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‘Green’ seems to be the color, or the word, that is getting a lot of attention lately. Many magazines & most newspapers carry articles & ads titled with key words such as green or green building. These terms bring to most minds the picture of homes or commercial buildings that have been designed to conserve energy and/or money utilizing systems to cool, heat or provide light in a very efficient manner. New ideas & technologies are consistently on the drawing boards, challenging architects, designers & builders to stay on the cutting edge.

So what does this have to do with breathing green? Since the energy crisis of the 1970’s brought about these wonderful & welcomed changes, life was made more comfortable in many ways. Could we have foreseen that these modern advancements would one day bring a whole new set of challenges concerning our health?

Now, along with green building in the news, subjects such as ‘indoor air pollution’, ’sick building syndrome’ & ‘building related illnesses’ has the attention of many individual persons worldwide. And so… So far so good. With Indoor Air Quality being #1 of the Top ten Healthy Home Trends for 2010, according to a group of Battelle scientists, it has prompted an increase in the purchase of products to improve the air in our breathing spaces. (Batelle is a global leader in technology development, product development & commercialization.)

Here is where proper research & the knowledge of products are very important to consumers. There is a lot of competition in the arena of air filters & products claiming to produce clean & safe air.

When it comes to the safety of breathing indoors, there is one organization that had very special needs. NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Administration) had to develop a completely unique system for the inhabitants of the space station as well as for the space shuttles as they carried many astronauts for many days without the luxury of opening a window allowing fresh air to come in.

There are products available for homes, businesses & automobiles that with their very completely unique patented processes, also includes the same technology developed by NASA. Beware that many products claim to be Space Foundation certified, how ever, there is only one air purification product that is. This particular air purification unit can be seen at http://www.spaceconnection.org/productdetails.php?productid=58.

Air purification for the homes & businesses will one day soon be as commonplace as microwaves & DVD players. Millions of satisfied customers already own two or more various filter-less air purification products in their homes & vehicles. The benefits of ‘breathing green’, using the most cutting edge technologies available, are priceless. Some of the more common testimonies are of pet, cooking & smoking odors eliminated, as well as relief from symptoms of allergies & asthma. Mold, bacteria & viruses are significantly reduced very quickly, on surfaces, as well as airborne particulate reduction.

Kim Newsome ?July 2007

To learn more on this subject for residential & commercial applications, please visit http://www.YourIndoorEnvironment.com

Kimberly Newsome & her husband, Kevin, are Managing Consultants for Indoor Environmental Consultants International, LLC., based closely on the Treasure Coast of Florida. IECI, LLC, also gives Continuing Education Units for the American Institute of Architects nationwide.

Is breathing ozone air from air purifiers good or bad for your health?

Well, that depends on who you are listening to. If you listen to the ozone air purifier salesman, he will claim that breathing ozone air from air purifiers is “good” & safe.

However, if you listen to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) & Consumer Reports, the answer is definitely “bad!” As far as the experts are concerned, breathing ozone air from air purifiers is harmful to human health. Here’s why.

Ozone is an irritant & breathing it in can worsen asthma & cause coughing, wheezing & chest pains. Clear? It also deadens your sense of smell, raises your sensitivity to pollen & mold & may even be responsible for permanent lung damage.

In fact, Consumer Reports, the EPA, Canada & some U.S. states have issued warnings against ozone from air purifiers. By example, California warns, “People should avoid using indoor air cleaning devices that produce ozone.”

Ozone is a highly effective killer that oxidizes whatever it comes into contact with. Sure, ozone kills bacteria & mold, but it is also the same molecule responsible for the free radicals that can cause heart disease, cancer & premature aging.

Now, I am not saying that breathing ozone air from air purifiers will kill you, but ozone is definitely not something you want to voluntarily breathe into your lungs. There is more. There’s just too much evidence against it.

However, ozone generator marketers say their machines are approved by the government. That’s simply not true. Air purifiers fall into a bureaucratic crack where there’re no regulations. According to the EPA, a registration number on the packaging “does NOT imply EPA endorsement or suggest in any way that the EPA has found the product to be either safe or effective.”

