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#Post#: 2371--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: December 11, 2014, 5:32 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTW7BS7tV8k&feature=player_embedded
[font=arial black]Clean Water In An Emergency [img width=60
height=60]
HTML http://www.smile-day.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Smiley-Thumbs-Up2.jpg[/img]<br
/>[/font]
This video shows how a simple, home made solar water distiller
can turns salt water or dirty water into fresh drinkable water.
All you will need is:
--A plastic bowl
--A cup
--Plastic wrap
--A rubber band
--A rock or weight
Whether your water grid goes down, or you are out camping, this
is an invaluable tool to have to create clean water wherever you
go.
By this method, you clean the water of bacteria, pollutants,
salt, flouride, and 99% of other contaminants.
It's AWESOME!
HTML http://www.desismileys.com/smileys/desismileys_0293.gif
--Celia Farber
This video was produced by DesertSun on Youtube.
Celia Farber is an investigative science reporter and cultural
journalist who has written for several magazines including
Harper’s, Esquire, Rolling Stone, SPIN and more. She is the
author of “Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of
AIDS” (Melville House Press/ Random House). Known for bold
exposes of the pharmaceutical industry and related media cover
ups, Celia Farber shines a spotlight on the very subjects that
have been taboo for too long: What is Cancer? Does HIV cause
AIDS? Do Vaccinations Cause Brain Damage? And many more...
Visit her website at www.truthbarrier.com
HTML http://www.nextworldtv.com/videos/homesteading-skills/homemade-solar-water-distiller.html#sthash.mdx6VLwg.dpuf
#Post#: 2482--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: December 31, 2014, 7:38 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2jH8PcuOMs&feature=player_embedded
Free HEAT, EXTRA OXYGEN and Toxin Filtration!
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/earthhug.gif
Just check out the zoning ordinances first. Many towns
(RIDICULOUSLY >:() do not allow a greenhouse to be attached to
the house.
#Post#: 2508--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: January 6, 2015, 6:42 pm
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Don't pay $65 for an $8 heating element!
Watch the video for great info on how to wire the DC from a
solar panel or wind turbine (WITHOUT needing a costly inverter
;D) straight into a water heater.
[center]
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGCMwsDYmAw&feature=player_embedded[/center]
[center] [img width=60
height=60]
HTML http://www.smile-day.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Smiley-Thumbs-Up2.jpg[/img][/center]<br
/>
#Post#: 2536--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: January 11, 2015, 5:31 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzIY4g6s1Dw&feature=player_embedded
PART 1: How to cut your electric bill in HALF [img width=70
height=60]
HTML http://elqahera-trading.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dollar-sign-thumbnail1.jpg[/img]<br
/> (or more) BEFORE installing solar or wind Renewable Energy!
Tips on Lighting, shower heads, vacuum cleaning, bubble wrap for
windows, phantom loads, ceiling fan blade direction change per
season and humidifier use (55% relative humidity holds warm air
better - furnace doesn't come on as often) included for the
smart=frugal Homo SAP.
Great cost saving information!
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/128fs318181.gif
#Post#: 2537--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: January 11, 2015, 5:56 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4O7P9LElM8&feature=player_embedded
PART 2: How to cut your electric bill in HALF: Keeping your
Refrigerator at top efficiency [img width=70
height=60]
HTML http://elqahera-trading.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dollar-sign-thumbnail1.jpg[/img]<br
/>
#Post#: 2638--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: February 3, 2015, 5:46 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y07DLhs2c70&feature=player_embedded
Finding studs with magnets. Notice how the framing of a window
will show up too. ;D
#Post#: 2650--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: February 7, 2015, 2:30 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IOfUaMqr-E&feature=player_embedded
How to Make Your Own Laundry Detergent
#Post#: 2703--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: February 20, 2015, 11:40 pm
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[center]
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cer3WKTOcy8&feature=player_embedded[/center]
[center]
Building the earthship way [/center]
If you're thinking about building a house, shed or other
building, consider using a tire wall!
It's a great way to upcycle old beat up tires and keep them
from going to the landfill.
In addition, they're super sturdy, effective and make for
excellent insulation.
This video will explain exactly how the process works.
