Our coverage on environment friendly homes has been consistent. Williams wrote about it in the following articles:Some things to do for a Green home

A carbon negative home?

Going carbon negative

 The other environment topics which we covered so far were:

Water conservation at home

Waste Disposal

Today’s Hindu newspaper has a huge government advertisement on CFL Technology and requests people to “Switch on  to Save”.

This advertisement echoes all our thoughts and suggestions and we thought of elaborating on the details in case you miss the same on the paper.

 

The image above (please click to enlarge) conveys many details:

CFL Advantages:

• Four times more efficient
• Lasts upto 10 times longer than incandescents
• Uses 50-80% less energy than incandescents
• Uses 1/3 the electricity and lasts up to 10 times as long as incandescents
• Single 18 watt CFL in place of a 75 watt incandescent saves about 570KWH over its lifetime
• Replacing single incandescent bulb with CFLs keep out half-tonne of CO2 out of the atmosphere
• Saving electricity reduces CO2 emissions, sulfur oxide and high level nuclear waste
• New CFLs give a warm inviting light instead of the “cool white”light of older fluorescent
• They use rare earth phosphors for excellent color and warmth
• New electronic ballasted CFLs do not flicker or hum
• CFL can be applied nearly anywhere where incandescents are used

The advertisement says

“Judicious use of electricity is our responsibility”

“Save energy for benefit of self and nation”

This message is brought to us by:

Bureau of Energy Efficiency India

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Fuse-wires are used, at the mains as well as at the device plugs to avoid damage to wiring as well as the electrical devices, in case of current outages.  

Similarly Voltage Stabilizers with cut-off are used to avoid voltage outages that cause damage to electrical/electronic appliances. 

Now that the safety of the wiring and the devices have been taken care of, human safety is left for discussion.

Historically human safety has been more on the defense, whereby using rubber gloves, switching off mains, covering electrical lines, devices with insulating materials like plastics/ceramics have been adopted. 

However these do not prevent accidents involving electric shocks and Trip switches have become indispensable in electrical wiring for ensuring human safety.  

 

Image Courtesy: cbibreakers.com

Trip-switches detect load leakage currents and break-off the electrical connection.   However if the wiring is not done properly you will have tripping and you will have a tough time in identifying the source.   So the advise is to master your electrical wiring plan and use trip switches at strategic electrical branches, so that you can fix that particular line easily.

Now there are trip switches which break even before a person receives a shock.   In order to install this, one has to do the electrical wiring with a trained electrician, or it may never let you operate a gadget.

Though you may have a nice home, comfort today is determined by electricity.  Hope this article will prompt you to know more about electrical wiring with the experts and accomplish Human/Device/Wiring safety for your home.

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We briefly mentioned trash masher in our article “Kitchen Appliances - Now” on 19th August.

It is not a very popular device yet in India. Reasons for this are not yet know but we suspect that lack of awareness is one primary reason. Food habits and cost are the other possible causes.

Image Courtesy: georgiamagazine.org

So what exactly is a trash masher or a garbage disposer?

It is a modern electrical gadget which is installed just under the kitchen sink. The entry part of this device is the outlet of the kitchen sink and the outlet of this device is the plumbing line which normally takes the water and waste material away from your kitchen sink.

What is it’s function?

The main purpose of this device is to crush and pulverize solid/semi solid particles that are inadvertently dumped into the kitchen sink. This action of crushing/pulverizing makes sure that you do not end up with a blocked kitchen sink which can cause foul smell and also encourage breeding of insects as lot of food for them is present now in the plumbing lines.

How does it work?

Garbage disposals are simple devices that all work on a similar principle. At the bottom is a flat plate on which rotating steel ‘mashers’ are mounted. These mashers work in conjunction with the serrated inside wall to grind up food waste. When you switch the unit on, a motor rotates the flat plate, forcing the mashers to swing toward the outside of the spinning plate, which grinds up waste so it can be flushed away.