Another sales pitch is that you can keep an ozone air purifier on low & only turn it up until you smell a “fresh laundry odor.” But as you breathe it in, you rapidly become desensitized to the ozone smell. And keeping the setting on low, does not eliminate the problem, it only makes the air from an ozone air purifier a little less dangerous.

How do these marketers get away with making such outrageous claims? Easy! Since ozone generators have no regulation, salespeople can say anything & everything they want, in order to sell their product. There’s no one to stop them.

As you can see, you should be concerned about breathing ozone air from air purifiers. There is more. There’re other safer more effective choices available.

When you consider all the options, a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) purifier with an additional activated charcoal filter is your best option. The HEPA system combined with a charcoal filter works like a sponge soaking up offensive cooking, tobacco & pet odors, as well as being 99.9% effective at eliminating airborne allergens down to 0.3 microns in size. That’s small. There’re over 600 microns in the period at the end of this sentence.

A HEPA system with a charcoal filter gives the best benefits, with no risk of breathing ozone air from air purifiers.

Cris Stanford clears up the confusion & hype around air purifier ratings so you can find exactly what you want. His website, http://www.FirstAirPurifier.com has been called “a breath of fresh air!” Visit today & find the best air purifier for you.

Waste water is considered water that is the byproduct of human industrial & commercial activities. There is more. This water is consumed with many different substances that can be toxic & a hazard to all living things & bad for the environment. To make this water clean & usable again for the environment, it has to complete a waste water treatment process.

Waste Water Contaminants

Waste water contains many contaminants. There is more. These contaminants can be classified as biological or man made substances. There is more. The biological substances are bacteria, fungus, & algae. The man-made substances would be like chemicals.

The waste water that comes from commercial & industrial activities that include iron creation has chemicals like ammonia & cyanide, in it… Industry that processes coal has a production of waste water that is filled with cyanide, benzene, anthracene, cresols, phenols, & ammonia, naphthalene, & polyaromatic hydrocarbons. There is more. These hydrocarbons & organic substances are of a complex nature.

Treatment Of The Waste Water

More than one method can be often used to treat the waste water. Each of these methods is very complicated process for getting rid of the harmful substances in the waste water. The processing is completed to make the waste water flow that is attractive to the bacteria than can transform the waste into solid matter so that it can be removed from the water to recycle it into the environment.

Waste water treatment steps include:

Getting Rid Of Solid Waste

The first step that needs to be preformed in the waste water treatment is getting rid of the solid waste. The solid waste is removed from the water & the fluid is all that is left.

To get rid of the solid waste, a variety of techniques will be used. The most common technique is called sedimentation. The sedimentation process will happen when the waste water is left to sit & all the large solid waste falls to the bottom of the water. It becomes a sludge or slurry mess.

For the solid waste that is smaller in size, an ultra-filtration system is used. A different method for removing this fine solid waste is by using the flocculation technique. This technique uses the poly-electrolytes & also the alum salts to get rid of the solid waste.

Removing Oil And Grease

The second part of the waste water removal process is to get rid of the oil & grease in the waste water. Skimmer devices are used to achieve this. There is more. The skimmer process will only work on the oils that are in the water surfaces that are open. For oils of any type, including the hydraulic oils, skimming may not actually be the right answer because of the emulsified & soluble substances in it… To get rid of these oils, a solvent to surfactant will need to be added to the water.

Ridding The Water Of Organics And Acids

The last step in the waste water treatment process is to rid the water of hard & soft organics & also alkaline & acidic compounds. There is more. This removal also includes toxic materials. Many techniques can be often used for these last stages that involve compelling methods. So… Some of the methods that are used for this last stage of treatment for the waste water are incineration, distillation, adsorption, vitrification, chemical immobilization, & disposal in a landfill.

You can also find more info on water treatment & extensive water treatment. eWaterTreatmentSystems.com is a comprehensive resource for water treatment with information on reviews, reverse osmosis & how it works.

