Going Green … Gradually

The Slow Journey to Reduce my Carbon Footprint

Posts Tagged garden

Candle Holders – Finding A Style That Is Right For You

Jul 28

Posted by Owen Jones in Energy

Candles are an easy way to add warmth and style to any room in the house. They can also do the same outside if the wind is not too high. Scented candles are even more useful when it comes to creating a mood or ambiance. Making and selling candles can also be a profitable home business. However, there are three reasons why you ought to use candle holders when burning candles: safety, presentation and mess.

It is just not a good idea to let candles stand just on their base even though they may seem all right. For safety reasons alone, you should use a candle holder to catch the dripping wax and catch the last bit of the wick when the candle burns down to the bottom, if you do not, you are running the needless risk of starting a fire. And think of the mess that dripping candle wax makes! You either have to scrape it off hard surfaces or iron it out of fabrics. All of it unnecessary work for the sake of a candle holder

Then there is the added style that the right candle holders can bring to your room or patio. Yes, you can use candles on a patio or deck even if there is a breeze with the correct candle holders. Think about the old fashioned glass lanterns with the opening panel to access the candle. They look very stylish hanging on the wall or placed on the table on a patio or deck.

There really is such a vast selection of good quality candle holders on the market now that you will be able to find quite a few to suit any style of decor that you may have in your house and, of course, some types of candle holders will mix with virtually any style. Think of candlesticks and candelabra, for example.

No romantic table would be authentic without at least one candlestick with its candle. A normal romantic meal would have white, unscented, tapered candles, whereas a Christmas table would not really look right without red tapered candles in their candlesticks.

There are specialized candle holders too, such things as candelabra. Some candelabra are highly specialized like the menorah and the kinara, which are used to mark special occasions. However, the candle holders that most people will be familiar with are the good old candlesticks, especially those used at the dining table or in a restaurant.

Every household should have a few candle holders that they can fetch out for special meals or to create special lighting effects. This is one of the reasons why candle holders make such fantastic and cherished gifts for any adult. So, if you are stuck for a gift idea at any time, think about giving a beautiful candlestick or better still, a pair of candlesticks or a chic candelabrum.

The latest vogue in stylish candle holders is the candelabrum painted in a bright colour. Red, blue or yellow are popular colours for modern candelabra or buy a wrought iron candelabrum and paint it yourself and you will have one of the most stylish candle holders in the street.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is at present involved with researching decorative candle holders. If you would like to know more or check out great offers, please go to our website at Wrought Iron Light.

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Using Budget Lighting In Your Home

Jul 5

Posted by Owen Jones in Energy

Lighting is the one, single most important means of altering the atmosphere of any room. Therefore, it stands to reason that if you enhance the lighting and appearance of your house, its value will also increase. Lighting improves any decor. However, you do not have to use expensive lighting, budget or discount light is just as good in most cases.

There are thousands of kinds of lighting, at least one of which will go well with the type of decor that you have. Lighting is best kept subtle. Up lighting, down lighting and back lighting are fantastic ways of lighting up objects in a room. The days of one pendant lamp hanging from a rose in the centre of the ceiling are long gone so if you do have to have one, at least put a dimmer on it.

Using many lights in place of one powerful light does not have to be more expensive. Typically, the one powerful light was a 100 watt bulb, so you could have four 20 watt wall lights and still save 20% on electricity. Or you could use one 40 watt bulb in a standard floor lamp or table lamp for reading or working and save 60% on your lighting bill.

Apart from the savings, a wrought iron floor or table lamp is far more beautiful that a hanging light. How about candelabra? You could make use of candelabra to startling effect, whether you use candles in them or small light bulbs.

Candles have made a big comeback too. Many people use candles for supplementary or even back-up lighting and candelabra are one of the hottest latest trends. Interior designers are buying them up antique shops and painting them bright colours. You can see them in the photos of the houses of many celebrities. A lot of people use candelabra in conjunction with aromatherapy too.

Another aspect of lighting is security. A well-lit house is less likely to be burgled than a dingy house. Outside lighting can also play a major role in security precautions. External lighting that is controlled by movement or heating sensors to switch them on are the best means of discouraging burglars.

External lighting is the best deterrent, but it can also be beautiful. Back or up lighting on a water fall, a pond or a striking arrangement of plants or bushes is stunning in the dark. Spotlights have a role to play in lighting up garden plants as well.

If you would like to give your fish free, organic meat to eat, put a floodlight or even an ultraviolet light at the pond side. If you switch it on for a few hours after dusk, hundreds of flies, moths and mosquitoes will be drawn to it and fall into the water, where your fish will be waiting for them.

