Sleep mode is good enough. While the sleep mode in today’s computers uses minimal electricity (15 watts or less for Energy Star–certified ones, and as low as 2W for laptops), it’s intended for when you step away from the computer for a couple hours, not overnight. Turning computers off at night wears them out. A […]

Last week’s cold weather made me realize that winter is coming. So we took advantage of the warmer temperatures last weekend to weatherize the windows. While we’ve caulked around the edges of most of the frames, we haven’t done much to the windows themselves. Some of them were installed pretty loosely in their frames, making […]

There was a statewide green homes open house last Saturday that I missed (for the Boston Local Food Festival), but in looking through the homes on the website I was amazed to see that one listed their yearly electricity usage as 7,200 kwh for a two-family house. 3,600 per household seemed high to me, so I […]

I know my Kindle love is verging dangerously close to an obsession, but I do have a small addendum. Some people have complained because they feel like Kindles will prevent you from seeing what others are reading on the T and striking up a conversation. But I’ve actually found that more people have approached me […]

On Saturday we went to our second weatherization barnraising, organized by HEET and the Cambridge Energy Alliance. Last time I learned to install programmable thermostats and Jason caulked windows at two apartment buildings. This time I installed Q-lon weatherstripping around doors and Jason insulated skylights at a daycare center. The end result? The blower door […]