Recycling efforts are alive & well in every state, county & township. They are available on all levels & most major cities & even the smallest of townships have some form of this service available. As we look at all the Green Planet initiatives that we can consider the pollution from our own garbage, at times, takes a back seat. But consider the following; every pound of waste that can not actually be converted to energy or some other useful form must go somewhere.

If waste is left to Mother Nature to deal with she will. This is where nature gets even & quite harmfully to the human race. If our personal waste or garbage goes to a landfill & isn’t properly sorted for recycling efforts then it will sit in our soil. So, you ask, what’s wrong with that? Where do we get our drinking water from? I will wait. Yes, mother nature. We are, in some cases, poisoning our own water reserves. Under ground is like a maze of freeways. The freeways underground are rivers of water that come from rainfall in the mountains & are forming up in our cities & then processed into your homes & business locations.

So, if practice just the basics of recycling we not just preserve our vanishing lands but we also keep our water ways much easier to manage & thus safer to drink for everyone. Countries go through learning curves or cycles in their maturation from Third World status to fully industrialized. The challenges during this period of evolution for a country (China as an example) are the lack of proper government oversight to their infrastructure surrounding pollution. They have such a large population that production is the number one focus & not the byproduct of waste management. Their rivers, China isn’t alone here, are heavily polluted now & their people have few choices where to drink. Think about the cycle of life. People eat fish, chicken, vegetables & beef right? So, if the animals & vegetables are consuming contaminated water & minerals in the soil then guess who consumes it last?

Our bodies are going through massive change over time. We have a wonderful system of integrated organs that adapt to environmental change over time. Poison isn’t one that we adapt to well. Poison leads to toxic conditions inside our bodies & lay dormant for years. Once found, they’re hard to extract in the form of inflammation & worst case cancer. So recycling to manage our landfills & waste is very important if not critical to expose the lowest lever of the eco-chain to the wonders of how to manage this. Every home should have a three container trash can in their kitchen. This should feed a larger container that eventually goes out for pick up. The chambers should be divided into recycle zones like paper, glass & normal waste (non recycled goods). By doing this we would, in effect, cut back 2/3′rds of the total weekly waste of each home. Two of the chambers would never see a landfill! Can we do this? Of course we can. It’s up to virtually everyone reading this note today.

Irene has been servicing the Health & Wellness industry since graduating from Cal State Fullerton in 1982. Through her professional experiences in primarily the Physical Therapy field (presently working) she has gathered deep understandings on nutrition, exercise & overall healthy programs to share with her readers & clients of Planet Berry LLC. To learn more on Irene or Planet Berry please visit their corporate web site at http://www.planetberries.com or email at info@planetberries.com

1. Change Five Lights
Replace your five most often used lights or the bulbs in them with ones that have earned the Energy Star & you will use less energy, which means less pollution from power plants. Your household will also be saving about 700 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

2. Heat & Cool Smartly
About ½ the energy we use in our homes goes to heating & cooling. Changing air filters annually, having your system checked annually & useing a programmable thermostat are all easy things you can do. Just by using a programmable thermostat, you can save about 1,800 pounds of carbon dioxide a year & about $100 a year in energy costs.

3. Put the Freeze on Inefficient Appliances
Get rid of old, energy inefficient appliances & replace with newer energy-efficient models. Clear? If you replace your current washing machine with a low-energy, low-water-use machine you’ll be easily able to reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by 440 pounds per year. For even more savings wash your laundry in warm or cold water, instead of hot. That will bring in a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions of about 500 pounds per year.

4.Reduce & Recycle
Reducing your garbage by 25 percent will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,000 pounds per year. Recycle aluminum cans, glass bottles, plastic, cardboard & newspapers can reduce your home’s carbon dioxide emissions by 850 pounds per year.

5.Don’t Give Energy Away
If you caulk & weather-strip around doors & windows to plug up leaks you can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,700 pounds per year.

6.Take the Green Way
Leave your car at home two days a week (walk, bike, take public transit or telecommute) & you can reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by 1,590 pounds per year.

