Belkin showing people how to conserve electricity at home with their new home energy lineup...

Belkin, who leads the industry in, ummm...plugs, has introduced four new products to the market that will be available Mid-July. These are great products for people at home that are trying their best to reduce unwanted power vampires from their home.

The first product is the Conserve Smart AV

The Conserve Smart AV features a "green" outlet, in which you plug your television into, and in the other outlets you plug in the rest of your entertainment system. When the television is shut-off, the rest of the surge protector then powers down, reducing the energy usage of the rest of your entertainment center. It will retail for $29.99.

The next up is Conserve Socket

The Conserve Socket has a timer for your plug and automatically powers down the socket after that allotted time. The user can select from three settings, 30 minutes, 3 hours, or 6 hours. Perfect for those using a coffee maker in the morning, and always worrying about if you turned it off. The Conserve Socket will retail for $9.99.

Next is the Conserve Valet

The Conserve Valet is for all of us that have a lot of gadgets, which now a days seems to be more and more. It has four charging stations for your mp3 player, phone, or whatever other peripheral that you might have that can charge via USB hub. What is great about this product is that it will sense when your item is fully charged and shut-off the plug charging that item. No more cell phones charging on the kitchen counter for 14 hours anymore. The Conserve Valet will retail at $39.99.

And last but not least, and what I find the most interesting The Conserve Insight

The Conserve Insight excited me the most out of all of these products. The Conserve Insight will give you real-time information on how many watts a product that is plugged into it is using. It also tells you how much CO2 that a product is emitting, and the biggest feature to most will be this: The Conserve Insight will tell you how much money, in real time, that you are spending on keeping that device plugged in. This product will remove all of smoke and mirrors of trying to figure out how much electricity a device is really using. Knowledge is power, and given this knowledge you can figure out how to use your power. Then you can experiment with different power configurations for different devices (like maybe putting a surge protector on that microwave that you don't use the clock on it for anything). At $29.99 I feel that the cost could be made up in no time with the money you could save.

These look to be exciting products for everyone, from the lazy man (the Conserve Smart AV), to the person that loves numbers (The Conserve Insight). I hope to get my hands on a few of them in Mid-July and let you know how they are, especially the Conserve Insight. If anyone else gets to try and of these out, let me know what you think!

***edit 6/22/10 received an e-mail from a reader that is suggesting some of the other Belkin's products as well that are already out:

"We have a similar Belkin product. Power strip with wireless switch. ( and 2 switches that dont turn off if need be) . On our way to bed we hit the switch and it shuts down power for out big power sucking items. Love it!
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-BG108000-04-Conserve-Energy-Saving/dp/B001GQ2W6W/ref=pd_cp_e_1

 ---Nichole"

Thanks Nichole! Knowing that someone out there already loves part of the Conserve line by Belkin makes these that much more promising! Looks like these are quality products, and like I said, I hope to get one or a few of them in my hands in a month. ***

---Justin J. Stewart

We Shall Overcome...his work shall go on

As many of you know, or do not know, the owner and creator of this blog, Jay Fretz, was killed on his bicycle on his commute home from work on May 17th, 2010 at the corner of a Alamada and McClintock in Tempe, Arizona, when a car struck him. At this corner a solemn reminder, a ghostbike, now stands there as a tribute to a great man. He was survived by his wife, Angie; daughter, Anika; brother, Kevin; and his parents John and GayLee; and many more friends and family than Jay knew he had.

During this process we learned how important Jay was to the community and his message of eco-friendliness and that we, as individuals can make the difference, and spread the word to make this Earth a greener world. It was the small things he focused on, things that everyone could do. He gave up his car for commuting, and decided to bike to work to reduce his carbon footprint. He looked at the little things in his house that he could change, or monitor to reduce energy consumption, water consumption, and waste consumption. Most of those things we could all do, and he told us how. He talked to people, participated  in local focus groups, and started this blog, to get his word out and to have people listen.

If you talked with Jay for five minutes, you knew what his passion was, and it was almost contagious. No, it was contagious. You would go home immediately and see what changed you could do. This message needs to live on and spread, from house to house, person to person, business to business. That's where we come in.

My name is Justin J. Stewart. I have known Jay and his family for five years, and in those five years it is the most active in making changes to my lifestyle to help with the environment. To hypermiling my SUV from 16 mpg to 20 mpg in a few short months, to starting and maintaining a recycling program at one store of a Fortune 500 retailer, to organic urban gardening, these were all changes that or activities that I saw important to do, mostly from talking to Jay. I had always been eco-smart, but it wasn't until Jay that I learned to take the next step, and most of those steps were easy ones that every single one of us can do. That is why this blog is going to continue with myself and my wife, Laura Stewart. We want to share with you what you can do at home, or have you share with us what you do at home, so we all can get Jay's message out and be more energy efficient and eco-friendly, and with the events of the past two months, now is the best time to do this.

