Great ideas do not necessarily mean billion dollar budgets or a large corporation to be behind it. World over, in clean tech and renewable energy, small entrepreneurs and many amateurs are excited enough to try small, little efforts that could together make a big difference to the future of the world. For instance, here's one such interesting small idea for awareness creation, the Zero Energy Truck: "Zero Energy Truck all across India. The idea behind the ZET is to showcase how the importance of green buildings � essentially the inside of the truck tries to simulate a net zero energy building, through the use of renewable and green energy sources. Most parts of the ZET already has sponsors. Isabelle is looking for sponsors for the solar PV system to be installed for the truck. If your company is interested in being a sponsor and getting some green mileage, here�s how you contact Isabelle � isabelle@inspiredgreen.in Some more details of ZET: The concept - A Net Zero building which is energy efficient as well as generates all it�s power needs with PV panels on the rooftop � A Green Building par excellence. The growth of Green Building materials and products has been very encouraging, but awareness needs to improve within the design & construction community. Since most of the green building materials and strategies are different from conventional construction practices it needs efforts to educate people and make them realize that green practices can be incorporated in every building. Oh well, you might say that this is a cute but trivial idea and most times, I would be inclined to agree with you. But somewhere down, I feel that the awareness about clean technology and sustainability might be better created through such cute and somewhat "naive" ideas than through than by sophisticated looking gentlemen who present complex charts and data. What do you think? Here is a link that might be useful: Looking for Solar Cell Sponsors

Thank you Rollie..love the way you break it down. It is amazing the difference it made years ago when sheet products became available. Prior to that walls/ceilings were made of individual boards..then all of a sudden 32 sq ft with no holes in them. Great for reducing air infiltration. With sheetrock you are sealing all the gaps where the rock joins and if you seal the penetrations you make a lot of air tightness can be achieved.Always seal wall to ceiling joints even if installing ceiling moldings. The detail work..sealing sole plates,around electrical outlets, dryer venting through walls..caulk is a great thing! In unvented attucs choosing ICAT recessed cans and not IC cans, sealing all gaps around bath fans.. stove vents ..fireplace vents this makes an excellent air barrier. Once the air barrier is complete then any insulation will perform better. what lowers R-value is air movement and misinstalls. I would recommend that you also insulate the bonus room area. In my climate these are problem rooms as they are surrounded by hot attic air..as opposed to exterior walls which are exposed to outdoor temps. Attics reach 140 degrees here. If you eliminate the foam in this area you will pay for not installing it in comfort and utility costs. It just doesn't make sense to me to not use the better method for the area where living space is in the attic... air seal then insulate walls conventionally roofline with foam. over bonus room also. savings from wall foam will pay for bonus room install best of luck,

ncage, We live in Wisconsin and our ground water is really high this year from all the rain and our sump pump has been cycling pretty much once per minute since mid March (it did stop for a week or two sometime during the past three months but then started up again). I've cut and pasted below a chart from our utility's web site showing our electricity consumption for the first five months of 2008 (when the sump pump ran pretty much every minute from mid-march until now) and the first 5 months of 2007 (when the sump pump didn't run much at all) so that you can see the increase in electricity consumption caused by our sump pump. The chart didn't cut and past very well so I hope you can understand it. We live in a 3,190 square foot two-story house. Our basement is 1,900 square feet. Column #1: Read Date Column #2: # Days Column #3: kWh Column #4: kWh/Day Column #5: $ Amount May 09, 2008---30---792---26.4---$115.34 Apr 09, 2008---29---719---24.8---$99.89 Mar 11, 2008---29---499---17.2---$71.99 Feb 11, 2008---32---694---21.7---$97.68 Jan 10, 2008---31---774---25.0---$104.71 May 09, 2007---28---521---18.6---$75.09 Apr 11, 2007---33---664---20.1---$89.00 Mar 09, 2007---28---600---21.4---$79.91 Feb 09, 2007---30---652---21.7---$86.72 Jan 10, 2007---30---723---24.1---$95.27

Wow, thanks everyone. Man you all are amazing! I didn't mean to make people cry! It was a little weird for me to realize that my best friend is the same age as my mom was when she died! I talked to granny yesterday, she wants me to read a poem at my mom's 'memorial' on Saturday. I guess I will, I've never been able to say no to her! I'll post back and let you know how Saturday goes. I hope I remember to get a picture of me with granny to post here. Dcarch, who knows if I will lose weight now or not. I have a sense of humor about it and I'm happy with myself... I'm not out to impress anyone. If I do, great, and if not, I'll be happy anyway. I think I love food too much to be very skinny. And yes, Annie is right... I LOVE vacuums. Here's a Youtube video of my collection :o) I made this to show other vacuum and appliance collectors (yes, there's a club for that too).... You'll have to excuse the messy place! I've gotten two more since I made the video!