In this blog, I will be Showing and telling how I invented, learn and build some green energy do it yourself gizmos to produce at least some of your emergency energy such as hot water for shower, charge batteries for your electronics and light for the kitchen.
I recently purchased a house by the sea and I had a lot of time in my hands to worry about the environment and also out of concern about my pocket book.
At the beginning my electric bill was around 35 tl ($20) after changing conventional wired bulbs with florescent 150w to 18w (equal amount of light) my bill went down a bit, like 28 tl. I continue to change things around, not using electric appliances if I have alternatives for example hot water heater during the day was not needed, I could use the sun to heat water during the day and my friends; that was it, my bill is now 7tl ( $4) a month!!!! now I know in states, if you own a house and heat it by gas, your combined utility bills should be like $900 for gas and $650 for electric, can you imagine with the saving percentage given above you could buy another house with savings 8>).
so what do I show you first? solar hot water heater.
You will need;
1. A water jog, 65 ltr will do for me.
2. Black plastic paint
3. brush to paint the container.
4. walve connected to the jug.
5. Garden hose for the length you need.
6. Shower head, important for the water economy.
7. Washing machine water pump (expensive part $20)
8. 6' wire and a plug on it (re-cycle from broken electronics)
so here it is in action.
Video will give you the idea of how to build one yourself.
Water container is placed in balcony which gets afternoon sun for 5 hours but we only need one hour sun to almost boil this water.
To control over heating, I have set time to take it inside when I know the water is hot for my shower or washing dishes or clothes.
you could be more hi tech and buy an electronic thermostat that will beep when water reaches certain temperature.
I also fill the Jug with water via a hose and it takes a while so I designed a water alarm that beeps if jug is about to spill in to balcony.
see below movie to see how simple yet it does the job.
What can this do for you? If you scale this project and connect to your mains it can lower the temperature at least 10 degree during the winter as well and save you a lot.
