What eco gadgets do you have and what do you think of them?

[littlefrog]

I've always been a bit dubious about eco-gadgets, having an uncle whose house is filled with fantastic inventions that haven't really been that useful after all. But there must be some that are good - what do you have, and what do you like?

I have:

• AA battery recharger: brilliant
• Solar battery charger: totally useless, even in equatorial sunlight

I am considering:

• magnetic 'water conditioning' (to reduce limescale)
• laundry balls
• power meter (so you can see how much electricity an appliance is using)

We have a wind-up radio, which is great, no need for batteries/mains power.

What eco gadgets are there? I've seen a wind up torch but not heard of any of the others.

we have a paper brick press. you tear up all your excess cardboard and newspapers and mush it in water , then press it into burnable bricks.it's great and dd love making them.they burn for about 2 -3 hours
we also have a solar panel ( for hot water)and a wind up phone charger.
would love one of these and on of these

Ok, I have a magnetic laundry ball that is supposed to reduce water hardness in washing machine. Don't know if it does though.

Also have some Eco balls, but am not very impressed with the cleaning, tbh, Ok for lightly soiled coloureds, but crap for whites or anything greasy.

Tumble drier balls- they're OK, but haven't actually measured whether they reduce drying time. Don't use dryer very much anyway.

DH has a wind-up torch, and rechargeable batteries.

Drier balls - not quite so sure. My auntie says they're good for listening if your drier is still going. Quite noisey. Not noticed drying times reduced, but then I haven't exactly timed them.

Oh and garden wormery, but it was given to us and is an expensive compost bin.

Have a battery recharger, which we use a lot.

I gave my nanny some of those laundry balls as she was really keen on them and she says they are great. Not hugely keen myself.

Am thinking of getting a electricity meter reader for DH for Christmas (which is a bit counter to the proper ice cream maker he is also getting!).

DCs have wind up torches which they adore.

Am loving the look of the Trevor Bayliss eco MP3 player.

wind up torch AND phone charger in one here and really fancy one of these so all those appliances that you can't easily switch off at the wall, can be done remotely

Wow, that wind turbine is quite something, cremolafircone, it looks like a shark!

I think I will get the drier balls for my sister, they can't hurt after all, and I can understand how they might work (which is more than I can with the laundry balls!)

I didn't think much of my uncle's clockwork radio - the clockwork mechanism made a really audible noise that was quite distracting when you were listening to the radio!

Has anyone actually got a standby buster? Is it good? I'd LOVE to get one for my parents, who have a huge scanner/ router/ printer/ monitor setup all on standby all the time - but does the turning on and off mess the machines up?

I don't think turning stuff off does mess them up. If it's something like a digital alarm, then the time sets automatically, you might have to remember to turn stuff on to record, depends on how hi tech you are.

Owl wireless energy monitor. You can tell if you've left something on standby.

One Click power cables - you turn off the PC and it turns off the power to all peripherals. Also works with the TV - you turn the TV off and it can turn off the DVD and Video, or with the amp and it turns off the tuner, CD player etc.

Not really an eco-gadget, but if you are an urban parent, car sharing clubs like the City Car Club are a great way to have occasional access to a car and not have the same kind of impact as owning one.

Expensive, but very good if you have a garden big enough, is a geothermal heat pump which makes a bit of a mess of your garden initially, but is v. low maintenance and a v. efficient way of generating free heat.

Condensing combi-boilers if you can't do the heat-pump thing.

I installed an electro-magnetic water conditioner after we had to replace a lot of scaled-up pipework - contrary to the hype, it doesn't stop scale altogether, but it certainly seems to be less of a problem now.

Not so much of a gadget, but getting your appliances serviced (including boilers, washing machines and dishwashers) can save a lot of energy.

Entirely personal view - from experience the following are utter rubbish:
Eco-balls
Soap-nuts
solar battery chargers
wind-up torches (except the LED ones)

Amazed to see Jennster - are we related?

Hi Dadster, not seen you before. If we were related you'd know it!

a battery recharger that gets lots of use, a wind up torch, a kelly kettle for heating water whilst on picnics, a can crusher and a thingie for making logs out of newspaper.

littlefrog - I use my oneclick all the time for my PC, amp and TV for over 6 months and it hasn't harmed any of the peripherals for any of them.

Kelly kettles are fantastic - provided you are allowed to make a small fire of course. We used to use them on conservation holidays and it is amazing how quickly they heat up on very little wood.

We had a can crusher, but it rusted after a year outside and even with heavy-duty screws the constant pulling yanked it off the wall.

An MP3 player - hear me out on this - it's much more energy efficient to download tracks than to buy a CD (no manufacturing/transport costs and no plastic packaging which will break anyway) and no need for a CD-player.

Where can I get a paper brick press and can it take envelopes? I recycle all my paper but get really annoyed that I have to throw out the envelopes.

CremolaFirCone - How long does it take for the bricks to dry?

Where do you store them?

Do they really last for hours?

I have
wind up radio - OK
Solar battery charger - not great
Battery charger - not great
Little battery charger - fab
Woodburner powering my central heating
Lots of insulation

I reckon my Smart car is an eco gadget - it's so low fuel

I am getting
Ground source heat pump
Solar panels

I bought one of those things that turns your newspapers into logs and it was a huge hassle, and the bricks took about 3 days to dry out on the back of the aga. Only used it once. But wigglywigglers has one which doesn't involve soaking the paper first so I might try that.

Tumble Drier Balls are great. I just got my dad some too - he likes eco-y type things.

This is really interesting - specially the conflicting views on things like paper bricks and eco-balls!

Dadster - thanks for all those suggestions! We're in London so no space for a ground source heat pump, and we reluctantly decided against solar water heating cos it'd be incredibly difficult to service, even if we could get permission for it. Got the super-efficient boiler though!

So an Owl energy meter! Has anyone done any serious looking at the options around this? I'm going to ask for one of these for Christmas - anyone got any advice? I like the fact that the Owl and Electrisave tell you the cost of what you're using, but I'd also really like to know, for example, how much a cycle of the washing machine costs, not the minute-by-minute costs (doubtless spinning costs more than filling with water, for example!) So that means it needs to store info...

Katymac - what's the difference between the battery charger and the little battery charger?

The make I guess the little one is effective and charges batteries quickly & well the other one takes ages and they last no time at all

The drier balls mean that you don't need Bounce, Califraunk. You just throw them in the drier with the wet clothes and they make everything, especially towels much softer and fluffier. They have them in Bed Bath & Beyond.