- See more at:
HTML http://www.nextworldtv.com/videos/homesteading-skills/considering-some-construction--heres-how-to-build-a-tire-wall.html#sthash.BsJYKLaZ.dpuf
#Post#: 3275--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: June 10, 2015, 2:12 pm
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[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=785.msg77732#msg77732
date=1433955429]
Making good
HTML http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/philip-ball-art-of-repair/
Repairing things is about more than thrift. It is about creating
something bold and original
[float=left][img
width=500]
HTML http://cdn-imgs-mag.aeon.co/images/2013/05/sewing-kit.jpg[/img][/float]
[html] <p><a title=\"Read more articles by Philip Ball\"
href=\"
HTML http://aeon.co/magazine/author/philip-ball/\">Philip<br
/>Ball</a> is a British science writer, whose work appears in
<em>Nature</em>,<em>New Scientist</em> and<em>Prospect</em>,
among others. His latest book is<em>Invisible: The Dangerous
Allure of the Unseen</em>(2014).</p> <div
id=\"shareIconsLeftWrapper\" class=\"clearfix
hide-for-small\"> <div id=\"shareIconsLeft\"
class=\"fixed\"> <div class=\"shareIcon shareIconReddit\">
</div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div
class=\"eight columns\"> <div class=\"content
instapaper_body yes\"> <p>The 16th-century Japanese tea
master Sen no Rikyū is said to have ignored his host’s fine
Song Dynasty Chinese tea jar until the owner smashed it in
despair at his indifference. After the shards had been
painstakingly reassembled by the man’s friends, Rikyū
declared: ‘Now, the piece is magnificent.’ So it went in old
Japan: when a treasured bowl fell to the floor, one didn't just
sigh and reach for the glue. The old item was gone, but its
fracture created the opportunity to make a new
one.</p> <p>Smashed ceramics would be stuck back together
with a strong adhesive made from lacquer and rice glue, the web
of cracks emphasised with coloured lacquer. Sometimes the
coating was mixed or sprinkled with powdered silver or gold and
polished with silk so that the joins gleamed; a bowl or
container repaired in this way would typically be valued more
highly than the original. According to Christy Bartlett, a
contemporary tea master based in San Francisco, it is this ‘gap
between the vanity of pristine appearance and the fractured
manifestation of mortal fate which deepens its appeal’. The
mended object is special precisely because it was worth mending.
The repair, like that of an old teddy bear, is a testament to
the affection in which the object is held.</p> <p>A similar
principle was at work in the <em>boro</em> garments of the
Japanese peasant and artisan classes, stitched together from
scraps of cloth at a time when nothing went to waste. In
<em>boro</em> clothing, the mends become the object. Some
garments, like the fabled ship of Theseus, might eventually be
overwhelmed by patches; others were assembled from scraps at the
outset. In today’s trendy Tokyo markets, the technique risks
becoming a mere ethnic pose. But <em>boro</em> was always an
aesthetic idea as much as an imposition of
hardship.</p> <p>Although quite different in their social
status, <em>boro</em> and the aesthetic of repaired ceramics
alike draw on the Japanese tradition of <em>wabi-sabi</em>, a
world view that acknowledges transience and imperfection. To
mend a pot, one must accept whatever its fracture brings: one
must aspire to<em>mushin</em> — literally ‘no mind’ — a state of
detachment sought by both artists and warriors. As Bartlett
explains in her essay ‘A Tearoom View of Mended Ceramics’
(2008): ‘Accidental fractures set in motion acts of repair that
accept given circumstances and work within them to lead to an
ultimately more profound appearance.’</p> <p>Mended ceramics
displayed their history — the pattern of fracture disclosing the
specific forces and events that caused it. Indeed, earlier this
year, a team of French physicists from the Aix-Marseille
University demonstrated that the starlike cracks in broken glass
plates capture a forensic record of the mechanics of the impact.
By reassembling the pieces, that moment is preserved. The
stories of how mended Japanese ceramics had been broken in the
first place — like that of the jar initially spurned by
Rikyū — would be perpetuated by constant retelling. In the
tea ceremony these histories of the utensils provide raw
materials for the stylised conversational puzzles that the host
sets his guests.</p> <p>For years, I have been patching
clothes into a kind of makeshift, barely competent
<em>boro</em>. Trousers in particular get colonised by patches
that start at the knees and at the holes poked by keys around my
pockets, spreading steadily across thighs with increasing
disregard for colour matching. Only when patches need patches
does the recycling bin beckon. At first I did this as a hangover
from student privation. Later it became a token of ecological
sensibility. Those changing motives carried implications for my
appearance: the more defiantly visible the mend, the less it
risks looking like mere penny-pinching. That’s a foolishly
self-conscious consideration, of course, which is why the
Japanese aesthetic of repair is potentially so liberating: there
is nothing defensive about it.</p> <p>This feels like rather
a new idea in the pragmatic West. But things might be changing.
Take, for example, the all-purpose mending putty called Sugru,
an adhesive silicone polymer that you can hand-mould to shape
and then leave overnight to set into a tough, flexible seal. As
its website demonstrates, you can use Sugru for all those
domestic repairs that are otherwise all but impossible, from
cracked toilet seats to split shoes or the abraded insulation on
your MacBook mains lead. (Doesn’t it always split where it
enters the power brick? And isn’t it exorbitantly costly to
replace?) Sugru was devised by Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh, an Irish
design graduate at the Royal College of Art in London, working
with a group of retired industrial chemists.
