So what’s so energy efficient about my display?

• The lights flash on and off to the music. On average, less than 1/3 of my lights are on at a time (if I have everything on, it uses about 1.6 Kw of energy… when it’s running, it stays at about 550 watts)
• We only run the lights a few hours a night (3-4). Because of the speaker, I don’t want to disturb the neighbors too much. As I drive to the gym at 5:45 in the morning, I’m amazed at how many people just leave their lights on all night long.
• The spotlight on my sign is an LED spotlight. That baby uses 1.5 watts / hr; my average cost of electricity is $0.15 / Kwh, so running it for an hour costs me $0.000225. Or, I can run it for nearly 45 hours and it’ll cost me $0.01.
• All of the power in the house is provided by Green Mountain Energy Corporation. Currently, that’s 90% hydroelectric and 10% New Wind. (For comparison, the average mix of resources supplying New York includes: Natural Gas (22%), Nuclear (29%), Hydroelectric (18%), Coal (15%), Oil (14%), and Other (<3%)).

Mr. Parker: It’s a Major Award!
Swede: Shucks I wouldn’t know that. It looks like a lamp.
Mr. Parker: What is a lamp, you nincompoop? It’s a Major Award. I won it!
Swede: Damn, hell, you say won it?
Mr. Parker: Yeah, mind power, Swede; mind power.

The new windows are great – no more drafty spots in the house, no warm areas & cool areas, and I can’t believe how quiet these things are! I don’t hear the cars stopping & leaving the corner, and I barely hear the super-loud motorcycle that comes down the street every night.

On a windy, blustery day like today, they’re well worth it. I want to see my next heating bill!!!

I saw a cool episode of Modern Marvels on TV last night, all about renewable energy. It was so good, I saved it on the Tivo, so I can burn a DVD then rip the DVD and put the episode on my iPod. Then, in the middle of the show, a little ad appeared that Modern Marvels is available on iTunes! I’m so excited… this particular show isn’t on yet, but others are. I wonder how long they take to get posted online?

Also yesterday, it was a big delivery day at my house. I received an order from Land’s End, which included a pair of Beach Trekkers. I love them… they’re just a bit big. I should’ve ordered a 1/2 size smaller, since you don’t wear socks with them. So I called them up, and was talking to a person before it even rang on the other side! And… get this: the person was speaking perfect English! On a Saturday morning, I called customer service and spoke to a real person within 2 seconds. Amazing. The exchange process was even easier… she took my new order, and when they arrive, I can choose which pair to keep, and either return the other using the prepaid postage label or take it to my local Sears store. Land’s End has just won a lot of my future clothes shopping.

I also received a couple books from Amazon.com, along with Snatch on DVD, and a Christmas decoration that, I must say, I’m a bit disappointed in. Oh well, good thing Christmas is still 4-1/2 months away!

Al Gore, the environmental activist stung by criticism over his house’s energy efficiency, said Friday that renovations are nearly complete to make it a model “green” home.

Aside from the solar panels, I don’t know what else he’s actually done, since there are a bunch of things he’s still planning on doing:

• install a geothermal system that will, among other things, drastically reduce the cost of heating his pool.
• upgrade windows and ductwork.
• install more energy-efficient light bulbs.
• create a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management.

Compare that to my plans:

• Solar panels in 3 years, when the price is right. Sorry, it’s not ALL about the environment… I need to make sound financial decisions, too
• Install a solar heater for the pool – DONE! And the pool is already warmer this year than it ever has been. We hit 78 yesterday!
• Upgrade windows – hopefully this will be done this year. Depends on the finances. 22 windows cost a lot of money to replace.
• Install more energy-efficient light bulbs – DONE!
• Create a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management – DONE!

So Al’s got a big one out of the way… I’ve done the inexpensive ones so far. Now I need to figure out the windows & how to pay for them. They’d take 23 years to payback, assuming my assumptions are correct, and save $10k over 30 years (gross savings of $27,500 over that time, minus the cost of windows and finance charges is $10,000 savings).

The funny thing is, Huges Co. probably would’ve gotten my business for windows, doors and a solar system months ago, but they refused to install storm doors. So for $400 in storm doors, they walked away from a $35,000 job. Oh well, I’d rather work with Stockmohr, anyhow, for the windows.

On Friday, I got some pool chemicals & took off the winter cover – the water was BLACK. Remember back in October we had a little storm? Well, that threw tree branches through the winter cover, allowing leaves & other stuff in the water. We tried cleaning it in November, but didn’t have enough time. However, since the pump wasn’t hooked up, I couldn’t do anything with it.

On Saturday Mr. Bishop & I hooked the solar heater up to the pool. I think it’s going to work great, since I burned my hand on the roof while up there. The temperature up there was at least 120°, if not as high as 140. There are now 72, 1/4″ black tubes that carry the water along the roof, heating up before going back into the pool. Photos coming soon. Of course, we get that hooked up, pump going, and a hose breaks – after all the pool stores are closed. So I had to stop the pool from draining into the backyard, and turn off the pump.

