Yesterday, we talked about installing motion detectors to help reduce your power bills while saving precious energy and reducing your overall carbon footprint. Today, let’s look at another type of outdoor lighting that can help keep your home safe, beautiful, and eco-friendly.

Solar lights are great for lighting gardens, walkways, driveways, and other landscaping you want to highlight. You can even find solar lights which float in pools and are activated with motion detection too. Most solar lights include a dusk and dawn sensor which monitors the amount of light around so that it only illuminates after dusk and goes off at dawn.

Generally, solar lights have LED bulbs or incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs, as they exist currently, have a very bright light but tend to disperse quickly, so they are not great for up lighting or illuminating wide walkways and driveways. Instead, these lights tend to be better suited for guiding guests to a front door like lights along an airplane landing strip.

Incandescent bulbs in solar fixtures are becoming harder to find as LED bulbs become more popular. However, they offer more dispersal of light so they are brighter and often found in warmer colors. The light, therefore, is better suited for use in up lighting against a home or other places a homeowner would want illuminated.

Solar lights are simple to install and usually a fraction of the price of electric outdoor lighting. Most are simply dug or pressed into soil and require no wiring at all. Usually each fixture has its own small solar panel and for those times when you would not want their light, tiny switches where they can be turned off.  They can be found at most hardware stores or box discount stores, but in my opinion, you get what you pay for. Pricier versions tend to work better than the discount priced lights. It may be better technology in the solar panel or the quality of the fixture itself. Check reviews of the product and if you see some you like at your neighbors’ house, ask where they got them!

Looking for a great way to illuminate your next evening barbeque? You can even get solar lights which connect to outdoor umbrellas to illuminate the table at night as well as string lights which can make for great ambiance and a real decorator’s touch. You can even get solar string lights for your Christmas decorations next year!

Already have solar lights illuminating your landscape and home? Let us know which ones you like and how well they are working.  Found a particularly neat solar lighting fixture? Let us know about it in the comments section below.

Over the last few weeks I have continually been amazed at how many people leave their porch lights on all night. It’s not clear to me if it is an effort to show that someone is home and to scare off burglars or if our neighbors are trying to leave the lights on for the feral cats. Either way, it’s a huge waste of energy and a place where homeowners can cut down – even a few bucks a year – on their power bills.

Motion detectors when attached to lights offer a great way to reduce your home’s energy use by ensuring that the lights are only turned on when they are needed. It is by no means a new technology, but it is definitely a technology that should be used more.

A variety of motion detector lights are widely available at your local box hardware store, and likely your locally owned hardware store too. While they sell outdoor porch lights which have motion detector features already included, my home did not come with them. As one of our first projects on the home, we went to the hardware store to find an attachment which would make our lights motion sensitive. What we found required a simple installation which involved changing out our light switch and hanging a battery operated sensor on the outside of the house. The installation took less than a half hour and it works beautifully. Our porch light only goes on when you drive up our driveway or when you leave through our front door. Of course if you are in the market for a new fixture, it’s much easier just to get one that comes already hooked up for motion sensitivity.

Outdoor lights aren’t the only ones you should think about adding motion detection to. If you have a closet light that frequently gets left on, motion detection lights can really help. When the door opens the light goes on and stays on for a set number of minutes unless the sensor is presented with more motion. These sensors are available in as simple a product as a light socket which gets screwed into the existing socket or more complicated versions which require the installation of wall switches. Either way, these are essentially do-it-yourself projects which you can easily do to help reduce your overall power consumption.

“Green” Wines Bring an Eco-Flair to Thanksgiving Dinner

There is no shortage of information about eco-friendly wines on the internet, but how may of you are taking this information with you when you visit your local package store?

Vineyards are bringing green innovation to their businesses in all sorts of ways. Some are rebuilding and improving their facilities to meet LEED certification. Using geothermal heating and cooling and recycled materials, Stratus Winery, Niagara, Ontario Canada became the first LEED Certified winery in North America. While the vineyard uses innovative, gravity-driven methods to process grapes and wine, they are not certified organic. 

Certified organic vineyards are using traditional methods of farming which improve the land’s soil while eliminating or limiting the use of synthetic pesticides. The details of organic versus conventional practices are significant. Organic wineries focus upon increasing biodiversity as a means to better the soil and therefore allow the growth of other kinds of vines in vineyards. These wineries also pay attention to the methods of production of the wines just as much as the growth of the grapes.

Still, other wineries are going green by choosing their power sources wisely. Since July 2007, the Staglin Family Winery has used 100% solar power. Other wineries are going 100% wind power. Either way, they are running entirely off the grid.

Looking for ways to implement a green angle to your wine consumption? Drink local! Whether the winery is organic, LEED certified, or operating off the grid, buying local will significantly decrease the number of miles your bottle traveled and therefore reduce its overall carbon footprint.