This is the third book I received from Paladin Press to review. I appreciate the chance to read and review these books, I have enjoyed them immensely. This book is about survivalism on a budget. Being on a budget is a full time occupation for most of us.  With these uncertain times, it’s good to have backups, ways to get along if things go wrong. It’s ludicrous to think the government will step up and take care of us, your best bet is to be your own best advocate, take care of yourself and your family. With the knowledge gained from this book, even someone on the tightest of budgets should be able to implement many of the ideas in this book with little or no financial output.
>>Keep reading “Shoestring Survivalism – book review”

On the face of it large-scale solar farms are a get-out-of-jail-free card for a society hooked on ever increasing doses of energy. They apparently generate clean power from thin air. Visual pollution aside, they seem to have no negatives.

But the best sites for solar farms are the sunniest places. And the sunniest places tend to be the driest places. And therein lies a major headache for dozens of giant solar developments. It turns out that even a medium sized solar farm uses millions of gallons of water a year for cleaning and
>>Keep reading “Solar farms spark water wars”

Its childishly simple Dishwashers help the environment and your pocket book compared to washing dishes by hand. Researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany found that using a dishwasher cleaned the dishes better and saved energy, time and water.

Washing dishes by hand can cost a household more than $431 in additional energy and water bills over the estimated nine-year lifetime of an Energy-Star certified dishwasher. Energy Star dishwashers use less than half as much energy as washing dishes by hand and save nearly 5,000 gallons of water a year. They can also save you more than 230 hours of personal time over the course of a year.

According to Energy Star, hand rinsing your dishes before placing them in the dishwasher can waste up to 20 gallons of water per load.
>>Keep reading “Dishwashers make eco-sense”

All I drink is the air that I breathe A new generation of machines sucks the moisture from air to provide clean drinking water.  And they use relatively little energy to do so.

The summer of 2009 was the hottest ever recorded in parts of Texas and the accompanying drought has prompted authorities in many areas to order residents to reduce their water use. The average temperature of 88.6 degrees in August was almost 2 degrees hotter than the previous high in 1925, according to the National Weather Service.
>>Keep reading “All I need is the air that I drink”

Alive and wellHere is an update on what has been going on in our off grid life. I know I haven’t written in a while, I took a mini-break from blogging and writing, it was something I needed to do, but now I’m back. :)
>>Keep reading “Alive and well-updates”

Free water Off-Gridders across the state of Colorado have been waiting a while for this moment – its now legal to gather rainwater off your roof, as long as it is 3,000 square feet or smaller.

But before we all have a barrel of fun, take note: the only people allowed to capture rain are those whose residences are well-ready with a well permit. The mere fact that you have no access to water, are not connected to the water grid, is not enough.

There is still a hill of rules you have to climb for fetching a pail of water.
>>Keep reading “Roll out the rain barrel”

If you are lucky enough to have access to fast moving water on your land, you can use it to generate power.  And there are free plans available on the web for DIY water powered generators (see below).  But be careful only to go to recommended sites.  Bogus companies like Earth4Energy has affiliate deals sweeping the net, selling worthless e-books for $30-75.
>>Keep reading “Free water generator”

Global warming means droughts, and Americans have experienced plenty of those recently. Here is what you can do to prepare for a long hot summer:

Rain water harvesting is simply diverting the flow from downspouts to a barrel. Devices are available to divert water back to downspouts when the barrel is full.  You can collect 0.62 gallons (not 6 gallons as stated earlier – thanks Don for pointing it out)  of rainwater from one inch of rain on one sq ft of surface area. For example, Central Ohio averages 37 inches of rain yearly.  On 1,000 square feet of roof  that’s 22,200 gallons of water per year.

>>Keep reading “How to harvest rainwater”

Every home should have one I would like to share with you three water conserving ideas that, if practiced on a wide scale, would help ease some of the pressure on one of our most valuable renewable resources. I know that nothing is really new any more, but hopefully these will be of benefit to someone.

The first one I bring to you as a question: why do we not have urinals in our homes as we do in nearly all public places? There is no reason to use just as much water to flush
>>Keep reading “Conserving water . . . outside the box.”