Mr Sustainable

Mr Sustainable, Dante DiPirro of Hopewell NJ, will speak on Earth Day, April 22, 2015 at 7:30 pm about his off-grid, solar home and how to live sustainably using solar power and sustainable building materials. He will show pictures and discuss passive solar design, solar energy, and the need to think and live sustainably.  He’ll also discuss how he charges his electric car — with free, non-polluting electricity– by plugging it into his solar house!

The event will take place at Flemington DIY, A Community Art Space at 90 Main St., Flemington, New Jersey. Flemington DIY (Do It Yourself) is an organization whose mission is to inspire social change by fostering and cultivating projects that connect the local community with musicians and artists.  Flemington DIY hosts civic-minded and community events throughout the year.

So you want to reduce the amount of electricity you’re using with your household appliances… how to do you do it?

First, take stock of the appliances you have.  If you have an older refrigerator or freezer, it’s quite likely that you’re using much more electricity than you have to.  Improvements in technology have made today’s refrigerators and freezers orders of magnitude more efficient.  For example, you can now purchase a refrigerator that is up to 4 times more efficient than a traditional one.  This will save you money too: according to energystar.gov replacing your refrigerator with an energy star certified one can save you up to $1,100 on energy costs over its lifetime.  Also, if you have a secondary refrigerator or freezer in your basement, ask yourself if you truly need it – it’s typically the oldest and least efficient unit in the house and phasing it out may result in a noticeable reduction in your monthly electric bill.

Second, avoid phantom loads.  A phantom load is electricity that an appliance uses even when it is switched off.  For example, a TV or stereo with a sensor that allows you to turn it on with a remote control continues to operate, and continues to consume electricity, even when it’s off.  Your microwave, food processor, toaster or other countertop appliance may all have clocks or other functions that stay on 24/7 – to power these functions, you are using electricity. I tested a compact stereo recently in the off position and discovered that the device – because of clock and flashing message functions – used almost as much energy (2/3) of the total amount it used when it was on!  That’s a lot of phantom load.  And with all the modern devices in our homes today, and with all of the phantom loads built in to them at the factory, the electric usage and electric bills can really add up. Image how phantom loads continue to use electricity while you’re asleep!  You can eliminate phantom loads by putting your appliance on a power strip that has an on-off button.  Just flip the power strip switch to the off position and all appliances connected will not be able to draw power when they are off. When you want use the device, just flick on the button on the power strip first.

Third, use an appliance energy tester to determine exactly how much energy a particular device uses.  For example, I bought a Kill-A-Watt meter for about twenty dollars.  You just plug it into a wall socket then plug the household device into the front of the meter.  Power flows from the outlet through the meter and into the electric device, allowing the meter to display aspects of the power.  Pushing one of the buttons on the front of the meter allows you to see the volts, amps, watts and watt/hours associated with the device.  I used my kill-a-watt meter at an electronics store to test a fancy new LED flat screen TV I wanted to buy, and when I determined that the TV used less than 60 watts (equivalent to a single traditional light bulb)– fantastic! So I bought it! 

 By using these simple techniques, you an easily reduce your household appliance consumption of energy, and thereby save money, and get the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve done something good for health, the environment and the planet.

Earth Day 2013 is the perfect time to work on sustainable energy and sustainable building, especially at the New Jersey shore that was so heavily impacted by super storm Sandy.

Mr Sustainable, Dante DiPirro, will be a speaker at the Earth Day Gathering at historic Camp Evans, 2201 Marconi Rd, Wall, NJ, 07719.

For event information.

Mr Sustainable will speak at 2:45 pm about his off-grid, solar home and how to build using solar power and sustainable building materials.  He will show pictures and discuss passive solar design and materials.

Sustainability will be the order of the entire day at the Expo.

Sustainable Lawrence is a large group of residents, businesses, congregations, and other organizations dedicated to creating a sustainable community in Lawrence Township, NJ.

Its mission is to encourage the people and institutions of Lawrence Township to cooperatively adopt fundamental principles of sustainability and to develop policies and practices that fulfill those principles.

Its policies and policies include:

• Reduce our community’s fossil fuel dependence and wasteful use of scarce metals and minerals;
• Reduce our community’s dependence on harmful chemicals and wasteful use of synthetic substances;
• Minimize our community’s encroachment upon nature (e.g., land, water, wildlife, forests, soil, ecosystems);
• Meet human needs fairly and efficiently.

The Expo is an event open to the public in which residents, non-profits, businesses, community leaders, government leaders, and experts get together to share information.

This year’s Expo will include numerous speakers, displays of electric and hybrid cards, and booths with sustainable items and information.

Previous year’s Expos were attended by hundreds of people and this year’s event is sure to please!

Open to the public.  Held at Lawrenceville High School 2525 Lawrence Road, Lawrence NJ.  Hours: Noon to 4pm.

Mr Sustainable, Dante DiPirro, will be speaking on sustainable energy & building 3/15/13 at 7 pm at 203 Hopewell Wertsville Road, Hopewell, NJ.  The talk will include principles of passive solar design, solar power, and sustainable building materials, using information from the off-grid, solar home that he designed and built.  The event is open to the public.

Solar-powered home is a shining example of what can be accomplished with innovative thinking outside the grid.

During the assault and aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, his East Amwell residence was bright with light gleaned from the sun through solar panels.

Every small step toward sustainability is a small step away from unremitting  dependence on the Earth’s finite supply of fossil fuels.

Read NJ.Com Editorial

When Dante DiPirro was 11, he built a contraption from old mirrors that directed the sun’s heat toward a single point. The makeshift solar collector was his sixth-grade science fair project.

Now, decades later, DiPirro is still experimenting with sunlight. Calling himself Mr. Sustainable, the lawyer, blogger and self-styled environmental consultant designed the system of solar panels that powers his off-grid East Amwell, New Jersey home.

See NJ.com feature news story and photographs.

Despite the storm devastation around him, “Mr. Sustainable,” Dante DiPirro of Hopewell, New Jersey, never lost power during Hurricane Sandy.   Dante designed and built a sustainable, off-grid home that gets 100% of its electricity from the sun.  The power is stored in batteries, so that even if a hurricane or other catastrophe has shut down the electric power grid, he still has power.

During Hurricane Sandy, when the grid was down for ten days in his town, Dante invited his neighbors over to warm up, refrigerate food and most importantly get drinking water-all of which he can do off-grid.  He did the same for his neighbors during the October 2011 “Halloween” snow storm, which also knocked out the town’s power for over a week, and during other recent storms.

More and more Americans are asking how they can live more sustainably.  One of the reasons Dante designed and built this home, was to demonstrate that it is doable and affordable.

He hopes that when people now start planning for the next emergency, that they consider a sustainable solution like solar electricity for their home or business. He says even if you still connect to the grid, there are ways to design the system so that you can have power when the grid goes down.

Don’t just rush out and buy a gas generator, which may still leave you out hunting for fuel when gas stations have run out or do not have electricity to pump the gas, like happened during Hurricane Sandy. Consider installing a solar system that can keep you with power during emergencies and give you clean, free electricity the rest of the year.  You’ll feel good knowing that you produce clean, free electricity from the sun, and you’ll feel even better when the grid goes down and you still have power!

Dante’s home has been off-grid since 2006.  He’s aware of only one other off-grid solar home, outside of the western United States.

Dante has worked on over 25 megawatts of solar projects.  As “Mr. Sustainable,” Dante blogs about, and dedicates himself to sustainable energy, building and living.