The session started with Tracey Allen giving an overview of her passive solar house, its performance, as well as, some tips to incorporate free solar energy into existing homes.  A copy of her Passive Solar Presentation is here.

Next presenter was Darcie Lanthier who provided an overview of an energy audit, noting the importance as a first step in any new energy diet or review.
The review covered everything from your insulation using blower door testing, infrared red imaging to see your cold spots or where the wind blows in, electricity usage, water usage and recommendations to improve those areas to save you money.  Interestingly she noted that the age of your house has a huge impact on its insulation value depending on 2x4 studs, 2.x6 studs etc and how well they insulated.  

A energy modeling software she recommended is free from Natural Resources called HOT2000  and a ton of other software you might be interested in. 

Interested in having someone else do your energy audit: The Office of Energy Efficiency
31 Gordon Drive, PO Box 2000
Charlottetown, PE C1A 7N8
Ph: (902) 620-3690; toll-free: 1-877-734-6336
Fax: (902) 620-3796

Grant MacDonald of www.solarenergyworks.ca spoke next on both the solar hot air heater that he built himself for his house - see pictures at the right.  It worked great for this winter.  Then he gave an overview of each of his solar hot water systems that he sells and how they worked. 

Great presentations all around and lots of information to consider in reducing your housing energy costs.

Went to Jonesport, Maine for a weekend to learn about solar panels and solar electricity and came home with a solar battery charger kit (to finish at home) and a completed solar cell phone charger. Photo at the left is a broken solar cells cut to make one string and being tested to see if they are drawing electricity from the cloudy day (and yes they certainly did) to use in the solar batter recharger that Darcie is showing at the top. That bottom photo is me holding my just finished solar cell phone charger...that was pulling in 6.6 volts when tested even on a very cloudy day...still enough to charge a cell phone in a couple of hours.

I learned about a lot of very interested projects that Dr. Komp is doing worldwide, creating great business opportunities for third world countries and helping those at low income create a living for their families or how to generate their own power. 
Hoping to have a seminar on PEI to teach people how to do these projects too and trust me if I can learn than anyone can! These projects were done with broken solar cells so that made them cheap and a great recycle project. I'm now looking into suppliers so if you know of any let me know.

I hosted a session on Saturday titled: Sustainable Living - Working Towards a Prepared and Frugal Future.  It was fun and I'm hopeful that the attendees garnered a few tips to help them in working toward a more sustainable life. 

During our 'conversation' it came up that I don't have a conventional stove - drawing gasps from several women in attendance.  The first words they said were, "how do you cook a turkey?'.  My reply - I use a roaster that can sit on my counter for the three days a year that I cook a turkey dinner.  And that started on the topic of fitting your needs not everyone elses.  What works for me is a Breville Smart Oven ($200), a Salton Induction Cooker hotplate ($80), a double hotplate ($30), a slow cooker ($30), a griddle ($40), and a roaster oven ($50) on occassion. If you bake all the time and use your full oven then, of course that works for you.  I bake small quanitities so my smart oven fits the bill while reducing my costs (a stove with induction cooktop costs at least $1,500) and reduces my electricity costs as less space to heat equals less cost to heat it up.  It was also interesting that a gentleman in attendance came to tell me that his stove just broke and he was wrestling with the cost to replace it...he lives alone and said what you have is ideal for me. :-)

The challenge is to 'get out of the box' and think for yourself.  What are your needs and what works for those needs? Re-think and don't be constrained by the 'box.' When we built our house 'everyone' was doing in-floor heating and I can't tell you how many people said, "you are making a mistake."  With a passive solar house you rely on the floor to take in the heat, so logically if you are already heating it you defeat that purpose and waste your money.  Now if you had oil heat, than maybe that would make sense.  And my favourite - you have to have a tub for re-sale value, 'everyone' has a tub.  Well I don't take baths and hate to wash a tub or even get in a tub to take a shower, yes we have had the all in one - horrible to clean and I don't like to clean more than I need to, especially bathrooms.  We opted for a walk in shower made of tile, no doors to clean, no shower curtain...I love it! It works for me.  I reduce my cleaning time and happily take a shower, and when if I'm ever in a wheelchair I can just roll in it, without doing a total remodel of my bathroom. 

