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I’d like to welcome Glenda Taylor from Balm Balm to our Eco Friendly Community.  Glenda also has a great blog at http://www.balmbalmblog.com/

Here’s a word from Glenda:

My name is Glenda and I am the founder of Balm Balm.

I am an aromatherapist, perfumer and natural formulation consultant. Together with Haydn, we founded Balm Balm, a 100% organic skincare company in 2005. Balm Balm is the result of my dream to create an affordable 100% organic skincare range with wide distribution and Soil Association certification. In 2007, Balm Balm won The Soil Association’s Organic industry award for Best Organic Beauty and Bodycare product. Alongside Balm Balm we have Enata, a Bespoke Perfume Service making ‘one off’ Perfumes for individuals as well as ready to wear scents. One of our perfumes ‘Angel Water’ has recently won critical acclaim from Rocca Dove, both in The Mail on Sunday and The Green Beauty Bible, as one of his favourite natural fragrances. A thought sharted by Vogue UK, who rather sweetly declared me to be one of their favourite aromatherapists!

I’d like to welcome Lucy O’Callaghan and Cancer.Org.uk to our eco friendly community.  Cancer Research UK is the world’s leading charity dedicated to beating cancer through research. Their groundbreaking work has saved millions of lives and their websites have a wealth of information about cancer, their research, how to donate and more ways to support them.  They also have a charity gift shop where 100% of the profits go towards lifesaving research, check it out:

http://www.giftshop.cancerresearchuk.org/

What’s even more impressive is to go along with all the other great things they do, Cancer Research UK is also seriously committed to going green. I’ll let Lucy elaborate:

Cancer Research UK published our Sustainability Policy in 2009 to demonstrate our commitments to reducing impacts on the environment through all aspects of our work.

The sustainability policy laid out 6 key goals for the charity to work towards including:

• Eliminate, replace or reduce the use of environmentally deleterious materials where feasible and ensure safe handling and disposal to prevent pollution
• Through following the three R’s; reduce, reuse or recycle we have made a commitment to reducing waste to landfill/incineration by 30% by April 2012

Cancer Research UK is also dedicated to upholding high ethical purchasing standards and include environmental and social considerations as a factor in purchasing decisions – we successfully demonstrated our commitment to this goal by winning won Gold for the London Mayor Green procurement Code in 2009.

Our environmental image and healthy lifestyle focus is something that we are very proud of and is widely publicised and we continually strive towards embedding these aims into all aspects of our work both internally and externally.

Lucy O’Callaghan

Business Support Executive

If you are thinking of installing a solar energy system in your home, you know it’s a important decision and investment, and you may be wondering if it will add value to your home. To help you answer that question, here are several factors to consider.

Solar Panels: The Power of Investing in Your property

First, how is the awareness level in your area when it comes to the benefits and merits of using solar energy? If there is enough interest and involvement in green living, there’s a good chance that buyers will see the solar energy system as an asset and will be willing to pay more. However, if you reside in an area where there is very little eco-friendly participation, where people aren’t too concerned about recycling or the environment, buyers may not care about the work and expense you have put into installing solar panels.

But even in a community where people never consider green living, most can relate to saving money.  If you can produce a record of your energy savings over several years, the potential buyer will have evidence that the solar power system will be an asset.  With heating and cooling bills of hundreds of dollars a month for some families, saving on utilities can be a major concern.

Can Taking Your House to Off Grid Solar Power Be an Investment?

But what can you do to demonstrate energy savings if you have just recently installed your solar energy system? You can contact the local electric utility company and ask them for a statistical projection showing your rate of savings over time. You can also obtain data from the company which did your solar energy system. Many of the larger solar installation companies have marketing departments that gather that kind of data to show people how solar panels will save money for them.

Another factor to examine is how common solar energy systems are in your housing market.   If solar panel installations are common, your real estate agent can provide statistical data showing the difference in selling prices between houses that have solar panels and those that use only a public utility service. If this kind of information is available in your market, you have the best possible proof that you can show a potential buyer.

Try Installing This Home Project Method And Save Much More Money On Power Costs with Off Grid Solar Power

The subject of solar energy is often in the daily news. But have you been wondering if installing solar panels on your home would be a good choice for your family? Following are a some of the more compelling reasons to consider it.

You Will See From This Video The Idea of How To Construct A Solar Panel

The economic climate is finally favorable again for those who want to utilize solar energy at home. There are now federal tax credits in place (or soon to be) that can reduce the cost of installing a residential solar energy system by as much as 30%. And don’t forget to check into your state and city incentives, as well. The list of government entities that are offering tax credit and other incentives to assist people in converting to solar energy is continuing to lengthen.

