Down there on the list of “recommended guides” you’ll find “Build Your Own Solar Panels” listed as an option.  I’ve had some questions about this item, recently, so I wanted to address what it was, how much it costs, why I recommend it, and so on.

Earth4Energy is a video tutorial series and guide that teaches you how to reduce your dependence on the energy company by creating your own energy generator.  Earth4Energy does this by showing you how to build your own solar panels and wind turbines.

I’ve been promoting Earth4Energy for a few years with no returns from buyers and lots of positive feedback.  The kit shows you how to build a solar panel to help power your home for under $200 and I know it can be done for as low as $150 — a lot of it depends on what you pay for the solar cells, which you can get on eBay to save some money.

As an avid do-it-yourselfer, I thought the Earth4Energy projects were fun (and they are) and they can save you a fair amount of money on your energy bill.  In the process, you learn a lot of solid construction techniques, too.  The kit sells for $49.97, so if you can get a deal on your solar cells, you’re still under $200 for a solar panel!

I’m including a video from Earth4Energy.  I added my own intro and outro to the video, along with a few notes, but the video is theirs.  I thought it gave you some good information about what the kit will show you, even if it gets a little “sales pitchy” in parts.

Another option you may consider as a do-it-yourself type person, you could easily build these solar panels or wind turbines using the instructions in this kit and turn around and sell them for a profit!  It’s one thing to build one yourself because you have fun with these types of projects, but some people just prefer to have it done for them.  Why not provide that service to them and make some money, yourself?  That’s part of what I love about DIY — I get to do something I love to do, anyway and I get to make a living doing it to help others.

There are a few of these types of kits available — all for about the same price, but Earth4Energy has the most professional, easy-to-follow kit I’ve seen for the money.  It’s also the bestselling one, available.  If you’re interested in helping out the environment by reducing your energy footprint, saving some money on your energy bill, or just a fun DIY project; you may want to give this kit a try.  Frankly, I just wanted to get it and see if I could build it.

If you want to learn how to save more money on your energy bill for free, sign up for our email newsletter.  You’ll receive our free guide with tips to saving energy in your home.  My gift to you just for signing up for the free newsletter.

Recently, a reader had a question about their home air filter:

Good day. I’ve been using the Dupont Filtrete filters for about five years and since we run a landscaping business and track alot of dirt in with us at the end of the day, I change out our filters about every three weeks. Within the past couple of years though, I’ve noticed that the metal mesh within the filter makes a flexing noise similar to water dropping for the first couple seconds after the condenser shuts off. It doesn’t make the noise when first installed and also when the a/c is not run for long periods of time, like during the middle of the day. Definitely nothing is leaking and even a Trane representative verified that the noise is made by the filter. Could you recommend a good filter that either doesn’t have the metal mesh or one that is sufficient in thickness that it doesn’t flex enough to allow this noise to occur? Thank you for your time and help.

I’ve chosen to answer the question in a post, as this may require a bit more explanation than a comment can handle.

To answer the question, both Natural Aire and Accumulair make filters that do not have a metal webbing to stiffen the filter.  Pop one of these in and maybe your problem is fixed.  Maybe.

Now, for the more complicated part.  This air filter should not be “sucked up” into the AC unit, as described by this commenter.  Additionally, a filter without the metal mesh will only be more flimsy and may even be sucked up into the coils of the unit.

So, what’s the solution?

Well, I’ve had a similar issue with an AC unit that would crumple the air filter.  I later determined that the unit used a custom-sized air filter that you could only get from the AC manufacturer.  It had strange dimensions that made store-bought filters not fit, properly.  This could be the issue, here.

It could also be an issue with a necessary pre-filter, post-filter, humidifier, or other component that needs to be in place.  I would think the Trane representative would have mentioned this in the visit, but they miss stuff, too.

Regardless, the AC unit should not be sucking-up or otherwise deforming the filter.  I would call out your local HVAC professional to take a look at the unit and filter to determine the proper solution for that unit, after confirming that you have the right size air filter.  Every unit is different and even HVAC companies specialize or represent specific brands, so make sure it’s a Trane endorsed contractor.