Clearly - where you spend and where you can cut waste is unique to you.  Don't confine your thinking to what 'everyone' else does, look at smart options that fit your needs and you will be happier and most likely waste less time and money.  

Here it is middle of January 2013, we moved in July 2012.  The summer was a nice comfortable 70F or 20C.  And our winter to date has been fanastic with the lowest recorded temperature as 60F or 15C and usually this occurs in the early morning before the sun comes up for the day.  The days that the sun is shining it will reach 80F or 25C by noon...and if the sun stays out consistently then we are looking at a very hot afternoon like 90F+ or 30C+.  This might seem like a problem but we simply open the windows and let the fresh winter air in to get the temperature down to a comfortable range.  On days that it isn't sunny we decide on a case by case basis whether we will put on a small wood fire....since anymore than small and we again have a 90F+/30C+ situation.  We have concluded that the number one important feature of our house is our solid seal - read no drafts! What we have learned from our Passive solar house is that how solid your exterior walls are make all the difference when keeping your heat in (we are very pleased with ICF - Insulated Concrete Form walls)....not everyone is building but this product could be for those renovating to insulate http://www.quiktherm.com/ NOTE I've not tried it and don't endorse it but saw it and thought what a great idea for those who aren't building but renovating.
 

Details and background can be found here http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/BermedICF/BermedICF.htm

Update: Update: Our electricity this month (October bill) was $85.59 including the $26.92 service fee so energy use was 453 kwh (we believe we can get this down further). Since moving in July 19th - we have used our wood stove 5 times and 2
of those were to test the new woodstove with once to re-heat our house after our son decided at 6pm in the evening while we were out to open some windows he was hot - then left the house, not realizing that you can't just turn on the furnace! :-) The other two were after three days of cloudy weather.  Today, November 21st we woke up to a house of 60F or 15C and now at 8:20am it is almost 70F with the sun shining.  Weather today outside "Issued : 5:00 AM AST Wednesday 21 November 2012 Today Clear. Becoming a mix of sun and cloud this morning. Fog patches inland early this morning. Wind northeast 20 km/h becoming light this morning. High 6C. (around 40F)" 

We are very happy with our building choice. Building a Passive Solar House: My Experience Shared

Usually I talk food but when you are simplifying and saving, there are many areas to save or in this case eliminate waste of money and environmental resources.  We love our children and they love us but sometimes they just don't understand the power of waste and neither do we at times.  Waste in many forms results in lost resources and money. We have been trying to stop the waste and here are a few ways we feel we have succeeded....feel free to add to the list via comments since I know there are way more than 10.

# 1 - Hot Water/Showers - Heat is one of our highest costs and if you don't have to pay the bill then the more heat the better.  So why not take a nice long hot shower, not once but maybe twice or more a day. What is the big deal  - ah wasted water and wasted heat and both cost money/resources! I'm happy to report we try to limit our time in the shower to what is necessary...and an occassional treat of a little longer one.  That said my son has discovered that cold water showers are actually healthier for you - yeah! And he may be on to something check out this link 7 Healthy Benefits for Cold Shower or hydrotherapy.

#2 House Heating - Heat for our housing was also a biggie.  Now in Canada the winters can be cold and most people heat with oil, gas or electric (some passive solar and/or wood too).  Picture this: teenage son in his room and he flicks up the heat since it is 'freezing in here' he says as he is dressed in only boxer shorts.  Before he goes to bed he opens his window (February of course), since he needs fresh air and heat.  Yep - it happens, been there...but not any more - we live in a passive solar house so there is no heating to waste, at least that we pay for....he can open the window in February but then he will have to put on a sweater....moo ha ha. 