7.Buy Products That Have Earned the Energy Star
Over forty different kind of products now carry the Energy Star - the government-backed symbol for energy efficiency - including lighting, home electronics, heating & cooling equipment & appliances. Right. With Energy Star products you can save thirty percent on your energy bills (about $450 a year).

8.Slow the Flow
When purchasing a new vehicle, consider finding a car that gets more miles to the gallon than your current vehicle, & match the vehicle to your needs. There is more. The potential carbon dioxide reduction for a car that gets 32 miles per gallon is 5,600 pounds per year.

9. Make the Right Move
If you spend hours on the road every day to get to work you could save some significant time & money by moving closer to work & reducing your commute. The carbon dioxide emissions you save are icing on the cake.

10.Be a Turnoff
Turn off your TV, video player, stereo & computer when you are not using them. Turn off your lights when you do not need them & you start saving within a minute or two. Prevent “phantom” energy losses by plugging these devices into a power strip & turning the power strip off when the devices are not in use.

11.Trim Your Load
When you do drive, keep your car tuned up & its tires properly inflated to save on fuel costs as well as reducing carbon dioxide emissions. A tune-up could boost your miles per gallon anywhere from four to forty percent; a new air filter could get you ten percent more miles per gallon. Take your roof rack off your car when you are not using it for many more savings.

12.Keep Your Water Heater Cozy
For a water heater more than five years old, wrapping it in an insulating jacket will result in a 1,000 pounds per year reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Keep your water heater thermostat no higher than 120 degrees F & you can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 550 pounds per year.

In 2006 our family started contemplating the possibilities of living off the grid, producing our own electricity with Renewable Energy sources. Our electricity bill was about $200 a month & it just kept on growing. We knew there was a better way, so we looked at living off the grid. We decided we wanted to find ways of living off the grid mainly for economic reasons but we also wanted to keep the lifestyle we were already living.

We just didn’t want to give up all of our regular household appliances. As we dug deeper it became clear that with a bit of planning & patience & some serious conservation practices we could achieve this goal. It looked like we could be living off the grid within a few months if we worked hard at it.

Thankfully, we already owned a small cottage that we had been planning on moving to in the future anyways. Clear? It was an easy option for us, but there’re a lot of country properties for reasonable prices out there too, if you decide to make this option work for you.

Our property was only forty minutes from town, so there would be no job finding necessary either, just a slightly longer commute to work. We also made arrangements to work from home a couple days a week, so we could enjoy our new found off grid lifestyle.

Years before we had looked at bringing electricity to the cottage, but the hydro authority had told us that it would cost over $14,000 to do so. We didn’t proceed with it because of the high cost. Why would we bring in grid hydro if it would still cost $200 a month & $14,000 just to get it there. Living off the grid now made perfect sense from an economic point of view.

We could use the $14,000 to install Renewable Energy to run our cottage/home. Plus, if we added a conservative 2 years of electricity service expense to the total what would have otherwise been spent on electric bills that’s another $4800.

The total would be $18,800 we could spend on a Renewable Energy system & still be money ahead when compared to bringing in grid electricity. After 2 years we would be money ahead! We would not have to pay electric bills ever again.

We chose solar panels to install in our new home because they were easier to install. We found a great website that offered up tons of advice & really helped with the installation. We wanted to put up a wind generator but we just didn’t have the resources at that point. Later we actually built a wind generator with plans we found. We also had a back room that we could convert into a battery storage area & control room for the inverter, charge controllers etc.

We bought 12 Kyocera solar panels, all of them about 170 watts of power producing capacity. That would give us about 2Kw of production & that was a good start. An electrician friend helped us wire up the system with 16 enormous forklift batteries & an inverter for AC power, all charge controlled & set up in case of lightning too. He said that it happens occasionally & you have to protect your investment, so we did.

We run a DC deep well pump & DC lights directly from the batteries. There is more. The whole house is run from this system & only occasionally do we have to start up the backup generator.

We didn’t have much money when we were done & we still wanted a wind generator, so we decided to build one. And so… So far so good. We found some great plans & all that help-ful solar panel advice at the Living Off the Grid website. And so… So far so good. We could not have done it without them.