I’ll be putting together some spring cleaning tips for your home, starting with today’s post on your roof.  Your roof provides the primary protection of your home from the elements — “A roof over your head” — and needs to be maintained, just like all major systems in your home.

Primarily, you need to keep debris and water from collecting on your roof.  Typically, this isn’t a major concern on the open areas of the roof, instead in the cracks, crevices, and penetrations in your roof.  However, debris can also pile up on the open areas if you have large trees or bushes that overhang your roof and drop lots of vegetation on the roofing surface.  Please take all necessary precautions for working high above the ground and hire a professional, if necessary. For general spring cleaning maintenance, you need to look at the following three areas to maintain your roofing system in it’s peak functioning condition.

• Gutters
• Penetrations, valleys, crevices
• Vegetation/Trees

Gutters

You really need to keep your gutters free of debris and clean.  The gutter system removes water from your roofing system.  If you don’t keep them clean, water can pool on the roofing surface and do a lot of damage and shorten the life of your roof.  Usually, you can do this every spring with your spring cleaning project list, but if you have a lot of trees and vegetation on your property, you may need to do it twice per year.  You can spray the gutters out with your garden hose, but I find this makes a big mess.  I use a 5-gallon bucket and a garden trowel to get all the debris out of the gutters and downspouts.  This is a much cleaner method.

Penetrations

Get your mind out of the “gutter.”  I’m talking about your skylights, exhaust pipes, roof vents, and so on.  These are “holes” in your roofing system and need to be maintained to ensure the integrity of your roof.  Check for broken roofing tiles or shingles around the penetrations, caulking that needs to be replaced, broken or cracked glass/plexiglas, and excessive rust.

Additionally, you need to look for any areas where water and debris may gather on the roof.  Two valleys coming together creating a low spot, a ridge coming into a valley, your roof eave meeting a roofing surface and creating a pocket for debris to collect, and so on.  Anywhere that creates an opportunity for roofing failure due to water and debris.  Clean those areas up and repair any damage.

Tree Overhangs

This is one of the most often overlooked areas of roof maintenance.  When I drive around the neighborhoods in my area, you see beautiful trees and bushes decorating the yards of homeowners.  Unfortunately, I also see this beautiful landscaping destroying roofing systems.

Trees and bushes that “overhang” a roof (this includes branches from trees that are a good distance from your home) drop vegetation, grow onto the roof, hold water against the roof, and dramatically shorten the lifespan of a roofing system.  Every spring as part of your spring cleaning regimen, you need to trim these overhangs away from your roof.  This can be very dangerous, as your working near the edge of your roofing system and reaching up to cut overhangs.  Please take the necessary precautions or hire a professional.

Using a chainsaw or nippers, trim the branches back away from your roof, taking care not to let the trimmed branches damage your roof by falling on it.  Remember to look overhead, not just on your roof for branches that may be dropping debris from above.

Make sure to do these three simple tasks as part of your spring cleaning routine and your roof will last much longer.  Just like your teeth, if you ignore your roof, it will go away.

While I poke a little fun at the procedure in our video, I followed the EPAs instructions for cleaning up a compact fluorescent lightbulb (cfl) break on a hard surface.  DISCLAIMER: I used an incandescent bulb in the video, because I frankly did not want to break a CFL inside a home, if I could avoid it.  This has no effect on the procedure and we still followed the EPA instructions for cleaning up a CFL, not an incandescent bulb.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs  contain a small amount of mercury; a deadly neurotoxin.  Even though the amount of mercury in a CFL is very small (4-5 milligrams), you still need to take precautions and follow this procedure for clean up and disposal of compact fluorescent bulbs in your home.

