Part #1 of several.

A few years ago I met a couple sailors who powered their boat’s batteries with a few small solar panels. I was amazed at the fact they they never needed to plug their boat into shore power or bring their batteries home to charge them. They ran a few lights, a couple fans and a small water heater off of their solar charged batteries. The whole idea of a wind powered boat that does not consume gas unless they are leaving their dock and the fact that they used solar power really impressed me. When I asked them the cost of the panels they grinned and mumbled something about stealing them from other boats. At this point I knew that I was going to search for solar power but I would do so at a store and not by acting like a pirate.

My first solar powered item was a “solar shower”, basically thick black plastic bag that attracts the sun and heats the water. We spent $10.00 each for three of these solar showers and use them when we go camping on our sailboat. The bags have a time and temperature chart so you can predict how long it will take to heat your shower water. On more then one occasion we learned that the water can get hot enough to burn you if you leave it out in the sun for to long. So far these bags have lasted for about 4 years without any signs of wear. You can purchase these at any camping or outdoors store, I purchased mine at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

I started searching for solar power last week so I can actually use it to charge and run electrical items. It seems like the Solio charger (see above ad) is the hottest item on the internet now. You can plug your cell phones or other small items into it and charge your toys for free! The company claims that the charger will store the charge in an internal battery and the charge is good for about a year. Once the Solio reaches a full charge it can charge an average cell phone twice before you need to recharge it. Along with cell phones it will charge most other small electronic products like ipods, gps’ and cameras. The Solio solar charger earns a high spot on my wish list and hopefully I will buy one in the next couple of weeks. A few stores are starting to carry the Solio solar charger but you can save money buying directly from them with a coupon: Take 10% of at Solio.com today! Use coupon code: EcoGift10

I am also looking into larger solar panels for my home however the investment can range from $500-$5000 depending on the brand name and the amount of watts. I found a nice 4 panel solar system on Amazon that consist of 4 panels at 15 watts each for a total of 60 watts. After doing a little research I found that the same wattage can be achieved with only one panel but the cost increases quite a bit. Today I found a website that promotes green solar power and he has some good information on state and federal rebates for solar power. If I can get solar power and money back then I want to make sure that I pay attention to the details and small print. If you are looking for solar power, you might want to check out these rebates at The Off Grid Home.

Stay tuned for part two as I explore solar power for my home.

For the second part of this please see: Searching for solar power part two

Since today was good Friday and my kids did not have school we decided to go into Boston to the science museum. Armed with my camera I was hoping for some nice pictures for this blog, as you can see I failed. One of the images that I wanted to capture was the no water urinals in the men’s room. The sign above them claimed that each one can save 40,000 gallons of water per year. 40,000 gallons of water times 15 (wild guess) urinals is incredible! On three occasions I tried to take a picture but people kept coming into the bathroom. When I finally thought I was alone, someone made some noise in one of the stalls. I can’t imagine what they were thinking if they saw me with a camera in my hand and I didn’t want to stay around to find out. I don’t think that the police would believe me it I said that I was taking pictures of the urinals to post on a green site.

The water fountains at the Museum of Science also had a sign claiming that they save 15,000 or 20,000 gallons of water a year. They had some sort of motion sensing devise that would make them turn on when you bent down for a drink. I can’t figure out how a motion device saves water compared to someone having to hold down the button. If the end result is a savings of around 100,000 gallons for a large public building then it gets my thumbs up. Imagine if every public urinal and water fountain used these types of products.

I Googled “green urinal” and Google suggests “green urine”, this might explain why not many people are marketing water saving urinals as green urinals. On the same token a “green water fountain” might make people think of green scummy pond water. While water saving products are green products, I think that they will stick to marketing them as “water saving products”.