In addition, you will see immediate savings in the form of lower monthly utility bills, since it will be your solar panels that will be running your appliances during the day. And if your utility company uses net metering, it’s possible that you could pay nothing for your electricity.  While your solar panels are functioning, they may generate more electricity than you actually use. Net metering allows you to sell back that excess electricity to your utility company for a credit to your account.  So when your solar panels generate a surplus during the day, the electricity used from the grid at night could end up being free.

The Solar Power Guide Showing How To Make A Solar Panel Effectively

Solar energy can also be of great benefit to the environment. Solar energy is produced and then used on the same site. That means no fuel transportation costs, no emissions, and no plant maintenance costs. It does not contribute to global warming. Solar power does not produce pollution by burning oil or coal, or nuclear waste that will contaminate the planet for many years to come. And finally, using solar energy is a great way to avoid the energy price increases that experts predict for the future.

The future of this planet is of the utmost concern to many environmentalists. In order to resolve the adverse impact of fossil fuels to the environment, solar energy is now taking prominance. Environmentalists have long promoted that we must no longer rely on government or power agencies before acting. Do it now! The DIY enthusiast can now obtain step-by-step instructions on how to build his own solar panels more economically. Even before you decide on the system that best suits you the research must be carried out to avoid expensive mistakes once the project is up and running.

The Most Economical System of How To Make A Solar Panel

On a planet of shrinking energy resources all of us have to do our little bit to help the natural environment and set out to help make the move to alternative energy resources. This Earth4Energy review will explain to you about a educational system designed to demonstrate how to quickly and cheaply power your own home with solar power energy. Forget about what you have read about solar energy being too expensive, whoever told you that didn’t know that anyone can create your own solar panels for less than $200 with readily available parts. This is exactly what Earth 4 energy will teach you to do.

Earth 4 energy is a detailed “How To” tutorial which contains thoroughly illustrated instructions for building your own solar energy system for your household. It is possible to get started small and simply build one or two sun power panels and power a couple of appliances, or you could be more ambitious and power your whole property with sun power panels.

There are various resources readily available via the internet which will present to you how to put together your own personal sun power panels. But none of which are as well structured and easy to understand as Earth 4 energy. The Earth4Energy PDF manual comes well illustrated and it is supported with videos. This describes everything so simply that any individual irrespective of their Do-it-yourself experience can follow along. No special woodworking or electrical knowledge are required. Needless to say if you’re a Do-it-yourself enthusiast then this may be a project that you’ll absolutely take pleasure in.

The Earth4Energy manual gets my recommendation due to its straightforwardness and the total lack of complex jargon. Making your own personal Do it yourself solar power panels is definitely the least expensive approach to solar power your residence, and Earth 4 energy does the most impressive job We’ve seen of showing you how to do it.

The manual will show you every one of the items that you will have to acquire and where you get them from. The most expensive parts are the solar power panels themselves. You will be guided on how to acquire these as cheaply as possible. Solar panels are made from solar cells. You are able to find these at low costs by buying them used or damaged then repairing them.

The rest of the items can all be purchased at your neighborhood hardware store. You will not require any kind of special tools but there are actually a couple of tasks that require machinery to cut flexi-glass and wood. But your home improvement store will be able to cut these for you personally when you provide them with the dimensions you require.

Upon having acquired the required resources it’ll be time for you to follow the Do-it-yourself instructions in the Earth 4 energy guidebook. The whole thing is illustrated with authentic images of the tasks being performed and backed up with training videos where needed for making it even clearer. All the info that is required is to be found within the guide.

Earth4Energy goes further than just showing you how to solar power your home. It’ll explain to you how to construct a wind mill for around $200. Wind generators aren’t viable in every home as you have to be in a location with adequate blowing wind. But they can offer an additional boost to a solar power system and enable you to produce a much better percentage of your own electricity.

As a added bonus you’ll receive a guide on how to transform a diesel engine to run bio diesel fuel. It’s going to also demonstrate what ingredients you need to produce your own bio diesel and just how to obtain them at no cost.

Earth 4 energy will save you a pile of cash by teaching you the least expensive solution to generate your own electricty. It is the most complete package available on how to generate your own personal solar energy. I highly recommend Earth4Energy as it is a small investment that can return many times what you pay for it. Commercial solar panels are prohibitively expensive. Earth4Energy could make your dream of a solar driven property easily affordable.

Gear For My Baby – It is our lifelong commitment to only provide products that secure the protection of our environment for the safety and future of our children. it is our mission is to make a difference in the choices available to parents by offering to you a baby store that provides the best in organic baby clothing lines all made with the best quality organic products and no compromise on the quality, comfort and wellbeing of your child. Our suppliers operate in accordance with a Total Quality Management System to ensure highest quality in the production these organic products, and services offered by our company. Our commitment is purity in all products.

