Kill-A-Watt

Our Tuesday group has been studying energy for a while now. We first looked at worldwide energy use, then carbon, then light bulbs, and now we are settled on energy in the home. Our goal: a 10% reduction in our energy bills (gas and electric) by next year at this time. First, we looked at how energy use is distributed in our homes, and we examined our gas and electric bills. We started with the chart above, from Energy Star.


Now we're trying to figure out how much energy we use in the various appliances in our homes, such as our refrigerators, computers, washing machines, etc. Our group has 2 Kill-A-Watts, above, which we are passing around and using all around our homes. You plug it into your wall socket, plug your device in, and it will tell you how many watts the device is using. The results can be surprising, as you can see in this video.

Another rain barrel class

On Saturday, March 1, we conducted another rain barrel presentation, this time at the Clinton-Macomb Public Library. We didn't build a barrel at this one, only talked about them and brought one along so everyone could see it. It was a small but very interested group, and the size made for great discussions.

On another topic, I ran across this cartoon today while reading the No Impact Man blog, and thought you would all appreciate it. Credit for the cartoon goes to Eric Lewis of Cartoon Bank.