Our goal for this blog is to continue talking about "Slaying Energy Vampires" and telling you what home tips you can do, and what tech stuff is out there, and what I am doing at home to conserve energy. We also want to hear from you though, we want to know what you are doing, what you are hearing, what works for you. We want this to grow into an organic community where sharing creates knowledge and helps this world. If you have a piece that you have written, or a photo of something you have done, or a tip we should all know, please share with us, and we will share with the world. With each of you, we will go person by person, door by door, and business by business and keep Jay's dream alive. I hope to hear from you soon. I know I will be talking to you soon. Let's do this, with everyone together, we really can make a difference, Jay did.

  R.I.P Jay Curtice Fretz October 3, 1973- May 17, 2010

Recent news links about Jay:

ABC News 15 story about Jay.

Arizona Republic story about ghostbike installations in Tempe, including Jay's.

Wonderful piece by Nancy Puffer in the Plugged In blog for The Arizona Republic.

Jay's Obituary that appeared in The Arizona Republic.

The Jay Fretz Memorial Page.

A great blog remembrance from a friend of Jay's, Jon Hajek.

Like I said, We Shall Overcome, his work shall go on, and we will never forget.

---Justin J. Stewart

Efergy e2 Unboxing

First - The Box

Now - The Unboxing

Renewable Energy Focus Group

Last week I was invited to participate in a focus group for SRP, my electric utility.  I'd never been involved in one before, and my schedule was free, so I jumped on it.

It wasn't clear until nearly an hour into the discussion, but SRP is considering a new residential renewable energy purchasing plan for its customers, and they wanted to get feedback about various details from potential participants.

Currently, SRP allows customers to purchase blocks of "clean energy" in 100 kwh chunks for $3 each per month.  It's never clear what this money is used for and not many people participate.  I used to buy 10 blocks per month, but had to trim back to 5 during the Great Recession.  It helps ease my conscience, but isn't nearly as satisfying as having a solar array on my roof would be - I'm working on that.

SRP may offer a new program that would allow green minded customers to purchase a portion of renewable(probably solar) power from a particular plant that I believe they already have plans to build - the SRP representative didn't want to get specific about it when I asked.  This kind of plan still requires a bit of faith due to the nature of the electric grid: it's clearly not possible to send the power from one plant to specific addresses.

The main benefits of this program would include allowing renters to participate and providing a fixed cost to the customer over the period of the agreement (probably 5 years).  I other words, if I signed up, I would purchase some amount of power from this solar plant at slightly higher than average rate (11 cents vs 9 cents for example), but that rate would be guaranteed to never increase over the 5 year period.  We all know that SRP, APS, and every other electric utility tends to increase their rates by at least 5% per year on average, and frequently more.  The plan could also follow customers from one home to another, as long as they remain in SRP's service area.

A lot of the details were sketchy, but that's why they wanted our feedback, to see what people liked and didn't like.  I enjoyed the whole experience and I certainly was able to geek out about renewable energy and make some suggestions to actual SRP decision makers who were observing us from behind one way mirrors.  I would have done it for free, so the $75 I was paid was a bonus!

Weatherization: Part 2

The week after my initial audit, a rep from A & A Cooling & Heating called to set an appointment to make some repairs to my HVAC system.  A pair of guys worked on duct sealing, and other repairs for 2 days.  Then a supervisor came to check the work on a 3rd day and he sent his guys back on a fourth day to wrap up some odds and ends.  I was amazed by how much work they performed.  Who knew my HVAC system needed so much work!

In addition to the duct sealing, they also cleaned the inside coils, located in my attic, and added a new return duct and register near the kitchen in order to provide more cooling in that part of the house.  They also replaced an old duct protrusion on my roof where the evap cooler used to be with a nicer looking metal cap called a "dog house".  They painted the heat pump elbow and dog house with white, heat reflecting paint.  They replaced the oddly sized return cover with one that fits my filters much better.  They installed a new vent in the roof for one of my bathroom fans that had previously been venting into the attic and also cleaned both bathroom fans (they were REALLY dusty).  They were requested to cover some electrical junction boxes in the attic, but quickly gave up after finding some singed wires.  I rewired the box and installed the cover the following weekend, though there is still one uncovered box.  I suspect it will be taken care of before the insulation is blown in.  I believe that's the next step, but I haven't heard from anyone in about a week.

I was really impressed by A&A 's commitment to service and quality work.  The service manager, Mike, who has only dealt with my wife, was very eager to leave a good impression and encouraged us to call him with any questions or concerns.  I may give him a ring next week.

The heat pump is so much less noisy now, I have to believe it is working more efficiently.  The whole house used to crack and groan when it kicked on, but now it's hard to even notice!  If I could just find a thermostat with a silent relay, all would be well with the world.

I'm hoping to install a solar tube skylight in my kitchen before the insulation makes that task much harder.