Not too long ago I noticed that some of the food in our refrigerator had started freezing a little.  Nothing too bad, just a little glaze of ice.  It took me a couple of minutes to realize that someone had adjusted the temperature settings in both the freezer and refrigerator to the coldest settings.
I quizzed [...]

A few years ago, my wife and I remodeled a 40 year old house and in the process I added 24 recessed can lights.  The house, built in the late 60’s and with an addition in the early 70’s had very light natural light and not much overhead lighting.
My bright idea was to add a [...]

Today’s post will be short, but will cover a part of the house we usually don’t think about in regards to energy efficiency.  It’s your attic access.  If your attic access is located inside the interior of your home and is uninsulated, you essentially have a hole in your ceiling allowing conditioned air from the [...]

My dog has clawed a hole in the gate on the side of the house.  I’ve had to put a big tire in front of the gate to cover up the hole.  On top of that I placed an upside down bright red recycling bin.  The neighbors are very happy.
What does this have to do [...]

About a month ago, I wrote about helping a friend add cellulose insulation to his attic.  It is a very reasonable weekend project, depending on the size of your house and your willingness to take on new projects.  The price was also much less than I anticipated.
If you have a sufficient amount of attic insulation [...]

Here’s a simple step you can take to make an impact on the temperature in your home — Make sure your thermostat isn’t close to a heat source such as lamps, space heaters, windows, etc.  These heat sources can cause your thermostat to think the house is warmer than it really is and keep the [...]

Now that we’re firmly into Spring, I thought it would be good to focus on a tactic that many of us don’t use enough — turning off the A/C unit in the Spring time until you absolutely need to turn it on.  
I’ll admit that I like to have a cool house in summer.  The thought [...]

If you’re like me, you may have a tendency to skip out on a few maintenance issues on your car, especially if its currently running well.  Over time, however, this can impact not only the ability of your car to run properly, but also your fuel economy.
Below are several maintenance tips from www.fueleconomy.gov that will [...]

Right now in the back of my gas guzzling SUV (hey, it’s paid for — my next car will be much more fuel efficient) is the following:
Battery powered drill, tools, three camp chairs left over from the kids soccer games, various sports equipment, clothes.  And that’s just what I can think of right now.
All of [...]

I’ve been intrigued for a few years with the concept of running diesel powered cars with used vegetable oil recycled from restaurants.  It works like this:
The car starts up using normal diesel fuel from the regular tank.  After warming up, the system switches to 100% vegetable oil.  After reaching its destination, the car must purge the [...]