Solarized Life

The switch to living a personal or business life based on clean energy may seem daunting and unattainable at first. We hope that with the following advice, you will be better prepared and will find the switch much easier than you could have imagined.

1.) Turn off your lights! Open your blinds, drapes and curtains.

2.) Install water and energy conserving appliances and light bulbs within your home.

3.) For a Healthier You as well as Healthier Planet ride a bike or walk.

4.) Turn off your computer, TV and other electrical appliances rather than letting them “sleep” when away for longer than 20 mins.

5.) Using a cold water cycle can save up to 80 percent of the energy required to wash laundry.

6.) Wrap your water heater in insulation and reduce your output by about 1000-pounds of Co2 a year.

7.) Turn off your engine if stuck in traffic, by a train or even at a drive-thru resturant. Restarting takes less gas after about 30 seconds than sitting idle.

8.) Install a water conserving showerhead and take a short shower instead of a bath.

9.) Rid yourself of the plastic bottles and try a BPA-free aluminum bottle. Get your own Solarized Life SIGG Waterbottle now!

10.) Reset your thermostat from 72 degrees to 65 degrees for eight hours a day and cut your heating bill by up to 10 percent.



Wind turbines are quickly becoming one of the most effective sustainable energy sources available today. Capable of providing up to 900 Watts an hour in a 12 mph wind, a small farm of 5-6 Wind Turbines can power a regular size home. With the rising costs of fossil fuels, other means of powering our homes, businesses and job sites must be found and wind turbines are one of the most promising choices.

A Sunforce 44447 900W Whisper Wind Turbine mounted on a Sunforce 44455 Wind Generator 30′ Tower Kit can make a rather large dent in a continuously increasing power bill. Areas that receive many windy days can benefit greatly from small, strategically placed wind farm of 5-6 pole mounted wind turbines. You can check your area’s average wind speed at First Look or the U.S. Department of Energy. Even with a less then fair wind, a decent wind turbine can generate enough energy that it would help reduce your overall energy costs.

Some cities require you to have a permit for installation of a wind turbine which you can find information about at your local department of licenses and permits. The question on whether or not homeowners should be required to purchase a permit to install a wind turbine is a hot subject in many areas. With the governmental attempt to switch America to sustainable energy sources, this problem with permits and the installation of personal wind turbines may become more regulated.You can help to solve this problem by contacting a local wind turbine professional installer that can help you with the proper paperwork as well as the installation.

There are many governmental incentives to help home and business owners to make the switch to more sustainable energy sources, including wind turbines. You can find the many incentives you can receive for purchasing wind turbines or solar panels for your building at DSIRE.org. These incentives can help to make your purchase and installation of a small wind turbine farm half of what it would otherwise cost.

Another financial reason to install a small wind turbine farm is the income to be made by selling your extra, unused power to your local electric company. Many electric companies are finding that more and more of their customers are demanding sustainable energy sources. These companies are desperate to find ways to fulfill this desire, one of their major choices is purchasing excess power from owners of small wind turbine farms. Not only can installation of a few Sunforce 900W Whisper wind turbines reduce your monthly power bill but they can also become quite the turn around if you produce any extra power.

Using wind energy to power your home or business by installing a small wind turbine farm of 5-6 wind turbines can greatly reduce your monthly electricity bill. The economic, personal finance and environmental reasons for installing a wind turbine farm are numerous. With the continuously higher costs of fossil fuels, installing a small wind turbine farm is one of the most promising low-cost, small-scale choices.

5 Reasons to Install a Wind Turbine Farm –

• Wind turbines reduce your monthly energy costs
• Wind turbines reduce your carbon footprint
• Wind turbine installation creates local jobs
• Wind turbines contribute to a Green Economy
• Wind turbine farms can make money

Great Tool for Anyone Under the Sun!

The Solar Pathfinder is the greatest Solar Tool ever encountered!
This nifty tool allows one to calculate a site’s Sun and Shade times accurately for up to a year. It requires no power and very little know-how. Just put it in the middle of an area trace the obstructions that show up on the orb’s surface and consult the diagrams.

Many have used the Solar Pathfinder to place the obvious solar panels, but they have gone far beyond that. Satisfied owners have reported using this tool to place garden beds, pool areas, beehives, birdfeeders, gazebos and just about any job where the sun’s position may be involved. If you were really crazy about this tool and how it works, you could choose a spot for your beach blanket where you would receive the most shade during the hottest part of the day for the longest period of time.

According to “How the Solar Pathfinder Works” on the company’s website,

“The Solar Pathfinder™ uses a highly polished, transparent, convex plastic dome to give a panoramic view of the entire site. All the trees, buildings or other obstacles to the sun are plainly visible as reflections on the surface of the dome. The sunpath diagram can be seen through the transparent dome at the same time. This diagram is latitude specific [the further away from the equator, the lower the sun will be in the sky, thereby making the sunpath further from the center of the unit] and shows the sun’s average path for each month. The rays of the diagram depict solar time. The diagram itself is therefore calibrated to give solar insolation data for all the hours of the day and all the days of the year. The diagram is also specific to the application: “South-facing” (for Northern hemisphere) or “vertical” is for applications of 20-90 degrees tilt — usually solar; “Horizontal” is for applications of 0-20 degrees tilt — usually ecological (For the flexibility of calculating radiation of any azimuth and any tilt angle, use our Solar Pathfinder Assistant software in addition to the Solar Pathfinder).”

