Clothes lines existed well before the invention of dryers so why don’t we use them more? The truth is that outside the US, clothes lines are used extensively because the cost of energy in Europe and Asia is much higher. Having returned from a week in Paris, I can say that every apartment I visited had some type of clothes drying fixture … often over the bathtub but sometimes in the dining room or extra bedroom.

Clothes dryers were invented in Europe in the early 1800 with a barrel-shaped metal drum with holes, turned by hand over a fire. The first American dryer patent was issued to George Sampson in 1892. As dryers evolved they have  replaced the original dryer, a clothes line so if you’re using a clothes dryer (you are), then take a few minutes to review these safety tips. READ MORE

When you’re buying a home, you expect the kitchen to include a microwave oven and in the US, they are fairly common but that wasn’t always the case. The heating effect of microwaves was discovered accidentally in 1945 when an engineer, working on an active radar set, noticed a chocolate bar in his pocket started to melt (for details see Wikipedia). The first food intentionally cooked with a microwave was popcorn and the second, an egg which exploded.

I remember our first microwave (I won’t tell when that was). We thought it was a great tool for defrosting whatever we decided to have for dinner … as we weren’t good at planning ahead (then, or now). It took years to learn microwave cooking. So it’s Friday night and you guessed it, the pork chops went into the microwave to defrost. READ MORE

Many electronic devices continue to draw power when they’re turned off. Some of these are intentional, i.e. your television remote will only work if there’s power in the television to receive signals. Unfortunately this standby power wastes a tremendous amount of energy …  or roughly 68 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity wasted a year, generated by 37 power plants releasing over 97 billion pounds of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

This vampire energy represents about 5% of the energy consumed in the US and costs consumers more than $3 billion per year. Breaking this down further, vampire energy used by electronics in passive mode, i.e. the clock on your microwave, or standby mode when you schedule your VCR to record a show, account for 5 to 8% of your home’s total electricity or roughly one month’s electricity bill. READ MORE