This month we are giving away a fabulous solar and wind power combination charging system which straps to your bicycle to provide totally green and portable power for recharging your gadgets on the move.
The HYmini Deluxe pack includes a wind-powered charger plus a mini Solar Panel attachment so you can catch some rays as well. Connect your iPod, cell phone or digital camera to the built-in USB port and begin charging ’till the cows come home.

HyMini Deluxe Giveaway

The HYmini Deluxe Comes with a Solar Panel for Extra Charging!

Charge Your Gadgets with the HYmini Wind Turbine

We're Throwing in a Bicycle Clamp Too!

You can earn bonus points in the following ways (Be sure to let us know which bonuses you use in your comment);

• LEAVE A COMMENT TO ENTER: Just leave a comment against this post and you will be entered to win a HYmini Deluxe
• RETWEET THIS CONTEST: Simply retweet our contest on Twitter be sure to let us know in your comment!
  = +1 point
• SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the Our Everyday Earth Newsletter
  = +1 point

Enter your email address:

• PRIZE: A HYmini Deluxe solar and wind power charger and the HYmini bicycle mount (Approximate value $75.00)
• GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Tuesday, August 31st 2010 at 8pm CST
• NUMBER OF WINNERS: One – picked at random using random.org
• PRIZE SHIPS: USA or Canada
• THE USUAL: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. In the event of a tie the winner(s) will be selected using random.org and announced on Wednesday 1st September 2010. Good luck!

More Competition Info…

You can read all of our competition policies here; COMPETITION POLICIES

I haven’t posted for a long time so I felt that this weekend should be somewhat of a catchup session for my green blogging!

A discussion around the coffee pot at work led me to today’s post topic, a company called Prairie Turbines was recommended to me by a colleague and after researching their products I decided to wax lyrical about the great work they are doing to make wind power affordable.

Prairie Turbines - Making Wind Power Affordable

Prairie Turbines sell all the parts you need to setup a wind turbine and start your journey towards an “off the grid” lifestyle

http://www.prairieturbines.com/purchase.htm

The main advantages which make the Prairie Turbines much more affordable to buy and operate are as follows;

• Built With Off-the-Shelf Components
• Rugged Efficient Blade Design
• Requires No Batteries, No Inverter
• Grid Ready!!
• Easy to Build and Maintain
• 100 Pages – Step by Step Details Assembly and Installation instructions for DIY installs

(more…)

This month’s post is simply a wonderful collection of solar panel installations in everyday homes. Hopefully one day in the not too distant future we will all have wind and solar power in our homes.

Number 1: A Wonderful French Home with a Huge Solar Array;

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/trebosc/

French Home Solar Install 1

The Solar Panels Being Installed

The Finished Installation

Number 2: A Small But Super Green Home in L.A.:

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/clownfish/

Before the Solar Installation

Solar Install Completed - 100% Solar Energy!

Number 3: A Self Sufficient Log Cabin – Solar Powered:

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/44244119@N08/

Log Cabin Solar Panels

Log Cabin Solar Panels - Off The Grid

Number 4: A Green Wedge Potton House:

This wooden timber construction home by Potton is green through and through

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikehales/

Green Wedge Shaped Home with Solar Array

The Green Stripe is Very Fitting!

The Home Has a Solar Well for Extra Light

Number 5: Suburban Home With Solar Panels Cut to Fit:

Proof that solar panels can be designed into any roof line….

images from http://www.flickr.com/photos/silas216/

Solar Panels Cut to Fit

We hope you were inspired by our list of home solar installations, we tried to include different examples from normal homes to the more modern super eco designs.

Let’s all go solar!

Our Christmas celebrations were very much green themed this year and I received numerous green gifts! One of my favorites is the Solio Classic-i solar charger battery which my wife bought me.

My Solio Classic-i Solar Charger Battery

The Solio Classic-i has an internal Lithium Ion 1650 mAh battery which can hold a charge for up to 1 year. It has three solar panels which fold out into a three blade design.
(more…)

It’s that time of year again when the Christmas tree lights come out of storage and houses all across America are aglow with festive decorative lighting. This year with advances in LED lighting I wondered how much energy could be saved using LED decorating.

**Note: This post sparked some debate so I have edited it to include some real world numbers from our own holiday decorating last year. We used incandescent bulbs last year and I had no idea how much energy they would be using. I will be using figures for LED bulbs from www.HolidayLEDs.com for my calculations.

LED Decorating Can Equal Huge Energy Savings

I found myself asking… How much energy could we save using LED lights for decorating our house?

We have been using the Berkeley Institute of the Environment carbon footprint calculator to track our average ecological impact and our progress is shown below. When we started tracking our carbon footprint back in March 2009 we assessed that our household produced a shocking 68 tons of CO2 per year, this is equivalent to 158 barrels of oil in energy and would require managing 13 acres of forest to offset!

This was simply un-acceptable in our eyes. We purchased our current home 2 years ago, it is an older home and needed lots of upgrades to make it more energy efficient.

Our Carbon Footprint Back in March 2009 shown below…

Our Carbon Footprint in March 2009

Back in March when I saw these results I decided to really commit to reducing our household energy consumption and check our progress at the end of the year… (more…)

#1
Wind turbines silently turn as the sun sets on the first full day of Spring.

Wind Turbines Silently Turning Together

(more…)