirect gain is a bit more complicated. It refers to the idea of using a structure between the exterior and interior of the house to store heat produced by exposure to sunlight. The basic idea is to get more heat production for a longer period of time. Indirect gain is typically accomplished by building a thermal wall out of masonry, known as a Trombe Wall, as the south facing wall of your home or a part of it. The wall is built out of a material that absorbs heat such as concrete or brick and then has glass placed over it. Put another way, the south wall is a window with a brick wall behind it. The wall materials suck up the power of the sun and store heat. This heat is then radiated when you need it by opening vents in the wall. The advantage of indirect gain is you get longer, more controlled heating. The disadvantage is you have the worlds weirdest looking window on the south side of your home.

Isolated gain is a simple concept. Have you ever used a greenhouse to grow flowers or tomatoes orwell, something? Isolated gain works just like a greenhouse, except you are providing heat to yourself instead of plants. Essentially, you build a self-contained glass structure on the south side of your home which is also well insulated. The structure heats up in the sun during the day to very high temperatures. When you need heat, you just turn on a fan, which moves it into the house through venting youve installed.

The beauty of any of these systems is they are fairly simple concepts to understand. If solar panels dont appeal to you, just go for some gain.

Solar panel systems have always been criticized as bulky and unattractive. New solar technology is beginning to make such criticisms a thing of the past.

Solar Advancement

While everyone agrees solar energy is a clean, cost-effective energy source, there has always been one problem. The solar panel systems tended to be large and rather bulky. Frankly, they dont add to the beauty of a home. While solar panel designs have improved over the years, a new development involving shingles is getting a lot of attention.

Photovoltaic shingles are a major design breakthrough for those who have a distaste for large solar panel systems. These shingles are, well, shingles. The replace the shingles on a roof, but have the physical appearance of a regular roof. Although they are black, they do not standout from the roof in the manner of panels. Instead, the they simply look like a regular roof and many people cannot tell the difference. Obviously, this seamless design is much better than the bulky designs of panel systems.

The technological breakthrough that makes this new technology possible is the invention of thin film photovoltaic cells. Known as amorphous silicon thin alloy technology, the designers essentially stepped back from traditional solar panel designs and did some thinking. What they realized is the materials used in panels were not the only ones that could be used. Without getting overly technical, the design team came up with a solution where more efficient cells could be built on a steel substrate. Each super thin cell was tailored to capture different spectrums of the sunlight. When layered on top of each other, they became extremely efficient at producing power.

The ultimate result is a system that can sit directly on the roof of a home or building, is more efficient than regular solar panels and far more appealing from a visual perspective. If youre excuse for not using solar in the past was the bulky system, you need to rethink solar.

Will this new technology become the breakthrough we have been waiting for in solar power? It already is if you consider just the following:

1. The United States Army is building a solar powered community using it.

2. Museums in Beijing, China are converting to it.

3. Habitat for Humanity is using the system on many of the homes it builds.

4. Lockheed Martin is experimenting with the technology as a power source for high altitude flights.

In the opinion of many experts, this new technology represent a major breakthrough in solar energy. With energy prices exploding, solar represents the best solution to decreasing our dependence on limited oil and natural gas resources. Fortunately, the sun will be providing free power for the foreseeable future.

With rising energy costs and massive stress on our electrical grids, solar is gaining in popularity. Not everyone realizes you can heat your home without buying big panel systems.

Heating Your Home With Solar, But Without Panels Gain

You can use solar energy to heat your home through a concept known as gain. While you may associate panel systems with any mention of solar power, they are not a component of this approach. Of course, this makes the installation a heck of a lot cheap than going with traditional panel systems.

Solar gain is a concept that has been with us for much of the history of mankind. Earlier civilizations obviously didnt have electricity. To keep structures warmed, they learned to use the heat produced by sunlight. It is fairly humorous when archeologists marvel at the fact ancient structures are always oriented to the sun. If they new anything about solar gain, they would realize the structures were being used to produce thermal heating through masonry, openings and so on. Regardless, these early civilizations were the first to develop and implement solar gain heating.

The simplest way to explain solar gain is with a practical example. Assume it is summer time and your car is parked in the driveway with the windows rolled up. What happens when you open the door to get in? A massive blast of heat comes out. If you have black seats like I do, you also hop around like a fool when you sit down on the black surface. Your car is hot because it has acted as a platform for solar gain. The sun came in the windows, heated up surfaces in the car and raised the temperature. Since most vehicles are poorly ventilated, the heat reached unbearable levels because it couldnt escape quickly enough. This is solar gain in a nutshell, a methodology that can be applied to your home.

With solar gain heating, the idea is to maximize sun penetration into the home, covert the sunlight into heat, and circulate it through the home. To accomplish this, one typically puts windows on the south side of the home to capture as much sunlight as possible. Thermal storage materials, such as masonry, are placed below the windows to capture and store heat for after the sun goes down. The heat from the sun is circulated throughout the house throughout the day and evening until the stored amount is exhausted. Yes, it works in winter.

Solar gain is an ancient and highly effective method for heating your home. If it sounds interesting to you, visit a solar site to find out the specifics.