Here’s the full clean-up procedure from the EPA (Italicized text are my own comments):

How should I clean up a broken fluorescent bulb? Because CFLs contain a small amount of mercury, EPA recommends the following clean-up and disposal guidelines:

1. Before Clean-up: Air Out the Room

• Have people and pets leave the room, and don’t let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.
• Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more. (Some groups recommend as much as an hour)
• Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

2. Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces

• Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass pieces and powder.
• Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place towels in the glass jar or plastic bag.
• Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

3. Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug:

• Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
• If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
• Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

4. Clean-up Steps for Clothing, Bedding, etc.:

• If clothing or bedding materials come in direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away.
• Do not wash such clothing or bedding because mercury fragments in the clothing may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage.
• You can, however, wash clothing or other materials that have been exposed to the mercury vapor from a broken CFL, such as the clothing you are wearing when you cleaned up the broken CFL, as long as that clothing has not come into direct contact with the materials from the broken bulb.
• If shoes come into direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from the bulb, wipe them off with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes.  Place the towels or wipes in a glass jar or plastic bag for disposal.

5. Disposal of Clean-up Materials

• Immediately place all clean-up materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area for the next normal trash pickup.
• Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
• Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area.  Some states do not allow such trash disposal. Instead, they require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

6. Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming

• The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window before vacuuming.
• Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

I’d love to have your feedback on compact fluorescent bulbs, their dangers, and their benefits.  Please, leave me a comment, below.

What is a square foot measurement?  Well, even though it may sound a little complicated, square feet is one of the easiest measurements, other than lineal feet or distance.  Square feet is a width multiplied by a length to find the area of a space or object.  So, if a room measures 10 feet by 12 feet, the floor area (assuming it’s an open floor) would equal 120 square feet (10′ x 12′ = 120 sq. ft.).

Common Square Feet Materials

• Tile
• Countertops
• Flooring (except carpeting)
• Drywall
• Plywood
• Unit cost calculations (this is a more complicated subject for another post, but just be aware that this is the common measurement base for unit cost calculations)

Conversions

Sometimes, with square feet calculations, you need to make a few conversions to get an accurate measurement.

• Tile: Sometimes, you need to convert a square foot measurement to the number of tiles or vice-versa.  Tile generally comes packaged in “X number of tiles” sets at your local home improvement store.  Therefore, you need to be sure you’re measurements all follow the same base; either square feet or number of tiles.  So, you generally need to determine how many square feet each tile covers to buy the proper quantity.  To do this, remember that a square foot is just one foot width by one foot length.  Now, just convert each tile size (in inches) to a foot measurement.  For example, a 12″ by 12″ tile is exactly 1 square foot.  An 8″ tile becomes 8/12 (or 2/3′ or .666667′) by 8/12′ = .44 square feet coverage per tile.  Now, multiply that square foot coverage by the number of tiles per box.  Now, divide the total square feet you need for the project by the number of square feet covered by box and that will tell you how many boxes of tile to buy.  Please note: This does not include the grout or waste!  Grout spacing varies, so be sure to add that to your measurements.  Therefore, assuming you use a 1/4″ grout line (pretty big, BTW), then you need to add 1/8″ to each tile dimension.  This really complicates matters and you’re better off looking at how much each case covers.  Almost all home stores make this calculation for you.
• Drywall and Plywood: Drywall and plywood comes in 4′ x 8′ sheets, so each sheet covers 32 square feet.  Therefore, anytime you’re measuring for drywall or plywood (height of the wall by length of the wall, less openings), you need to divide your total square feet measurement by 32 to get the number of sheets you need for the project.

Material Waste Factors

I’ll probably remind you about waste factors throughout this series, but for all material ordering and quantifying, you need to include a waste factor.  Essentially, this means you need a order or buy a little more material than just the strict square foot coverage you calculated in your measurements.  This covers cuts around openings, door frames, etc. as well as any errors you make in installation.

You can get very detailed information on what waste factors to use with which materials just by searching for it on the internet.  I don’t, nor do I expect the average homeowner to calculate waste factor’s for each material they’re using on a project and getting every material down to a very finite quantity.  Let’s leave that kind of detail to the professionals.

Generally, I’ve found 15% to serve me very well for my home improvement projects.  If you’re trying to stick to a very tight budget, you may work with a 10% waste factor, but you need to efficiently use your materials in this case or you won’t have enough to complete the project.