We have been living off the grid for over a year now, & we could not have done it without the help-ful folks at the Living Off the Grid website.

Creating an environmentally friendly work place is an excellent investment, achieving significant operating cost reduction, building team spirit & creating a highly desirable employment environment. And we all know that when employee morale improves, turnover decreases & hiring & training costs decrease. Publicized effectively, environmental responsibility will also enhance marketplace image resulting in increased sales & profitability. Market your new green agenda. Employees & customers will be pleased to learn that you care about the environment & are doing your part.

Ten Ways to Improve Workplace Environmental Performance
1. Buy “green” products. Every day we find new, environmentally friendly products which use less materials, reduce waste & reduce energy use. And so… So far so good. We can select compostable waste bags, biodegradable packing peanuts, non-toxic dry-erase markers, recycled plastic products, & more.

2. Use re-manufactured ink & toner cartridges. Remanufactured cartridges are 100% guaranteed & cost less than new cartridges. Each re-manufactured cartridge keeps approximately 2.5lbs of plastic & metal out of landfills & saves about 1/2 gallon of oil.

3. Recycle ink & toner cartridges. Approximately 375 million empty ink jet cartridges are taken to landfill sites every year. Recycling cartridges reduces landfill waste & associated toxins.

4. Use digital storage, not paper files. Print documents on paper when necessary but only when necessary. When hard-copy paper files are necessary, maintain a central file, avoiding individual, personal files.

5. Reduce, reuse & recycle paper. Treat paper as a scarce commodity. Communicate by email rather than creating written notes & faxing or mailing documents. Right. When you must create a paper copy, print on both sides whenever you can, use it as scrap paper & finally recycle it when it can no longer be used or reused. Recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees, almost 7,000 gallons of water & more than 3 cubic yards of landfill space.

6. Buy Energy Star qualified products. Energy Star printers, computers, fax machines, monitors & other office machines can reduce energy use by as much as 75%. Using “standby” or ’sleep mode’ when equipment isn’t in use will reduce energy use & improve the bottom line!

7. Unplug machines that are not in use. Most people are surprised to learn that equipment consumes electricity when plugged in-even when turned off. Use power strips for simplicity & turn them off at days-end & when you take trips.

8. Use compact fluorescent light bulbs. Compact fluorescent light bulbs can save up to 75% of the electricity used by incandescent light bulbs. Fluorescent bulbs last ten times longer than incandescent light bulbs & they fit standard fixtures & deliver natural light.

9. Reduce transportation. Promote public transportation, carpooling & bicycle use by employees. Use teleconferencing or videoconferencing for meetings. Purchase from local suppliers.

10. After reducing your energy consumption as much as possible, consider purchasing an offset. Individuals & businesses can offset greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon credits.

Stan Gassman, BSC Sustainability Services Copyright 2007

Stan Gassman is a co-founder & principal of BSC Sustainability Services, http://www.bscsustainabilityservices.com a consulting company devoted to helping clients increase marketplace value by incorporating sustainability within their culture & operations.

Contact Stan via email, sgassman@bscsustainabilityservices.com

If you were offered an investment with a guaranteed return of 900% a year or 10,000% over its lifetime, with no tax to pay, & which had a positive impact on the world, you would snap it up, right? Well this is the sort of return you can get by installing low energy lighting inside & outside your home.

Let’s look at some of the figures. Energy saving bulbs now cost from around ?1 each. If you replace a bulb that you use for around 3 hours a night, then you save about ?9 a year on your annual electricity bill. Because they last much longer, according to the Energy Saving Trust each low energy light bulb can save you up to ?100 in electricity bills over its lifetime. If you add up all the light bulbs & fittings in your house, this adds up a surprisingly large saving.

Plus the benefits are not just financial. Something as simple as using low energy bulbs can have a big impact on your personal contribution to Climate Change, by reducing the carbon dioxide emissions you’re responsible for. Each bulb on its own will save up to ½ a tonne over its lifetime. If you replace ten old-style bulbs in your house that you use for 2 hours a day with low energy bulbs, you’ll save around a ¼ tonne of carbon dioxide each year.

