St Louis Renewable Energy: Open Invitation-Solar Webinar

St Louis Renewable Energy: Open Invitation-Solar Webinar

Hot Weather Dressing

To stay cool in summer, it helps to wear clothes that don't interfere with your body's natural cooling processes, such as nperspiring.

• Wear loose, not tight, clothing, so that air can circulate.

•  Wear natural fibres, including cotton, linen,silk and lightweight wool, and avoid synthetic fabrics such as polyster.

•  When outside, wear light colours that reflect the sun's rays, rather than dark colours that will absorb them.

Energy Saving Tips For Gardening

Energy Saving Suggestion

Gardeners around the world have come up with many energy saving tips for yard work to conserve water and reduce other energy uses. Learn more about how to make your garden “greener” with these 5 energy saving tips.

1. Watering Can Conservation in evening

Fill the watering can every evening to water your plants in the morning. The water will be near air temperature, lessening shock to plants, and you will use much less than with the garden hose. Collect rainwater in a barrel and fill your watering can from it.

2. Dampen Plants at the Roots

Watering at the roots enables plants to absorb the water faster and reduce leaf-burn during water evaporation.

3. Cut the Lawn Less Often

Longer grass blades save energy in 3 ways:

• You use your lawn mower less often, saving gasoline or electricity
• The taller blades absorb more carbon dioxide from the air
• It retains water more efficiently. The green color of the lawn will return after even a brief rainstorm

4. Large Container Plantings Conserve Water

Hanging baskets lose water daily through top evaporation and root-level dripping. Large containers let water percolate through the soil slowly, and less is lost to evaporation.

5. Mulch Your Garden

Reduce weed growth and help soil retain water with an organic mulch, such as leaves or cedar shavings

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Know Your Options >>> Space Heater

Elektric Heater

There are theree different types of electric heaters: fan heaters, radiators and oil-filled column heaters.

• A fan heater draws air into unit, heats it, then pump it out into the room.
• An electric radiators uses a reflectors to direct radiant heat from a hot element back out into the room being heated.
• Oil-filled column heaters are, as the name suggest, filled with oil heats the body of the unit, then the body of the unit warms the air that passes across it

Gas Heaters

There are three types of gas space heaters: convection heaters, radiant heaters and 'log fire' heaters.

•  A convention heaters draws in cool air, heats it, then pumps it out as warm air. there is a flame at work, but you won't see it - all you'll see is a box with vents or grilles. These heaters produce a lot of vapour. Flued models will expel that moist air outside the house. Unflued models simply dump it into the room.That's not such a problem if the room has good you can end up with condensation on the windows and walls, and perhaps even a mould problem.

• A radiant heater warms a ceramic panel to a very high temperature. In fact, you'll be able to see the panel glowing red-hot. The panel emeits a rediant heat that warms the people and the object in room.

• A gas log heater memics a wood-fired heater with ceramic look-alike logs and real flames, produced by the gas. Gas log units emit a radiant heat, but they also usully have a fan that circulates the warmed air.

Wood-Burning Fireplace

In a traditional fireplace, the flames,embers and hot surfaces produc a radiant heat that warms the objects in the room, including people. If you're sitting in an armchair next to the fire. you'll be very warm, but the temperature drops as you go further away from the souce. Modern fireplace perform a bit better. They tend to be fitted with metal insert that draw air through the fireplace and back into the room, with the result that the air itself gets warmed. Some are freestanding, with a metal chimney that runs the height of the room and radiants heat.

Wood-burning Slow-combustion Stove

The slow-combustion heater is basically a wood-burning fire contained in an airtight box. The amount of air entering the 'firebox' affects its heat output. In other words, you can rise or lower the temperature by adjusting air-inlet controls. A slow-combustion stove can be connect to a hydronic heating system ( the kind with a central boiler and pipes that distribute the heat around the house ).

Know your options >>> Insulation products

There are five main types of insulation products on the market: batts, blankets, loose fill, reflective foils and boards.

Batts and Blakets

These can be made from a range of materials, but they all work in the same way: tiny pockets of air inside the batts and blankets reduce the flow of heat from one side of the material to the other. Don't squash or compress the material, as this will reduce its effectiveness.

Loose Fill

Like batts and blankets, loose-fill products also get their insulating properties from the little pockets of air they contain. They are particularly eseful when getting access to an area is a problem.

Reflective Foils

As the name suggests, these materials have a reflective surface that deflects radiants heats. Reflective foils are great for reducing the punishing effect of the sun in summer. However, they're not nearly as effective at inhibiting the flow of warm air from one side of the materials to the other. This means that they're much more valuable in hot climates than in cool climates.

Boards

These products are newcomers on the scene. Insulating boards can be made from either extruded polystyrene (commonly known as styrofoam) or expanded polystyrene. The rigid, lightweight boards contain millions of pockets of still air, which give the material its insulating properties.