Purchase checks

• Make sure you have an expert to come and install the same in your place
• The noise levels have to be checked before purchase
• Power rating - you do not want high electricity bills
• RPM - the motor’s “revolutions per minute” - determines the crushing power
• Capacity - based on your cooking style and sink hole diameter

 Word of caution

A garbage disposal can easily jam if a foreign object falls inside, causing a masher to get lodged against the inside wall. Most appliance repair technicians have rescued coins, bottle caps, jewelry and plastic bag ties from inside a garbage disposal. It’s a good idea to keep small objects away from the sink.

Portions of this article are taken from georgiamagazine.org

Hope you liked this information. Please leave your comments behind.

Have a great weekend.

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Until mid 90’s, washing machines were almost non-existent in the Indian market. Today, the situation is different. In less than 17 years, washing machines are probably the third most popular electrical appliances in Indian homes after television and refrigerators. Even though man power is available in plenty, most women want to avoid the hassles of employing a maid servant to wash their clothes.

IT bachelors still utilize human resources for washing, the “dhobi wala” being the most popular choice for them. But in a small family washing machines are pretty much the in-thing now.

Today we try to just touch upon the various types of washing machines available in the market. Just to create some awareness amongst our readers. As days go by, we would focus on more details and even cover brands involved.

Image Courtesy: www.rd.com

Classification of washing machines based on loading type

There are two broad types of washing machines. One is the Front load model and the other is the top load model. The one in the picture above is the top load model.

The front load machines tend to be a little bit expensive but in the long run they consume less water and detergent. Some argue that they even have better cleaning capabilities but this is not concrete.

Top Load washing machines can be further classified into two types:

1. Single Tub machines
2. Twin tub machines

The single tub machine manages all 3 cycles in the same tub. These include wash, rinse and dry.

In the Twin tub mode, the first (and the larger tub) takes care of wash and rinse cycles. The user has to then manually transfer the clothes into the second tub which only does the drying cycle.

 Almost no washing machine in the market dries the clothes 100%. For this a dedicated dryer is required. This would be covered in the coming days on our site.

 Certain machines are capable of using hot water for washing. These can dislodge dirt better as some detergent work best at luke warm temperatures.

There are many more points to be discussed on washing machines such as:

• wash care
• plumbing requirements
• revolutions per minute
• noise/vibration levels
• electricity consumption
• wash modes

We cover all these and more in forthcoming articles. Hope you benefited from this introduction article. More information about washing machines are available in wikipedia site.

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I am sure that most of us have the problem of managing cables at home. It could be electrical cable, television cable, telephone cable, Internet cable …..and the list goes on.

Image Courtesy : ourlocalstyle.com

Let us analyze why these necessary accessories end up becoming a mess at the end of the day.

Electrical cables

Thanks to modern concealed wiring, seeing an electrical cable outside is a pretty rare sight. If some level of thinking can be done in the initial stages, electrical cable mess can be avoided. Unlike the other cables in this post, these are potentially dangerous to occupants and also can cause fire hazards if not chosen carefully or planned to handle load conditions appropriately.

Telephone Cables

Most modern homes have concealed telephone wires too. Usually the phone line is terminated in a junction box and is carried to the interiors behind the walls. But this fails in many cases. 

• For starters the concealed wires may not be present at all
• Though the wiring is present, it may be only connected to the living room and perhaps the occupants want the phone to be also present in the bedroom
• The wiring in place is having only one pair and the home probably needs more than one telephone
• The internal wiring can be damaged or turns out to be faulty

 In all the cases above, telephone wires tend to become a mess !!

Television cables

There are so many of these that I won’t even touch upon the various types in this post. I am merely referring to the black coaxial cable which brings all your channels home. Even for people who use DTH (Direct to Home) , there has to be a cable in place to connect the satellite dish to the set-top box.

Here again lies the problem of people wanting a separate television in other rooms. So our suggestion is that you all the rooms connected by concealed coaxial cables and have the main wire terminated in the junction box.

Internet Cables

Most of us have broadband connectivity at home and use Ethernet cables (CAT5) cables. These can tend to crowd the space. Here again the savvy people can choose concealed cables or even wireless Internet at home.

 The purpose of this article was to just create an awareness about this issue. We will look into more ways of solving issues in the coming days.

Comments would help us learn and improve, so please

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