By A Renewable Energy Enthusiast

Here’s a little cool device that I think should be very useful to light up the shed in your backyard. It is the L-949 LED lights from Designers Edge. Here’s the interesting feature, the LED lights are solar powered.

If you have a small shed or garage in your backyard, you may need a light source if you were to look for stuff in there. To affix a lighting fixture, you may need to pull a power cable from your house to your shed. That will require additional wiring and not to mention electricity cost.

A simpler solution is to use the L-949 LED lights. Since it is solar powered, there is no need for wiring works and no additional electricity cost.

Lights are emitted from the unit with 10 LEDs which will last for up to 100,000 hours. The LEDs are powered by a Photovoltaic (PV) panel with a 20 foot extension cable. Meaning the solar panel can be located simply on the roof of the shed.

On a full charge, with all 10 LEDs switched on, it will give you up to 2 hours of light. If you were to use only 5 LEDs, it will last up to 4 hours. The unit can be attached on the ceiling of your shed to provide maximum illumination. It has a pull chain which allow easy on and off.

The L-949 from Designers Edge offers you a simple and yet effective solution to brighten a backyard shed using the free energy from the sun. The L-949 is available from Amazon.com for only $24.46. To make your purchase, click here.

Guide To DIY Home Solar Power System

Do you want to know how to use solar energy for your home? If you do, check out Ben Ford’s Homemade Energy Guide e-book.

If comes with pdf files and step by step High Definition (HD) instruction videos. For more information, read the reviews of Homemade Energy Guide on this blog.

If you are living in Canada, you may be wondering can a home solar power system works for you. One of the main concerns about using solar power for Canadian homes is the weather.

Being at the northern hemisphere, Canada has a long period of cold winter climate.

Can a residential solar power system be able to generate sufficient energy for people living in Canada?

If you are living in a cold climate location, solar energy will help you to reduce your home electricity consumption. But the challenge is putting more effort to make your home energy efficient.

During winter time, a lot of energy is used up to generate heat to keep your home warm. Some of the heat may be lost if your house is not properly insulated.

You may not be able to feel the small amount of heat escaping from your house, but your thermostat will. The thermostat will sense the drop in temperature and crank up the heater to run longer and harder. That in effect will hike up your electricity bill.

Even if you are using a home solar power system to supplement your energy usage, some of the power is still being wasted because your home is not well insulated.

Therefore, if you are living in the freezing areas of Canada and you want to use solar energy to reduce your home electricity consumption, put an effort to make your home well insulated.

Call up a contractor to get an estimate on how much it would cost to replace the old insulation. The amount will be a small sum compared to the money you will need to invest for a complete home solar power system.

Saving Cost With DIY Solar Power System

If you want to save cost on a residential solar power system, you can do so by building the system yourself. You can even make the solar panel via Do It Yourself (DIY) approach with inexpensive building material.

What you will need is a good step by step instructional guide. For a complete DIY solar guide, check out John Russel’s Power4Home e-book. He will show you how to make the solar system with minimal cost.

==> Click here to visit Power4Home now!

When you are building your own home solar power system, it is essential you use energy efficiently. When you are using power from the grid, energy wastage may not be too big of a deal. All it does is bump up your electricity bill a little.

But when you are using a residential solar power system, power wastage can be a major issue. This is because you have limited power in the battery bank and you may have to wait until the sun comes out to recharge.

So how do you check your electrical appliance energy usage?

To do that, you can use the P3 International P4400 electricity usage monitor. It’s nick name is Kill A Watt!

This is my quick review of the Kill A Watt device.

Basically, the P4400 is a tool to measure how much electric energy your appliance consumes. You can also use it to find phantom loads. Phantoms loads are item that consume power even when are switched off.

To use the device, just plug it in line between any appliance and the wall power outlet. Begin by plugging the Kill A Watt directly to the wall outlet. If there’s power, you will notice the display lights up and show some information.

Then, plug in the appliance into the socket of the Kill A Watt.

At this point, you can already find out some information including:

1) The line voltage.

2) The amperage and wattage consumption of the appliance.

3) The line frequency.

4) Kilowatt hour consumption.

Leave the P4400 monitoring device for a day or a week and then come back to check the figures.

When you return to read the Kill A Watt meter, press the “Red button”. That will show you the total kilowatt consumption of the appliance since it was plugged in.

Press the button again and it will show the accumulated hour since that time. Write down all the figures.

When you’re done, remove the P4400 from the wall outlet. When you do this, the display will immediately go blank. This is because the Kill A Watt has no battery and no memory. That’s why writing down the information first is important.

What do you do with the information you’ve recorded from the Kill A Watt meter?

A few simple calculation with those numbers can teach you a lot about how your appliance uses energy. For example, dividing the Kill A Watt figure by the hour of use tells you the hourly energy consumption rate for that appliance.

The P3 International P4400 (Kill A Watt) device is a great tool to measure the power consumption of your electrical appliances. It will give you a number up to the exact hour rating.

Where you can get the P4400?

It’s available from Amazon.com with Free Super Saver Shipping.