Finally, low energy light bulbs save you time & effort. Because they last around ten times longer than normal bulbs, when you switch to low energy bulbs you will not have to get the ladder out so often to replace bulbs that have blown.

So why is not virtually everyone making the change to low energy bulbs? Sadly too many of us are creatures of habit, & just carry on purchasing the same bad bulbs we always have. But now with the wide range on offer, & recent developments which have made low energy bulbs perform just as well as old-style bulbs, it makes sense to change all your bulbs straight away.

It does take a little effort to make the switch at first. First you have to go round your house & write down a list of the bulbs you currently use ? including wattage (60w, 100w etc.), type of fixture (screw, bayonet etc), size & colour (e.g. are they toned?)

Next you have to work out the wattage for a low energy bulb that matches the wattage of your current bulbs (for example a twenty watt low energy bulb gives off the same light as a 100 watt old-style bulb). You can find simple tables that can assist you do this on the Internet at sites like downwithco2.com.

Once you have worked out the bulbs you really need to buy, you can then go shopping. Do you follow? There’re many retailers of low energy bulbs on the Internet, or now they’re commonly available in supermarkets or hardware stores.

Plus you can also save a lot of money by installing more energy efficient lighting outdoors. Just a few outdoor lights left on each night can double your household lighting bill & your greenhouse gas emissions. There is more. The best solution is to fit daylight & movement sensors so outdoor lights switch on when they areneeded, but do not waste electricity. This also improves your home’s security, as you can tell when some one is approaching the house.

For outdoor lights that must stay on for long periods, use energy efficient, compact fluorescent or LED lamps & select the lowest wattage lamp that gives enough light. In the garden, you can now buy solar powered garden lights that use no mains electricity & so produce no emissions when used. Plus you do not need to wire up your garden to get lighting.

So now you have seen all the benefits of low energy lighting, it really does make sense to make the switch as soon as you can.

Alex Perry is a founder of DownwithCO2.co.uk, which helps people cut their personal contribution to climate change through providing information & contacts.

Outdoor cooking on the barbecue & smoker is now becoming a serious leisure pastime. Certainly in England where the weather isn’t altogether reliable, the advent of wonderful contraptions such as umbrellas & patio heaters has made outdoor cooking an very pleasurable recreation. In fact so much so that you will see people lighting the barbecue in all weathers ? a funny lot those English!

Speaking as one of that ‘funny lot’, an very enthusiastic fan of outdoor cooking & now a creator & purveyor of outdoor bbq recipes & free smoker recipes I thought is was I myself did some research into the subject of my chosen fuel of fun.

What concerns me is that I am thoroughly enjoying myself lighting fires, grilling fish & steaks & washing it all down with a glass or two of the falling down water & yet I must be damaging the environment, mustn’t I? Charcoal comes from wood, so with all these barbecues there must be serious deforestation going on followed by greater transport costs to ship it from further afield & less trees to absorb the carbon dioxide greenhouse gas.

So in the spirit of my own education & learning I wanted to find out about how charcoal is made & as a result I have found out about the process of coppicing.

Coppicing is the cutting of a tree or shrub to ground level. Doing this stimulates the tree to sprout a number of new shoots & they grow very vigorously. Coppicing could be described as similar to pruning except that with coppicing all the wood is removed & not just a few branches. By cutting the tree or shrub to the ground, all dead, diseased & old wood gets removed & that can be put to good use. The tree now free of disease is able to grow as fast as possible & this makes for a thicker plant that is also better for wildlife.

Coppicing is carried out in cycles from one year to many years depending on the species of tree & what the wood is going to be used for. This means that a variety of coppicing activity will be taking place in a wood thereby ensuring the continuation of the ecology & an ongoing supply of wood.

Coppiced trees can survive for many centuries & perhaps one of the most astonishing facts about the English countryside is that very often the oldest trees are those that have been cut down the most! Add to this the fact that because it is sustainable there’re not truckloads of charcoal pounding the roads, it really is a local industry.