Throughout these rough financial occasions, every dollar counts. So a lot so that several households nowadays are trying to find methods to cut their expenses in your house. If you’re a single of those people persons who wish to save funds, then you are able to commence with cutting down your electrical expenses. But how to do it, you may ask? Uncomplicated.

Come across your own alternate resource of power for residence use. That way, you can conserve hundreds of dollars each and every year. A single household vigor supply you might need to take into account is a wind turbine generator, a cost-effective and environment-friendly choice towards conventional power.

Largely, a wind power generator is often a machine that produces mechanised vitality and converts it into energy. In specific, the generator is definitely an alternator affixed with a propeller that gathers wind to generate utility vitality.

Why would you bother constructing a wind power generator when you are able to often rely around the electrical energy offered in the home? Nicely, besides the apparent charge savings benefit, you’ll be glad to realize that creating a generator is a great deal easier than it seems.

Did you realize that manufacturing with the electrical power that you’re applying in the home uses up fossil fuel and releases substances that will damage the natural environment?}

That becoming mentioned, the natural environment will advantage a lot should you generate your own vitality supply for instance a wind power generator. Why? Since wind power production won’t depend on fossil fuel, thus it does not contribute within the depletion of the Earth’s pure means.

Also, it won’t generate any toxic chemicals that trigger pollution. Consequently, you may never need to be concerned about the natural environment once you turn to wind power as an option power supply at your house.

Contemplating the positive aspects it offers, a wind power generator can be a practical, cost-effective, and eco-friendly solution to generate power for house use. Why rely for the electrical energy you’ve at your house when you have a higher alternative? Begin now by in search of wind power generator style suggestions around the Web.

Green living is a new way of life and has been introducing a lot of advancements to our society. Such innovations have made much impact on our everyday living. There are a number of advantages of such technologies in different faces including preserving the world and reducing bills by using alternative power sources.

Energy efficient space heaters are great alternatives for conventional types. These energy efficient space heaters save money for the consumers in the long run while contributing to the green environment. Statistics would show that about thousand dollars is spent per year by an ordinary American for heating and cooling. Using energy efficient space heaters, this bill can be further reduced.

If you decrease the thermoregulator by some points (about 5 points) and use energy efficient space heaters in the room that you use frequently, you will lower your heater bill by 10% and avoid emitting about 350kg of CO2 to the environment. In addition, energy efficient space heaters will warm your spaces for a fraction of a cost of a central heating system. But not all energy efficient space heaters will bring you the advantage of cost savings. When you select the heaters, you should view many arguments such as the volume of the space, lighting, and number of people living in the house. If you select energy efficient space heaters without regarding such points, you may end up over employing the heaters and finding a larger bill while damaging the atmosphere more.

All heaters should have automatic temperature control characteristics for the best results. If this feature is not available, you will have to manually adjust the temperature every now and then in order to keep the perfect heat level. Therefore, it’s a smart thought to keep out any heater without automatic temperature control.

Humidity is a significant factor when it comes to heating spaces. When your space is not that humid, you may want higher temperature to experience the same heat than to a space with higher level of humidity.

Among the types of energy efficient space heaters, electric space heaters are the virtually popular and cheap type (just like if you’re going to make solar panels). Additionally, there are more good charasteristics of electric heaters as sources of alternative power such as mobility, where it allows you to use the heater anywhere in your home. Electric energy efficient space heaters are known to heat the spaces consistently and quietly. These types of space heaters have the automatic temperature control feature where the unit is turned off when the wanted temperature is achieved.

There is no doubt that DIY solar panels are the most important part of any solar residential equipment, therefore it’s a good idea to take a really close look at them so you’ll have a better understanding of how they fit into the areas of solar thermal and solar electrical construction. To get started, we need to examine the various kinds of DIY solar panels so you’ll understand the hows and whys of their differences from each other, even though we refer to them generically as DIY solar panels. A lot of people are under the incorrect impression that all versions of solar panels are alike, when in actuality, each type of DIY solar panel is meant for a different approach to harnessing the suns’s rays when it comes to solutions for the residential homeowner. If you’d like to know more about building your own DIY solar panels, here’s an excellent and well-proven guide:

To see an excellent article on DIY solar panels, take a look at Home DIY Solar Panels.

Now that you’ve discovered that solar energy is a good way to make your monthly utility bills more bearable or to eliminate them entirely, you’ll want to investigate a number of different approaches to instituting a primary DIY solar plan. A photovoltaic solar panel is one of several types of DIY solar panels that can help you immensely by turning simple sunshine into electricity. The electricity produced by photovoltaic panels can be used to power electrical devices inside and outside your home to produce significant monetary savings each month. You can choose to investigate commercially built solar photovoltaic panels but you’ll soon realize that they can cost a fortune if you have to buy them causing a very lengthy payback period, even considering tax credits.