So, once you’ve calculated the square feet you need to cover, multiply that number by .15 to get the square footage measurement you’ll use for all material ordering.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about cubic yards and when you need to calculate this quantity.

Oftentimes, we need to replace the internal components of our toilets.  The plastic and metal parts wear out and need to be replaced for the toilet to function properly.

Fortunately, this is an inexpensive and easy home improvement project.  Most hardware stores carry a “toilet repair kit” that costs around $18-20 that includes all the components you’ll need for this project.  In fact, you’ll have some parts leftover, because the kits come with lots of parts to cover various types of toilets you may be using with the kit.

As noted in the video, you need to start by tearing the old components out of the toilet.  Of course, you’ll do this after shutting off the water supply — typically a valve right next to the toilet, close to the floor.

Once the old parts have been removed, there will be some necessary clean-up, especially where the tank attaches to the toilet base.

Now, you just need to install the new parts from the toilet repair kit.

This is a fairly easy DIY project that may require a second person, just because the toilet tank can be somewhat awkward to move.

What challenges do you have with your toilet?  Leaking flapper valve, running fill valve, etc.?  Let us know your toilet issues in the comments section and we’ll do a new post!

Changing an air conditioner (A/C) filter usually does not require much technical skill.  Whether horizontal, vertical, or in a ceiling, changing the filter generally consists of unscrewing a couple screws (usually with nice big knobs on them, so you don’t even need a tool), taking out the old filter, putting in the new one and reattaching the panel with the two screws.

So, where do things get complicated?  Well, a couple areas can generate some consternation for the average homeowner.

1. How often do I change my air filter? — Ah, the age-old debate roars on.  Traditionally, the standard was every 30 days.  Now, with high-efficiency, better quality air filters, you theoretically can go 3 months, 6 months, sometimes more, depending on the type of filter you have with your system.  Ultimately, though the longer you keep a filter in place, the more dirt it holds, and the harder your system has to work to pull the air through the filter, the more dirt that may pass through to the system and your house, etc.  The harder your system works, the more energy it uses and the quicker the mechanical system breaks down.  Additionally, although slight, your unit will use more energy if it’s not efficiently pulling air through that filter.  Many will disagree, but I believe in the old 30 day rule.  For the few bucks that it costs for a good A/C filter, just change it every 30 days.  Keep your system clean and working efficiently.
2. I need to get that really “high-efficiency, no allergens will ever enter my house” filter. – Again, that filter may trap 99.9% of all allergens known to mankind, BUT – Did you see the big but over there? — but, this also makes your system work harder.  See note above on your system working harder.  I hate allergens and dust mites and all that as much as the next guy.  I’ve had my mornings waking up with a stuffed nose from the dust in the air, too.  I also believe there’s a happy medium to the filter issue.  Get a decent filter, but don’t go overboard and buy the end-all, be-all filter that doesn’t allow enough air to flow to your system.
3. Filters are designed with a flow direction. Many people don’t notice that big arrow with the words “Air Flow” written next to it on an A/C filter.  Yes, these things are designed for air to flow through them in a specific direction.  Take notice and install it so air flows correctly.

As for changing the filter, here are some more detailed steps for how to change your A/C filter.

1. Locate the filter. It will always be located on or very close to the “inside unit.”  This part of the air conditioning system is also known as the air handler.  Sometimes, the filter is placed behind a return grill (a louvered, metal grating that occurs near the air handler).  This is most often seen in apartments or smaller homes where the air handler is in a closet and the filter is integrated with the return grill in the door or ceiling.
2. Remove the panel: Sometimes this is a grill, sometimes it’s just a small panel (like in the video) — every system will be different and newer systems will be labeled.
3. Remove the old filter: Take out the old air filter and throw it away.  You won’t be needing it, anymore.
4. Insert the new air filter: Slide or place the new filter in the old filter’s location.  Remember, as I mentioned above, you need to make sure it’s inserted in the proper direction.  The air flow should follow the arrow on the filter.
5. Close the panel back up: Re-install that panel that you removed in step 2.

Now, you’re all done for 30 days!