It's called Sunny Day Earth Solutions. When you first walk in, you may not be all that impressed-- right now it doesn't have a whole lot of interesting things sitting around in plain view-- but if you look closely, you'll start finding stuff.
I got myself a little bowl made out of recycled chopsticks:
that folds up really flat:
John got himself an LED flashlight:
that you charge by pulling a string:
It gives you about a minute of bright light per pull:
and when you're done pulling the string, it clips neatly onto the end of the flashlight:
So, kinda neat. But that isn't the really, really cool thing about this place. When you talk to the people there-- wow, then you'll get interested.
The guy we talked to is amazing. If you've ever been thinking about setting up solar power in your house or apartment, or switching out your light bulbs for LEDs, he can give you more information about those things than you ever knew existed. Take a look at his credentials page to see all the stuff he's done.
And you can buy those things in the store, too-- all sorts of solar panels, and LED lamps that screw into ordinary light bulb sockets.
We're definitely going to try and talk to him some more. Even though we already light our apartment with fluorescents, we could probably cut our electric bill down to a fraction of that by using LEDs instead. They're expensive when you buy them, but they sure pay for themselves. It would be really cool to run a least some of our electric equipment on solar power, too. And after going to this place, that doesn't seem as far out of our reach as it used to.
Trouble is, they're not getting much business lately... so I really want to spread the word about this place. It's Sunny Day Earth Solutions and it's at 1000 26th Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Check it out sometime if you're in the area.
1 comment:
Thanks Erika,
Solar makes a lot of sense in Mpls b/c we get so many days of sunshine. It might be cold in the winter, but it's sunny!
I've been buying LED lights for over a year to replace my old lightbulbs. Do NOT buy CFLs - they have mercury and are toxic.
My favorite bulbs are the PAR20 LED, the 36 LED VIVID C.Crane bulb, the Pharox, which is a fantastic replacement bulb because it looks just like a regular light bulb and has a soft, warm glow to the light.
I’ve been trying the PAR30 and PAR38 LED bulbs to replace my brighter bulbs. They’re still more expensive than I want to pay.
The VIVID 36 LED bulb is less than $10 on http://www.eaglelight.com.
The Pharox varies in price. I get it at eaglelight for only $36 - less than anywhere else on the web that I’ve found.
The pull-chain LED flashlight you showed is cool, but you have to try the Zoom-Lite LED flashlight that's on the ledinsider.com website. It runs on 2 AAA batteries and lasts a long time, but it's a zoom light and the light is amazingly strong and throws light out 100 yards. It;s also only 4 inches long and very, very light.
THanks for your blog
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