To see an excellent article on DIY solar panels, make sure to see Home DIY Solar Panels – Start Yours Today!

A much more simple and economical route for you, the homeowner, is to choose DIY solar panels that you can quickly and easily build yourself using common materials available anywhere. You don’t need highly-refined construction skills to construct your own solar panels at home and outstanding, detailed guides are available to make sure you have all the instructions necessary so you always stay on track with your money-saving project. As soon as you’ve finished your home solar system, you can be very proud of the work you did on your DIY solar panels and you’ll know that your utility bills are going to be reduced immediately, also the savings will be ongoing in your home for the rest of your life because your system will keep on making electricity for you day in and day out. Being a homeowner with an excellent home solar system is far better than eternally paying a utility company’s high prices each month. To find out how to build your DIY solar panels, take a look at the following link:

An additional category of solar panel which hasn’t yet been discussed is the solar collector that acquires the sun’s solar thermal rays – this effects a heat transfer directly into water or it can transfer heat into an antifreeze medium which subsequently transfers the heat into the water which will be used in the home. Acting as heat collectors which ultimately heat your hot water, these DIY solar panels are exceptionally valuable to the monthly process of saving money on the utility bill. Since you are heating water for baths, showers, dish-washing and clothes washing with the sun’s energy captured by your DIY solar panels, using no natural gas or electrical water heating – you receive heated hot water which costs next to nothing and you save big dollars at the end of the month on your utility bill.

The heated water requirement for the average home is one of the worst dollar-cost offenders as far as your utility bill is concerned, once you implement DIY solar panels to heat water you will be breaking the public utility gas/electricity water-heating cycle and saving yourself many dollars for the rest of your life since you don’t depend on the utility company for energy to heat your household water!

DIY solar panels are extremely versatile and many homeowners like you can benefit if you convert to a solar pool to save even more energy each month. The technology for swimming pool heating is basically the same as solar hot water for the home with only a few small changes – this is an area where DIY solar panels really excel. Inexpensive solar heated water is much more comfortable for swimming than unheated water and it easily extends the swimming season by a minimum of several months each year – now you can take advantage of swimming year round while not squandering the family fortune on extremely high electrical bills.

I know just the idea of saving all that money has you energized and motivated now to build yourself a couple of DIY solar panels. Anyone can do it with common hand tools that most homes already have – and if you can turn a screwdriver, you have the skill level to complete this easy home project. You can easily follow excellent, professional-written guides which show you in simple, logical steps what to do to complete this simple solar project. You’ll be saving money off your monthly electrical bill before you know it – don’t forget to get yourself an excellent guide and start your DIY solar project today!

To find even more useful information on DIY solar panels, there’s another helpful resource for you at: DIY Solar Panels – How Much Can You Really Save? Posted by reusable bags direct

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Paying bills is a task that nobody likes and that unopened envelope can invoke feelings of dread if you are already struggling financially. Electricity prices never seem to stop rising all of the time. But there are many things that you can start to do differently to minimize your electricity bill.

Rather than dismissing the idea of switching to solar power due to the costs involved, you may be interested to know that you can make DIY solar panels for a fraction of the cost of commercial solar panels. What would set you back maybe $ 30,000 can be built using materials from your local hardware store for less than $ 200 a solar panel.

In order to reduce your electricity bill you have to get into the habit of only using the electricity that you actually need. This means that when lights and appliances are not in use you turn them off. If you live with other people or have a family you would need to discuss your plans with them and encourage them to participate. It’s all the little things such as switching off lights whenever you leave a room that all add up to create a reduction by the time you get your next bill.

Household appliances such as TVs have a standby feature where they appear to be switched off but are still actually using electricity as they lay dormant waiting for you to press a button on the remote control. Switching these appliances off at the mains will ensure that you aren’t wasting electricity by leaving them idle in standby. Do you really need to use 100W light bulbs in every single room, would a 60W bulb suffice? Those incandescent bulbs are not as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs. You can make significant energy reductions by switching to these more energy efficient bulbs.

It’s not the number of appliances you have or their power consumption that uses up the most electricity. It is actually how often you use your appliances. If you are using your washing machine everyday because you only have a couple of pairs of socks, then buy some new socks and use your washing machine twice a week instead! Try delaying your next washing day until you have enough dirty clothes for a full machine load.

When you think that a homemade solar power system can reduce your electricity bills by up to 80% and it won’t cost you the earth to build it, then solar power suddenly become a realistic option. You can easily learn how to build your own and you can even make your own wind turbine too. There is no need to be an expert in DIY. There is an infinite source of energy that is available to you that will save you money and help you contribute to the environment in the process.

To read more on how to reduce energy consumption in your home and how to make homemade solar panels please visit www.greencheapenergy.com