So now I can write my free smoker recipes for your enjoyment safe in the knowledge that outdoor cooking on the charcoal BBQ grill can remain my chosen method of relaxation & recreation.

Please note that this article isn’t a statement of scientific fact; it is merely a way of absolving me of guilt at lighting a fire. Of course we need to be very careful whenever the earth’s natural resources are consumed & I work on the principle that the cooking process itself is no more or less environmentally unfriendly that turning on the stove or the oven. Of course I maybe wrong but at least I feel happier knowing that I am not contributing to serious deforestation.

Not all charcoal is produced the way I’ve described above so please be very careful when purchasing charcoal to check that it does indeed come from a sustainable source.

Free Smoker Recipes Free barbecue grill recipes & meat smoker cooking ideas on gas, charcoal or electric.

Easy Barbecue Recipes - Outdoor grilling tips, easy fire pit menus, healthy rotisserie suggestions, best homemade bbq sauce recipes.

Smoker Grill Recipes - Easy recipes for the smoker grill with tips & techniques for a happy cookout.

Hot water straight from the sun may sound too good to be true, but even in the UK a solar hot water system can supply you with over fifty percent of your hot water needs over the year (the other fifty percent coming from a conventional gas boiler or electric heater). With recent high energy prices, & concerns about Climate Change, more & more people are looking to take advantage of this tried & tested technology to save energy in their home.

A solar hot water system works by capturing the sun’s heat with solar panels fitted to your roof. This transfers the heat to a fluid, which in turn transfers the heat to a hot water cylinder to store the heated water during the day.

A surprisingly large amount of energy can be captured this way, even in cooler climates like the UK. Over 1000 kwh of energy is received each year in the UK on each square  metre of surface. That’s about 60% of the solar radiation found at the equator. Even on cloudy days we receive energy from indirect sun light & this energy replaces the gas or electricity that would otherwise be used to heat water. Altogether this adds up to a big saving on fuel, & a big benefit for the environment. Each solar hot water system saves around ½ to three-quarters of a ton of carbon dioxide each year

Solar hot water is usually the most cost effective renewable energy system you can install at home, with a shorter payback than other options, e.g. wind or solar electricity generation. The payback is improved even more by the government grants that are available in the UK.

It is also a tried & tested technology that has been around since the 1970s. Very little maintenance is generally required for solar hot water systems. There is more. They normally come with a ten year guarantee. They generally only need a basic check by you once a year & a check by a professional every 3-5 years.

Before you decide to move ahead with the purchase of a solar hot water system you really need to check that your property is suitable. You’ll need 2 to 5 square  metres of southish facing roof space (i.e. southeast, south, or southwest facing), that has little or no shading during the day. You may also need space to locate an additional hot water cylinder if it’s needed. Solar hot water systems generally work well in partnership with condensing boilers. There is more. They do not generally work well with combination boiler systems. Clear? Installation with these usually involves extra cost.

Installation costs vary due to factors such as size of the solar panels, type of roof, the existing hot water system & where your house is. There is more. The typical installation costs are between ?2,000 & ?5,000, even though you can get many hundred pounds in grants from the UK Government to help with these. The cheapest systems are generally those based closely on ‘flat plate collectors’, which will cost between ?2,000 & ?3,000. Another type of system (an ‘evacuated tube’ system) generally costs ?3,500 to ?5,000, but needs less roof space to provide the same amount of water heating, because it’s more efficient. An installer will often help you decide which type of system is best for you.

If you’re interested in installing a system, you should contact a reputable installer to carry out a survey of your home, & get a quote. They will be easily able to assess your property’s suitability, advise you on which system is best, give you a quote & help you with grant funding. Before you can qualify for grant funding from the UK government for a system like this, you really need to have already installed some basic energy efficiency measures in your home, such as low energy light bulbs, insulation & efficient heating controls.

Alex Perry is a founder of DownwithCO2.co.uk, which helps people cut their personal contribution to climate change through providing information & contacts.