<em>Time</em>magazine pronounced it a top invention of 2010, and
it has since acquired an avid following of ‘hackers’ who relish
its potential not just to repair off-the-shelf products, but
also to modify them.</p> <blockquote> <p>It wasn’t so
much that things stopped working and then got repaired, but that
repair was the means by which they worked at
all</p> </blockquote> <p>Sugru doesn’t do its job
subtly, which is the point. You can get it in modest white, but
fans tend to prefer the bright primary colours, giving their
repairs maximal visibility. They present mending not as an
unfortunate necessity to be carried out as quietly as possible
but as an act worth celebrating.</p> <p>A similar attitude
is found in the burgeoning world of ‘radical knitting’. Take the
textiles artist Celia Pym, who darns people’s clothes as a way
of ‘briefly making contact with strangers’. There are no
‘invisible mends’ here: Pym introduces bold new colours and
patterns, transforming rather than merely repairing the
garments. What Pym and the Sugru crew are asserting is that
mending has an aesthetic as well as a practical function. They
say that if you’re going to mend, you might as well do it openly
and beautifully.</p> <p>Their approaches also reflect
another of the aesthetic considerations of Japanese ceramic
repairs: the notion of <em>asobi</em>, a kind of playful
creativity introduced by the 16th-century tea master Furuta
Oribe. Repairs that embody this principle tended to be more
extrovert, even crude in their lively energy. When larger areas
of damage had to be patched using pieces from a different broken
object, one might plug the gap using fragments that have a
totally different appearance, just as clothes today might be
patched with exuberant contrasting colours or patterns. Of
course, one can now buy new clothes patched this way — a
mannered gesture, perhaps, but one anticipated in the way that
Oribe would sometimes deliberately damage utensils so that they
were not ‘too perfect’. This was less a Zen-like expression of
impermanence than an exuberant relish of
variety.</p> <p><span class=\"drop\">S</span>uch modern
fashion statements aside, repair in the West has tended to be
more a matter of grumbling and making do. But occasionally the
aesthetic questions have been impossible to avoid. When the
painting of an Old Master starts cracking and flaking off, what
is the best way to make it good? Should we reverently pick up
the flakes of paint and surreptitiously glue them back on again?
Is it honest to display a Raphael held together with PVA glue?
When Renaissance paint fades or discolours, should we touch it
up to retain at least a semblance of what the artist intended,
or surrender to <em>wabi-sabi</em>? It’s safe to assume that no
conservator would ever have countenanced the ‘repair’ last year
of the crumbling 19th-century fresco of Jesus in Zaragoza —
<em>Ecco Homo</em> by Elías García Martínez — by an elderly
churchgoer with the artistic skills of Mr Bean. But does even a
skilled ‘retouching’ risk much the same hubris?</p> <p>These
questions are difficult because aesthetic considerations pull
against concerns about authenticity. Who wants to look at a
fresco if only half of it is still on the wall? Victorian
conservators were rather cavalier in their solutions, often
deciding it was better to have a retouched Old Master than none
at all. In an age that would happily render Titian’s tones more
‘acceptable’ with muddy brown varnish, that was hardly
surprising. But today’s conservators mostly recoil at the idea
of painting over damage in old works, although they will permit
some delicate ‘inpainting’ that fills cracks without covering
any of the original paint. Cosimo Tura’s <em>Allegorical
Figure</em> (c. 1455) in the National Gallery in London was
repaired this way in the 1980s. Where damage is extensive, it is
now common to apply treatments that prevent further decay but
leave the existing damage visible.</p> <p>Such rarefied
instances aside, the prejudice against repair as an embarrassing
sign of poverty or thrift is surely a product of the age of
consumerism. Mending clothes was once routine for every stratum
of society. British aristocrats were unabashed at their elbow
patches — in truth more prevention than cure, since they
protected shooting jackets from wear caused by the shotgun butt.