Since Mr. Bishop helped me on Saturday, I went up to the cottage on Sunday with Jason and helped cut the grass & dig up a new garden. Nothing mind-blowing… just lots of manual labor. We did, however, find a stone path leading to the cottage that’s at least 35 years old, since Mom Bishop doesn’t remember it being there, but we dug it up while putting in the garden. That slowed us down a bit. Can’t wait for harvest time to eat the veggies that we worked so hard to get planted.

We got home Sunday just in time to fix the pool, get the pump turned on again, and watch it POUR outside. I figured (incorrectly) that it’d take 3″ of water to fill the rain barrel. Here’s what I thought:

It’s a 58 gallon barrel
58 US gallons = 13 398.0001 cubic inches
My roof (back 1/2) is about 20 feet by 30 feet. That’s 600 square feet, or 86,400 square inches.

That’s where I screwed up the first time… I took 600 * 12, not 600*12*12. So now,

13,398 / 86,400 = 0.155. Really, it only takes .16, or far less than a quarter inch of rain to fill the barrel. Needless to say, after yesterday’s rains, the barrel was overflowing & I switched the bypass on & put the water into the storm sewer. And now I have 58 gallons of rainwater stored up, ready to use for the lawn & gardens.

The pool is now a blue-gray color, with just a few leaves in the middle that need to be scooped out. We should be swimming in there next weekend, if the weather’s nice!

Still with me? Simple so far.

So let’s say that a product costs $3. Labor is $2 and you sell for $8. You profit $3 ($8 (sell price) – $3 (raw materials) – $2 (labor) = $3).

Now, to increase profits (per piece), you either get the product cheaper, get more for your buck from the labor department, or increase the selling price. However, any of these can cause adverse effects, like a cheaper quality product, or fewer sales because of the higher selling price.

Long intro, but here’s the big point: there are businesses that pay negative money for their raw materials! What I mean is, they get PAID to TAKE the raw materials. A few examples of free or negative-cost materials:

• RWA Resource Recovery – They pick up used kitchen grease (at no cost to the restaurant), clean it, and sell as biofuel
• Modern Corporation takes used tires, chips them up, and sells the byproduct as a track/playground surface or as a fuel that burns cleaner than coal. These guys are amazing… they also operate landfills, which give off methane gas. Most landfill operators vent the gas into the air; Modern captures the gas and burns it in generators to power nearby homes. Burning methane gas gives off ANOTHER by-product: heat. The heat is then pumped into greenhouses where they grow vegetables and sell in local supermarkets. A landfill operator, selling vegetables.
• Changing World Technologies converts “organic waste from chickens, cows, hogs, onions, and Parmesan cheese into light crude oil”. Again, something that was going to be thrown away, possibly having to pay to dispose of, getting new life.

If you can come up with a business model that uses waste to create a high-demand product, you may as well be printing money.

I’m not too upset, since I barely put 500 miles / month on the Maxx, but since I do so much city driving, a Hybrid would’ve been nice. No doubt the next car will be a hybrid.

The idea of putting this in his garage is a good one… better to put a hole in the garage, before you put a hole in the house!

I met with a company today to do some work on the house. Then I ran some figures, and, based on the past 2 years, I may save up to $155,886.60 over the next 30 years. That’s based on some estimates, including electric will go up 10.6965% annually, and natural gas will go up 8.50% annually (that’s based on my previous 2 years bills). I should get my entire investment back in 13 years.

If I take out the CFL lights, since I already did that improvement, and cut the utility increases in HALF, I’ll still save nearly $25,000 in 30 years, but it’ll take 20 years to break even.

Now, I just have to see if NY State will work with me for a low-interest loan and various tax breaks for the upgrades I’m looking to do. Either way, I’ll update the site soon on these exciting events.

The bad news from this visit was that my boiler, while running, should give off only up to 25 ppm of Carbon Monoxide – mine topped out at about 1,100 – over 40 times the acceptable value. Luckily, that’s all going up the chimney, but I’m still having it corrected.

Let’s see… we’re looking to get the windows in our house replaced; the count is up to 24 now, plus a sliding glass door and 2 entry doors. That’s not cheap. But, it has to be done – our house just leaks in the winter (and summer).

Wednesday night, after going to the police station with the Cub Scouts, I walked up to Mike’s Subs (nice website! ) to get some food. Naturally, all that walking screwed up my knees, and I’m in incredible pain right now. That makes me a bear to put up with (I LOVE YOU, LAURA!).

After a few days of troubleshooting, Mr. Bishop figured out what was wrong w/ the hot tub, and stopped by today and took care of it, so when I’m done working tonight, I’ll have a nice hot tub to go soak in.

Ever notice how much Funky Cold Medina and Wild Thing by Tone-Loc sound the same?

I’m going to try running tomorrow – haven’t been running since January 6th. The sun is up about 7:00, so I plan on being at the track then and get some sprints in. I just have to find my Garmin & make sure it’s set-up and ready to go.

We’re going to try to go see Meet the Robinsons soon – maybe even tomorrow night. Just have to find a sitter for Morgan, because I know she won’t sit through a movie, even though Laura thinks she will.

And my file is still downloading.