Take control of your heating. Consider turning down the thermostat controlling the temperature of your room or house by 1°C. You will have either a single control at a central position such as in the hall, or thermostats attached to the individual heaters or radiators. Read the rest of this entry »
Turn down the temperature of your hot water at the central heating boiler, at the immersion tank (if your water is heated by electricity), or on your instant water heater. Don’t waste energy heating water only to have to add cold water so that it is not too hot to use! 60°C / 140°F should do it. Read the rest of this entry »
Select the correct saucepan size for the heating element or gas flame.
Cut food into small pieces before cooking — it will cook more quickly.
Put a lid on top of the pan when you can; your meal will cook much more quickly, and you won’t be wasting energy. Read the rest of this entry »
Renewable energy is energy produced by a source that continually renews itself. Well-known sources are the sun, moving water, wind and plant materials. This energy can be used for space heating and hot water heating, and to produce electricity for your home. Read the rest of this entry »
About 20 percent of the energy used in the home goes to heat water. If your water heater feels warm to the touch, it probably needs to be insulated. Fiberglass blankets for water heaters are available in kits at most hardware and building supply stores, or you can use leftover insulation. Just remember not to cover the top of a gas water heater or you’ll block the air to the flue. Also, be careful not to block the airflow to the gas burner at the bottom of the heater. Read the rest of this entry »
Apart from the shutter release, film winder, focusing and exposure controls, even the simplest cameras have a few additional knobs and switches that are either safety devices or provide an extra degree of control. Used correctly they may not only make picture taking more reliable but can also increase the versatility of the camera.
Here’s how to use the extras most commonly found on modern cameras, and in some cases what you can do if your own camera lacks them. Read the rest of this entry »
When you open the back of a camera to change the film, look inside and then press the shutter release. As the shutter opens the aperture can be seen beyond it. This shows more clearly if you look through the front of the lens or, on a camera with interchangeable lenses, take the lens off and look through that. Turn the aperture control and the size of the aperture will alter within the lens as you change the settings.
As the size of the aperture changes, so does the brightness of the light allowed through the lens. Aperture size, and therefore brightness, is controlled by the iris diaphragm, made up of a number of thin, interleaving blades which rotate to make the aperture larger or smaller. Making it smaller (stopping down the lens) reduces the amount of light reaching the film; increasing the size allows more light through. Read the rest of this entry »
The lens illustrated is the type usually fitted to an SLR camera. It encompasses more or less the same view you see with one eye closed. The information on the front of the lens gives its focal length (50mm), maximum aperture (f2), maker’s name, brand name, and serial number. The side view shows scales for focusing, aperture setting and depth of field.
Modern lenses are made up from several glass elements ground to a precise shape and mounted inside a tube. Read the rest of this entry »
As with any other kind of solar heating, solar water heaters are at an advantage when planned for a new home, because the design can incorporate them efficiently.
In the passive house at lower right, for example, the water heater’s design benefited from the house’s design flexibility, and vice versa, to their mutual advantage. The dormer on which the collectors are mounted lifts the roofline of the house, allowing extra headroom in the second-floor family room behind it. Read the rest of this entry »
Clothes dryers accomplish their task by furnishing heated air in large volumes to the interior of a rotating drum where the clothes are tumbled and tossed while being exposed to the passing air. For the clothes dryer to work, the machine needs a source of heat, tumbling capability, large volumes of fresh air, and the ability to remove large amounts of moisture-laden air from the interior of the dryer cabinet. Read the rest of this entry »