Everything got mended, and mending was a trade.</p> <p>What
sort of trade? Highly skilled, perhaps, but manual, consigning
it to a low status in a culture that has always been shaped by
the ancient Greek preference for thinking over doing (this is
one way in which the West differs from the East). Over the
course of the 19th century, the ‘pure’ theorist gained
ascendancy over the ‘applied’ scientist (or worse still, the
engineer); likewise, the professional engineer could at least
pull rank on the maintenance man: he was a creator and
innovator, not a chap with oily rag and tools. ‘Although central
to our relationship with things,’ writes the historian of
technology David Edgerton, ‘maintenance and repair are matters
we would rather not think about.’ Indeed, they are increasingly
matters we’d rather not even <em>do</em>.</p> <p>Edgerton
explains that, until the mid-20th century, repair was a
permanent state of affairs, especially for expensive items such
as vehicles, which ‘lived in constant interaction with a
workshop’. It wasn’t so much that things stopped working and
then got repaired, but that repair was the means by which they
worked at all. Repair might even spawn primary manufacturing
industries: many early Japanese bicycles were assembled from the
spare parts manufactured to fix foreign (mostly British)
models.</p> <p>It’s not hard to understand a certain
wariness about repair: what broke once might break again, after
all. But its neglect in recent times surely owes something to an
underdeveloped repair aesthetic. Our insistence on perfect
appearances, on the constant illusion of newness, applies even
to our own bodies: surgical repairs are supposed to make our own
wear and tear invisible, though they rarely
do.</p> <p>Equally detrimental to a culture of mending is
the ever more hermetic nature of technology. DIY fixes become
impossible either physically (the unit, like your MacBook lead,
is sealed) or technically (you wouldn’t know where to start).
Either way, the warranty is void the moment you start tinkering.
Add that to a climate in which you pay for the service or
accessories rather than for the item — inks are pricier than
printers, mobile phones are free when you subscribe to a network
— and repair lacks feasibility, infrastructure or economic
motivation. Breakers’ yards, which used to seem like places of
wonder, have all but vanished; car repair has become both
unfashionable and impractical. I gave up repairing computer
peripherals years ago when the only person I could find to fix a
printer was a crook who lacked the skills for the job but
charged me the price of a new one anyway.</p> <p>Some feel
this is going to change — whether because of austerity or
increasing ecological concerns about waste and consumption.
Martin Conreen, a design lecturer at Goldsmiths College in
London, believes that TV cookery programmes will soon be
replaced by ‘how to’ DIY shows, in which repair would surely
feature heavily. The hacker culture is nurturing an underground
movement of making and modifying that is merging with the
crowdsourcing of fixes and bodges — for example, on websites
such as ifixit.com, which offers free service manuals and advice
for technical devices such as computers, cameras, vehicles and
domestic appliances. Alternatively there is fixperts.org, set up
by the design lecturer Daniel Charny and Sugru’s co-founder,
James Carrigan, which documents fixes on film.</p> <p>The
mending mindset has taken to the streets in the international
Repair Café movement, where you can get free tools, materials,
advice and assistance for mending anything from phones to
jumpers. As 3D printers — which can produce one-off objects from
cured resin, built up from granular ‘inks’, layer by layer —
become more accessible, it might become possible to make your
own spare parts rather than having to source them, often at some
cost, from suppliers (only to discover your model is obsolete).
And as fixing becomes cool, there’s good reason to hope it will
acquire an aesthetic that owes less to a ‘make do and mend’
mentality of soldiering on, and more to <em>mushin</em>and
<em>asobi</em>.</p> <p><em>29 May 2013</em></p> <div
class=\"hide-for-small\"> </div> <p class=\"essay-tags
hide-for-small\"><em>Read more essays on <a title=\"view all
essays in energy, resources & sustainability\"
href=\"
HTML http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/energy-resources-and-sustainability/\">energy,<br
/>resources & sustainability</a>, <a title=\"view all essays in
general culture\"
href=\"
HTML http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/general-culture/\">general<br
/>culture</a>and <a title=\"view all essays in making\"
href=\"
HTML http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/making/\">making</a></em></p> </div> </div> </div> </div>[/html]
[/quote]
#Post#: 3449--------------------------------------------------
Re: Homebody Handy Hints
By: AGelbert Date: July 12, 2015, 1:35 pm
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[img width=640
height=480]
HTML http://cdn.instructables.com/FVZ/SH5G/IBWHE2F2/FVZSH5GIBWHE2F2.LARGE.jpg[/img]
Super Basic Solar Lighting under $75
by lumpytrout
About: We are designer/builders making cool stuff and cozy mod
cabins from recycled materials. We have a bunch of projects
coming up so please follow us if you would like to see more
recycled and energy efficient projects!
Location: Pacific North West
Joined: Apr 24, 2014
[quote]
If you are looking for a simple, inexpensive but durable solar
lighting setup for your shed or outbuilding then this tutorial
is perfect for you. There are many tutorials on this site but we
wanted to make our system as frugally as we could and still have
a quality setup that would serve most people's basic lighting
needs. Our total budget for this whole project was about $75 USD
and I hope to get many years of maintenance free use from this
system. I set up three lights because I love good lighting but
this could easily be cut down to just two (interior and
exterior) and would work great.[/quote]
Full details with pictures of materials and step by step
instructions:
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714191456.bmp
HTML http://www.instructables.com/id/Super-Basic-Solar-Lighting-under-75/
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