The $300 package includes all sorts of goodies.

• Printed Manual (online version also available)
• Sunpath Diagrams (latitude & application specific)
• Angle estimator (for determining altitude & azimuth)
• White marking pen with extra leads
• Tool box specifically designed for the Pathfinder™
• Tripod specifically designed for the Pathfinder™

This is a great product for more than just Solar Contractors! Gardeners, Bird and Animal Lovers, Outdoor Activists and anyone who spends their time in the sun will love the Solar Pathfinder!

Get yours today from Solarized Life!

The Planet Earth has been powered by the sun since the first bacteria developed billions of years ago. It has supplied us with light, heat, solace and much of the essiential elements needed for Life. It effects our weather, wind currents, tides and riverflows. By using inspired innovation we can create new and more effective ways to utilize the power of Solar, Wind and Hydro.

There has been an enourmous amount of scientific research done on cleaner energy across the globe. We hope that you learn something you did not know about Solar, Wind and Hydro power and that that knowledge is the motivation behind switching to a more Solarized Life.

Solar Power

There are two main types of solar energy: solar thermal energy and solar photovoltaic. Solar thermal energy is very popular for small-scale consumers such as homeowners and small businesses. This method uses equipment such as a solar collector or even something as simple as a skylight. Solar photovoltaic energy is a very promising source of energy. It harnesses the power of the most abundant source available to us, the Sun, using photovoltaic cells. Solar Powered cars utilize these cells, and a future fancy is a vast array of these PV cells sent into orbit (Boyle, pg. 125).

Solar energy has many benefits; it is completely clean and environmentally friendly, it is relatively inexpensive to collect, and it is the single most abundant energy source on this planet. The obvious downside is that it is based on the availability and strength of direct sunlight. In many areas, solar energy is one of the most promising alternatives.

Wind Energy

Wind energy is one of the oldest forms of power production on the planet. For thousands of years, windmills have been used to provide energy for pumping water or milling grain. Modern wind turbines are being developed to utilize wind strength to it’s maximum. There have been many successful designs from screened turbines, to cup-type wind machines, to a combination of both (Boyle, pg. 278-9).

Like solar power, wind energy has many benefits; it is extremely clean, fairly inexpensive after the initial installation of the turbine, and plentiful in certain areas and altitudes. It also has its drawbacks as the energy collected is completely based on the strength of the wind. These wind turbines also pose a hazard to flying creatures unable to dodge the blades. Despite these few cons, wind energy is also a promising alternative to fossil fuels.

Hydro-power

Probably the most utilized alternative energy source today is hydropower. Since this power supply is actually on the grid and produces a decent amount of energy, many people tend to consider it separately from the other alternative energy sources. This form harnesses the vast power of a flowing river to turn the turbines responsible for capturing the energy (Boyle, pg. 184-6).

Hydropower, was at one point, thought to be completely environmentally friendly. It didn’t take long, however, to see major changes in the ecosphere around the dams, such as flooding and depletion in fish populations. Aside from this tragic loss of life, hydropower is completely dependant on the flow of water and availability of rivers. On the other hand, it does not spew any harmful emissions into our environment and it is relatively inexpensive. Due to these pros, hydropower is a widely used alternative energy source around the globe.

Wave Power

There is a vast amount of power within the waves and currents of the ocean. Capturing the full extent of the wave power produced by the various oceans and seas is proving to be a difficult task. Many nations have begun work on developing a turbine array that could utilize the whole of a wave’s energy without damaging the equipment. So far, some companies across the globe have developed small prototypes that can survive the rough open water, but nothing on the massive scale desired (Boyle, pg. 315, 323-5).

Wave power is capable of being a very inexpensive and abundant supply of energy. However, it will take a great deal of funding to bring the technology up to where it would meet the consumption demand of the populace. If the obstacles can be overcome, ocean waves could become one of our greatest sources of power.

Tidal Energy

As with wave energy, tidal energy is based on the massive amount of energy in our planet’s oceans and seas. Built across suitable estuaries, tidal barrages capture the energy from the ebb and flow of the tide. The kinetic energy produced by the turn of the turbines is captured and used to run a generator, which produces electricity. Once again, this usage of one of the most powerful forces on our planet, has great potential as an alternative energy source (Boyle, pg. 230-42).

Although the ocean has an unlimited supply of tidal energy, there are limited places where this source could be implemented. Also, the technology needs quite a bit more funding in order to realistically meet the needs of a demanding populace. Even with the location problem, tidal energy could provide power to neighboring communities for miles away.