6 Cool Inventions For Nature Living :)
We often take electricity for granted. But in the event of an emergency, you may not always have access to it. Be it due to natural disaster, war or just the need to get the hell out of Dodge, you may find yourself one day leaving the comforts of typical housing. You could end up needing to generate your own power or learn to live without any altogether. In either case, certain hardships will become part of your daily routine. (For Even More Free Energy Saving Tips, visit: our 20% Ultimate Energy Savings Guide)
But it doesn’t have to be all bad. In fact, there’s plenty of devices and DIY methods of performing many household tasks that can be done conveniently and with little to no electricity. From doing laundry to cooking, refrigeration to lighting, here’s some great ways to do more with less.
Refrigeration
Zeer Pot
Here’s a very basic and simple concept which uses evaporation to help keep food fresh. As defined by Wikipedia, a Zeer Pot “…is an evaporative cooling refrigeration device which does not use electricity…The device can be used to cool any substance. This simple technology requires only a flow of relatively dry air and a source of water.”
Perishables can be places inside and kept good for several days longer than if just left outside. This type of refrigeration system is currently being used in many countries today and is quite easy to make. (Source: Instructables.com)
“Green” Fridge Hack That Uses Almost No Electricity
If you don’t want to get too rustic, you can always go with another DIY type fridge. This one involves modifying a top-opening freezer and making it super efficient.
Nearly every household has a fridge that completely wastes at least 30 kwh of energy every month.
Most of that energy is wasted every time you open the door. Cold air is heavier (warm air rises, remember?) so it falls out onto the floor every time you open your fridge, and warm air from outside rises to fill the space it left. But with a top opening fridge; even if you leave the door wide open, gravity effortlessly keeps the heavy cold air down, inside the fridge.
Using this principle, a clever Australian inventor, Tom Chalko has converted a deep freeze into an incredibly efficient refrigerator.
He chose a freezer because they are top opening. The only difference between a freezer and a fridge is the temperature maintained inside: freezers are colder.
Freezers maintain freezing temperatures, while fridges operate somewhere between 0 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. But, if converted to a fridge, it only has to run for a minute or two every hour to maintain normal fridge temperatures. So turning a freezer into a fridge just meant installing a simple external thermostat to cut the power off when it reaches the temperature that Tom set.
(Carried away with his energy reduction; he also took out the 15 watt interior light bulb, but he will reconsider this, if he ever finds some reason “for opening my fridge in the dark.”)
His home-made fridge uses much energy in 24 hours as a 100 Watt light bulb gets through in just an hour.
Not only is it energy efficient; but it’s absolutely silent too. The thing is only running for a minute or two every hour. At all other times it is perfectly quiet and consumes no power whatsoever.
Here’s how you can make your own:
-From HomeDesignFind.com
Cooking
Rocket Stove
Cooking would seem to be the easiest thing to figure out. Just build a fire and you’re on your way, right? Well, what if you don’t have a lot of wood to work with?
Rocket stoves are a rather unique invention which uses kindling-sized sticks as fuel, burning them very hot and very efficiently — all without using electricity.
This creates a hotter fire than you can usually get out of kindling, as well as providing sufficient heat to cook with from very little fuel. And they’re fun to use.
Regardless of how a rocket stove is actually built, they are all essentially the same thing. The easiest way to think of it is as an elbow. One leg of the elbow is horizontal, while the other is vertical. This provides four separate functions for the rocket stove:
- Fuel magazine – To hold fuel that is going to be burned and provide a means of feeding it into the combustion chamber. This is the horizontal portion of the elbow, leading up to the corner.
- Combustion chamber – Where the fuel is actually burnt. This is the corner of the elbow.
- Chimney – Like any chimney, it provides a means for smoke to escape. However, that isn’t its most important function. The chimney also provides a means for the heat that the stove produces to reach the food to be cooked.
- Heat exchanger – This is whatever is used to transfer the heat to the food being cooked, such as a pot sitting on top of the chimney.
-From OffTheGridNews.com
GoSun Stove
Solar cooking has always been an alternative to cooking over an open flame. But this method turns some people off by how long it takes and being at the mercy of direct sunlight. But this innovative device makes it all a lot more convenient.
Solar cooking is a cool alternative to electrical cooking and a more environmentally friendly one too. Of course, this type of cooking is conditioned by the weather, but with the help of this awesome gadget called GoSun stove you can cook any meal you want in less than 20 minutes. The best part is that you don’t need to add any kind of fuel to it as it is powered by the sun. The stove costs around $269, but it’s definitely worth the investment for those who like to cook outside. It is made of an aluminum outside that attracts the sunlight and it transfers the solar power through the GoSun’s glass tube. With this solar stove you can cook anything from pizza to meat and you can even use it to simmer vegetables. The GoSun can also be used to keep your cooked meal warm for several hours as the high temperature of the glass structure allows you to do so.
-From GoodsHomeDesign.com
Air Conditioning
Cooler A/C
Who ever said that living off grid meant having to suffer through the summer heat? You can stay nice and cool with a lot less electricity than would be needed for a traditional a/c unit with this super simple DIY one:
As you can see, this a/c needs almost no power at all and the fan could be run off of a small solar panel. It’s quick, easy and cheap to make and can provide you with some much needed summer comfort.
-From LifeHacker
Evaporative Air Cooler
Of course, the previous device requires that you have access to a freezer. But if you’re really limited to low levels of electricity and can’t make ice, what then?
This evaporative air cooler may be the solution. No ice needed, just a box fan and a fish tank pump. Using the principles of evaporation, this device can help keep a medium sized room from turning into a sauna. You’ll want to keep a window open to let the resulting humidity out, though. Again, you could run the whole thing with a single solar panel.
-From DesertSun02
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