just some thoughts and stuff

Greening up your home

I was reading on Mother Earth News in the section about making your house greener. The idea of remodeling (they called it recycling) an older house and fixing it up to make it more energy efficient. An interesting idea , however an average family can't afford to this. Some people are not handy , then how do you get things fixed in your house? You hire someone else to do that of course. Well if you can't afford to hire someone and you don't know how to fix it you often just have to make do with what you have.

So the money you have that could be "extra" is going out the window with the heat or being eaten up by the old electrical.

My family and I are lucky not only is Dave handy, but so is my oldest son and we are all also extremely creative. I am one of those make do with what you got kinda people. I don't have new windows so I put up plastic. This picture is of my sons bedroom window we covered it and the temperature in the room went up by at least 15 degrees ! A small heater in their room has a thermometer after covering this window we were able to take the little heater out because it made the room too hot.

Like I said we live in a very old house in a very cold part of the world We know there is more we can do to conserve heat and we have many plans to do just that!.

For the average family doing this takes years and years of work. Having windows replaced alone can cost thousands if you don't know how to do the work yourself. We will be replacing at least 2 windows ourselves this summer. (I hope) My other ideas are simpler things that require only time and ingenuity and experimenting to make happen.

One glaring example of this is my idea of having a milk jug greenhouse. I am gluing milk jugs together to make a small greenhouse to cover some plants and help harden them off this spring my idea came from my use of Milk jugs with the bottom cut off to cover plants when we have a freeze coming I figure if I can use one per plant in this way what would happen if I glued them all together intact and fill in the spaces left between them with plastic grocery bags to insulate it better? The need for a green house up here in Northern WI is a big one for anyone who plants in the large volume that I do. I usually have 20 or more tomato plants (usually more) plus all of the other plants I start and need to put outside. We have been known to get freezing temps well into June so some form of serious protection is needed.

will this work? I have no idea that is why I am trying it. will this be better than putting a plastic sheet over the plants? perhaps I mean it should be if it works the way I think it will.

Could it fail and be a big waste of my time and glue ?

you betcha! but that is the fun of trying things out

I figure the most likely thing to have happen would be the milk jugs would get hot in the sun and transfer heat they way I expect them to however the glue will probably melt causing the structure to collapse onto my plants!

I mentioned that problem to my dear Dave he said "how about once you get the walls glued together I build a frame out of wood to hold them together better?"

works for me

and if worse comes to worse I will have nifty looking play house for the boys .

My boys are often my inspiration for anything I do. From the story book puppets I have made for them and others to the Milk Jug wall (I would not have so many Milk jugs if not for my boys we go through about 7 -10 gallons a week!) and cloth diapers.

This weekend Zach and I did an experiment. As you know he was sick for the week with the croup and stuck hacking up a lung and generally just not happy. Well nothing cheers that boy up more than getting to make a mess all in the name of science!

I had Zach pick out two 20 oz water bottles. He peeled off the labels one we left alone and the other he painted flat black.

we had some Styrofoam in the mudroom (you will find out as you get to know me I often have things just lying around the house I am a good boyscout I am always prepared) we cut two holes to fit our bottles.

Zach made a reflector out of cardboard and foil shiny side out. We filled our bottles with tap water ,then we took the temperature of the water.

The water Temp was perfectly even 43 degrees F

Zach was so excited about that part he likes data to match it was cute.

(yes he is an odd science kid)

We bundled up in winter coats and snow boots and waded through the thigh deep snow to get our contraption outside and set it in the sunny spot that we choose for our future passive solar hot water heater.

That is when I started asking him Questions

Zach what do you think will happen to the water?

He said he thought the black bottle would get hotter. I said Why? He thought the black bottle would get hotter because of the reflector and because in summer when you wear a black shirt in the sun you get really hot!

(smart boy)

Then I asked the big question "how hot do you think it will get"

well not that hot but warm enough to tell

Our air temp was about 25degrees F

So we went inside and Zach promptly and accidentally dropped and broke the thermometer we borrowed from Daddy.

Great there went our scientific project now we get to do estimates, but that is OK poor kid felt awful for dropping it, but a quick call to Daddy at work said Daddy can fix it. So problem solved

I still had him check the water over the next few hours and he was pleased and surprised to see how hot the water in the black bottle got

after 3 hours the water in the black bottle got hot enough to test it's temperature using a fever thermometer!

We got up to about 102 degrees

Then over night the bottles froze and Zach checked one them later in the day

The black bottle had completely unfroze while the clear one stayed frozen and at 1pm the black bottle at about 40 degrees

So Zach now does not dispute that the passive solar hot water heater will work.

he does think we need to find a way to keep the water from freezing I asked him how he is still thinking about that one .