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Build & Repair: Green DIY Projects
Why call an over-priced plumber, electrician, contractor or computer doctor when you can make home improvements and simple repairs yourself? Making things last through upkeep and repair and selective home improvements (think insulation) can really reduce your carbon footprint by saving energy and resources. However, this can all be intimidating, especially in the age of hyper-specialization where we've lost the ability to do a lot of things ourselves. Not to worry: from unclogging a toilet to installing solar panels to setting up a hot compost to repairing a damaged gadget, you'll find everything you need to know to do it yourself, saving money and resources, around the house and in the garden in this section of Green DIY Projects.
Photo Credit: Medioimages/Photodisc/Getty Images
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Basic Caulking Tips
One of the ways to increase your energy efficiency is by sealing your thermal envelope. One of our most stalwart allies in thermal-envelope sealing is caulk.
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How Insulation can Save You Money, Energy, and Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
If you are cold and want to figure some of the quickest ways to save money year round, you need to add insulation to your home.
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How to Build a Leaf Composter
When you rake your lawn, you end up with a big pile of unwanted leaves. Burning leaves or leaving bags on the side of the road hurt air quality and strain landfills. Composting is a green alternative and it's easy to get started.
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How to Build a Worm Composting Bin
A worm composter has two advantages over a conventional compost box. First, the compost produced by your worm box is superior to the compost produced in a conventional compost box. Second, vermicomposting has fewer odor problems.
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Make a Compost Bin from an Old Storage Tub
With an old storage tub and a little bit of time you can make this outdoor composting sytem with this easy-to-follow guide.
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How to Make Hot Compost
Many people worry too much about compost - after all, leave anything biodegradable long enough, and it'll pretty much turn into compost. As long as there is some air, and a reasonable mix of different materials, compost will happen.
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How to Fix Toxic Soil For A Clean Garden
Whether it's unattainable fresh produce, frugality, or global warming that motivated the creation of your edible garden, the risk of toxic soil in urban and even suburban agriculture is a relevant concern. Typically found heavy metals such as lead and mercury or arsenic and petroleum can be found in soil where old homes, buildings, landfills or heavily trafficked highways once stood or still stand.
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5 Ways to Green Your Windows for Under $30
Many of us cannot afford to replace our windows with state-of-the-art, energy-efficient windows. Here are five cheap ways of reducing the amount of heat that seeps out of your windows.
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Chicken Tractors: DIY Mobile Backyard Coops
If you are considering starting a small backyard flock of chickens one of the best ways to house them is in a chicken tractor.
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7 Great Weekend Solar Power Projects
Looking for a fun project to take on this weekend? Looking to improve your skills with solar? We have some suggestions to accomplish both of these to-do items, ranging from quick, cheap and easy to rather involved but still pretty cheap and easy.
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Best Car Greeners You Can Do Yourself
These relatively inexpensive tools and products allow you to take your car greening and maintenance into your own hands, saving you money and giving your more control over your car's performance and efficiency.
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7 Green Methods for Unclogging a Toilet
Oh no, it's the dreaded clogged toilet. Whether you are at a party or in your own home, nobody ever wants to have to deal with a clogged toilet. But it's Planet Green to the rescue with a batch of 7 of the greenest ways to get the blockage cleared and you back on the track to smooth flushing.
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How to Mount a Solar Panel in 7 Steps
Solar panels are quite possibly the future of home-energy production. Solar panels are somewhat costly to buy, but once you've purchased the panels and installed them, the money you will save in the long run will become exponentially greater as energy prices increase.
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DIY Solar Radio for Under $5
You'll want to commit this Instructable to memory because when the zombie plague arrives and power lines are down, cannabilizing your solar-powered garden light to juice up your radio could make all the difference between survival and eternal undead carnage.