#3 Food Waste - From my experience our families really want short order cooks in the kitchen 24 hours a day.  Want and need are two different things and while my mother told me if you don't like what we are eating, you can make a peanut butter sandwich - I thought I will encourage my children to cook.  And they are very good at cooking, I might add, one is a chef and other one could be if he wanted.  Now while this is a great skill for them to the have when they move out, not so great for when they live home.  Why you ask? Well now they don't eat what we eat (telling you after you made it), they also cook at any time of the day.....creating a greater potential for food waste.  Leftovers present the greatest problem for food waste...that and having your fridge so full you can't see what you have.  We are working on this one but leftovers are few and far between now, and we buy enough for a few days rather than fill the fridge all at once.  Article on from CBC on wasted food.

#4 Electric Waste - It seems so small but it can sure add up leaving things plugged in.  Ipods, computer cords, phone chargers and the list goes on and on. It is called phantom load check out this article on it. Now if the cord is attached to the device ok but most of the time you find the plug in the wall with no device to be seen in sight.  Another awesome resource is Maritime Electric's house tour - very informative and nicely done.

#5 Leaving appliances/lights on - Have you ever left home and returned to find that every light is on in the house (Lights are on but no one is home!) - oh and no one is home.  In our new house we put in motion sensor outdoor lights so if you aren't within a certain area they don't turn on.  Great savings.   

#6 Overuse of Appliances - Here is a good news/bad news type of situation.  Son washes his own clothes - yes! Then removes one shirt and turns the dryer on a full load....not so good.  For months we played the mom unplugs the dryer since she doesn't use it, while son plugs it back in to touch up his shirts so they are warm! New house has no dryer - problem solved. :-)  Another good one is using the stove's oven part to heat up a few fries rather than the toaster oven. If the appliance is heat based then this has the potential to create wasted energy use...of which you pay for.  We found that when we starting fitting the use to the appliance that we didn't actually use the oven much sold it with the house and bought a Breville Smart Oven - love it and it is easier on electricity.

#7 Buying stuff you don't need - This is a hard one.  We have struggled and although we are getting better, it is difficult. We found asking the following helped: 1) Do I need it or want it? need buy, want no.  2) Do I have something else already that can be fixed or altered to work? yes - don't buy, no-buy. 3) Can you borrow it, if it only a temporary or one time use such as equipment? Yes -then borrow, no - consider renting and if you need it then buy 4) Can you get it at a lower price? or Get it second hand? Yes then do it.  etc. You get the idea.  The next very useful thing we did was become accountable to each other on our spending by writing it down - this saved some purchases! We also found in our new house that we intentionally limited our storage space so that we wouldn't be tempted to get 'stuff' since now we also had to think - where will it go?

#8 Banking - Banksters was a term I saw that made me laugh - Best advice - question everything and review everything, yes they do make mistakes.  Consolidate your banking accounts (chequing) to one joint account since you will save time and money by reducing your service fees.  Look closely at your savings vs your interest being paid.  One person told me they have money taken off each cheque to go into a Canadian savings bond but they have a balance they pay interest on their credit card.  You earn 1% on the savings bond if you hold it for a year while you pay 8%-30% on the outstanding credit card balance - pay down the debt on the credit card makes more sense.  Pay off your loans/mortgages as fast as you can - Mort (Death) - Gage(Pledge) or Death Pledge to translate your mortage. 

#9 Transportation - It would be lovely to own an electric car powered by renewable energy, however that costs money and we will save for it.  In the meantime we are very good to group our trips and map out our errands to save on gas/mileage.  Bike, walk and car pool where we can too.  It all adds up.

#10 Housing - smaller is easy to heat, clean, maintain, and prevents accumulating stuff! We downsized from 2,600 square feet to 1,600 square feet to our now 1,200 square feet house.  Three bedrooms and 1 bathroom, all I need to clean :-)

So tell me - what are you doing to save money and the environment since they seem to be related :-)