You can have a lot of fun with lighting and the possibilities are endless. Both indoor and outdoor lighting can enhance the beauty of your home and garden, but they also have functional uses: they enable you to see what you are doing and what other people are doing, which is why they are a good deterrent. Good lighting also makes anyone living alone feel more secure.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several topics, but is at present concerned with researching wrought iron floor lamps. If you would like to know more or check out great offers, please go to our website at Wrought Iron Light

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Your Lighting Choices When Renovating Your Kitchen

Jun 7

Posted by Owen Jones in Energy

Every year millions of people all over the world take on a kitchen renovation. Sometimes this renovation is partial, but usually it is a complete refit. When you are planning remodelling your kitchen, there are two main things that you should bear in mind. The first is functionality, after all you have to be able to prepare food there and the second is lighting.

Lighting is important for various reasons, but it does depend on what you use your kitchen for. You will need good lighting for cooking at all times of the day; you might need softer lighting for eating and you may like soft down lighting just so that you can find a biscuit at night. This can be achieved with a dimmer, but that would be to miss out on an opportunity of developing a good lighting system.

One of the problems is that there is so much choice when it comes to choosing light fixtures and fittings, light bulbs and accessories. You probably already have an idea of what you want having seen kitchens in your friends’ houses and in adverts. However, despite the fact that you may have pre-established ideas, it is worth getting hold of a couple of home improvement magazines and manufacturers’ brochures.

The best place to start is the ceiling. If you eat or talk in the kitchen, you will most likely want a suspended light above the table concerned. If you have a pretty big kitchen, you may want to have spotlights on the ceiling pointing to the main areas where you prepare food.

Down lights fixed above the work counter are very useful and quite atmospheric. They are particularly helpful above areas that you use often for snacks or drinks in the evenings – it saves switching the main light on.

If you live in a hot locale and you want a fan, you could get a ceiling fan that has built-in lighting. Normally these fans have four lights and there is a pull-cord control in order to select no lights, two lights or four lights. This is independent of the fan’s speed control.

A variation on this theme is a chandelier, but clearly you will need a pretty high ceiling to accommodate it. Wall lighting is another popular alternative. If you throw intimate dinner parties in the kitchen, wall sconces are a way of creating a romantic and nostalgic ambiance. These sconces can hold electric lights or just candles, which are very effective at creating an atmosphere.

It is better if you incorporate planning your kitchen’s lighting into the design procedure as soon as possible. It actually is that important to get it right. If you do not live alone, organize a brain-storming session with the people who share your house to see if they have other suggestions about how the kitchen should be used.

Some people might want to make it a more traditional area, where people sit and talk and eat together; others may be quite happy to eat in front of the TV or in their bedrooms. All of these considerations can affect the lighting you will need in your kitchen.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on several topics, but is at present involved with researching wrought iron floor lamps. If you would like to know more or check out great offers, please go to our website at Wrought Iron Light

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Six Useful Pieces Of Advice For Saving Money

Jun 6

Posted by Owen Jones in Energy

When times are difficult, like they have become lately, it is time to cut costs. This is not a popular move, but to be honest, it need not be such a problem as you might envisage. The biggest single cost for most households is the energy bill and in especially the electric bill. If you do not use electricity to cook or heat your house, then the next greatest contributor to your bill is probably lighting.

Anyway, here are six suggestions for reducing your household expenses.

1] Plan your meals before you go shopping. If you are able to, plan your meals for the whole week so that you can use bits and pieces from one day’s meals in the next day’s. It is also easier and cheaper to buy in quantity, which will also save you travelling expenses. Use coupons were you can. It is an obvious idea, but one that a lot of people overlook as they read their magazines.

2] Replace all your traditional, incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL). These bulbs use a low quantity of energy, but still put out a high amount of light. It is a good idea to check for the ‘Energy Star’ rating before you buy in order to make certain that you are getting a high quality product.

3] Instead of using all the lighting in a room, try to illuminate only what you have to. If you are working at your desk, switch off all the other lighting except a desk top lamp and possibly a standard floor lamp. It is surprising how far light travels in a dark room. The light from two lamps such as these will be ample to see your way around too.

4] Buy stocks of light bulbs by the score. They will last a long time, but the CFL bulbs will not deteriorate, so as the price rises with inflation, you will have a stock at the old price. If you can, buy them online, because an online retailer has fewer expenses, which can translate into savings of as much as 70%. Online auctions are also a good idea, you may be able to pick up bankrupt stock.

5] Prepare your own meals and make your own food for work. Take homemade sandwiches or salads. A flask of tea or coffee will supply up to $25 of Starbucks’ alternative coffee drinks

6] Put as many of your lights and appliances on timers or photosensitive switches. If you use passive infra red sensors to activate lights to deter intruders in your garden, you could be using up more electricity than you need to during the day. If you buy flood lights with photosensitive switches, then they will deactivate the lights during daylight when they are pretty useless anyway.

If you have a pond and pond lights, you can also use similar switches to turn your pond lights and pond fountain off during the nighttime..

None of these measures should have a negative effect on your lifestyle, although they will save you money.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is at present involved with researching wrought iron floor lamps. If you would like to know more or check out great offers, please go to our website at Wrought Iron Light

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Why Utilize LED Sprout Lights To Sprout Flowers Inside

Apr 5

Posted by White Ju in Energy

LED grow lights are highly mobile and versatile growing solutions for indoor growing of plant life. They are an efficient, eco friendly way for growing plants indoors. If you’ve set up or plan to set up an greenhouse or other style of indoor growing system, battery LED lights may be the way to go.

They work by utilizing only the types of light that the plants actually need to grow. In the spectrum of light that we get from natural light, only a small part of it is actually used in the photosynthesis process. By using lights that are only producing a smaller spectrum of color, they are able to grow plants as well as the more expensive and bulky lights on the market.

Because of the fact that these lights are low wattage, you will be able to save a huge amount of energy. This results in a fair amount of money saved each month, which can add up pretty quickly when using a lot of lights. Because they use less energy they are also better for the environment than some other styles of lights.

These types of lights last longer than standard light bulbs as well. Some brands have an estimated lifespan of around 50,000 hours. This means that they could be used for eighteen hours a day for over seven years before they need to be replaced.

Throughout the last few decades indoor growing has received a sort of stigma for its association with the growth of marijuana and other illegal plants. Most indoor growers, though, want only to cultivate perfectly legal plants inside. There is no way to control what is going to happen when you have a plant outside, from weather to animals to other humans, so there is a real need to have a controlled environment for growing pretty much anything.

They are also cooler to the touch than conventional lighting. That means that they are more versatile in your growing. You can grow plants that can handle the heat next to more sensitive, younger plants and they will both do well. This is because these do not get too hot and scorch the plants as they grow.

Because LED grow lights are so much cooler, they don’t need as much ventilation or air conditioning in your grow room. That is another way that they can save you a lot of money over the long run. Whatever it is that you are growing, these can probably help.

In order to get the correct LED grow lights, you need to find information that can be helpful. There are tons of different benefits that led lights brings for our use today.

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LED Bulbs Are Energy Efficient And Burn Longer

Mar 6

Posted by Lily Li in Uncategorized

The formal name for an LED bulb is light emitting diode bulb. You are probably most familiar with LED lights that are contained within the alarm clock that make the numbers light up. LED bulbs do not have a filament as incandescent light bulbs do and they never get hot. Instead of burning filaments LED bulbs use moving electrons to produce light.

Just like regular light bulbs you can get LEDs in different colors. These bulbs are not suitable to use in table lamps because they usually have a backing reflector that stops the light from radiating 360 degrees. They work well in lights situated on the ceiling because they are able to shine in a downward direction.  Outdoor LED lights are also very practical.

The light that comes from just one LED light is not bright enough to light a whole room. Manufacturers group many tiny bulbs together within a housing in order to produce the likeness of a 40 to 100 watt bulb. Manufacturers are experimenting with reflectors that will make the light produced seem a little bit brighter.

Because regular light bulbs have a filament about 80 percent of the electricity used to light the bulb is wasted in heat production. Because an LED does not get hot it saves electricity. The bulbs for an LED light are not fragile like they are in regular bulbs. You can drop them and they most likely will not break because they are enclosed in a resin epoxy.

As of now LED light bulbs are very expensive at a per bulb price of USD $40 and up. You will make up this money in just a few years in the amount of electricity you save and how few light bulbs you have to buy in the next few years. These are the most energy saving and eco friendly bulbs on the market.

There are many advantages to replacing some transitional light bulbs with bulbs of LED technology. It is said they can last for a whopping 50,000 hours and that equals 10 years keeping the lights on for 8 hours a day. LEDs use less than 10 percent of the amount of electricity that a regular bulb uses.

They are eco friendly not only because of the energy they save but because not as many get thrown away. They stay in use a long time and hardly have to ever get thrown in the trash. Another great thing is that you actually can throw them away. There is nothing in the LED light bulb that can harm the environment. The only problem the bulbs seem to have is not being quite bright enough for close work. Manufacturers are working on that problem and will hopefully have it solved in the very near future.

The technology today with light bulbs has came a long way and today you will find LED light bulbs have become very helpful. The LED bulbs can be purchased in a website store all over the world and gives a great amount of light.

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