Home Help -
Anti-Bacterial Creams
When you spread anti-bacterial creams over your hands to disinfect them before preparing food, do you realise that by not washing them with clean water afterwards, you are consuming all the dead skin, bacteria and other organisms, dirt, dust, pollution, pollen and fungi spores, possibly hair and clothing fibres that have just been combined?
I bet you thought your hands were clean! They may be sterile as far as living organisms go, but clean? Never in this Universe! The best thing I know is to thoroughly wash your hands in clean tap water, then apply the anti-bacterial cream to every part of both hands - from your wrists to around each finger and thumb. At least you will be eating sterile stuff when the rest of the cream evaporates!
However, the way I am washing my hands at the moment is to use a little cream, then wash that off. If I need my hands to be what I believe is totally sterile before preparing food, I will use more cream after washing them in water!
Ants, Cats and Rodents
There is no need to buy ant repellent. Simply don't feed the ants by leaving food and unwashed utensils, crockery and cutlery on the sink or bench. Keep all foods in glass jars and plastic boxes with airtight lids, and store them away from the floor and outside walls of the house.
The thin plastic bags that powdered foods come in are just not enough protection as ants will chew their way straight through them to get to the foods.
If ants are using gaps in walls and floors to get from one point under the floor or inside the walls to another by entering a room above, simply block up all cracks with plaster or plastic wood.
However, as rodents will chew through anything to get to a food supply, the only way to keep them out is to block up all holes and cracks - as thin and wide as two pencils, around the outside of the house with mortar or expanded metal mesh, and keep trees at least one metre (or yard) away from the walls and roof.
Some rodents will not let anything put them off - except for one or more cats! Fully-grown cats only need a 3-inch (76mm) gap under a door to gain access. Of course, kittens need less - about 2 inches (51mm) or the thickest part of your hand at the wrist. As long as there is enough width, their bodies will flatten out to 'incredible' thinness as their bones are very pliable.
Clothes Dryer
Clothes dryers are very expensive, especially when it's raining outside. I prefer to use this summer fan pointed towards the insides of trousers and other clothes. I also turn a convection heater on to heat the laundry!
It can cost 62 cents an hour (with service charges) to run a 2.4 KW clothes dryer, but I prefer to use a 55-Watt summer fan and a 1 KW convection heater for 32 cents an hour (with charges) on the hot water tariff. (April 2015, Tasmania)
Curtain Hook
Replace those cheap, plastic ones that break!
Electrical Safety Tips
Your life is worth saving!
General Safety Tips
Have you ever wondered if something is really safe?
Heat Shield
This simple device keeps the heat under the cooking pot.
Heating Systems
Every heater has a specific purpose, but some can be added to without changing the mechanical or electrical side of them.
Latent Heat
All changes take a lot of energy, and cooking is not excluded.
LED Lighting
Designing for the future!
Light Enhancement
- How to make an expensive light even better!
Macho Microwave
The next best thing when the cook is not around!
Macadamia Milk (plain)
No dairy for one reason or another? Use filtered water!
After quickly blending a dozen or so macadamia nuts with filtered water and putting the mixture through a nut milk bag, this left-over paste made a good spread. Without other ingredients, it has a sweet taste, but is a bit grainy and would probably benefit from having honey or jam on top!
Macadamia Smoothie
1. Crush about 10 to a dozen macadamia nuts.
2. Add a heaped spoon of Nestlé's Milo in a blender bowl.
3. Vanilla extract or a pinch of bean powder can also be added.
4. Slice or dice a banana to serve as a thickener.
5. Blend these in filtered water for a minute or two.
6. Use a nut milk filter to strain the mixture.
The result will be a soft, fluffy smoothie with a slightly watery taste, not the same as with dairy milk, but it is a very good alternative. You can experiment with drinking chocolate or other beverage bases to suit your own tastes.
Fishburger with garlic dip (left). - No almonds or candied pineapple in this smoothie (right).
A quarter to half a cup of pumpkin seeds and/or raw cashew nuts is almost like dairy milk!
Turn this Smoothie (above) into Ice Cream -
Because this smoothie is water-based, the flavour will be diminished in the freezer! Doubling the chocolate and/or banana content will compensate for that. More cashews than green pumpkin seeds has worked out very well, but just cashews makes the taste sweeter.
One cup of mixed nuts, thoroughly blended to a fine powder and one banana will make a couple of serves. Freeze for a few hours, then thaw on the bench for about an hour before being able to use.
Oil Heater (not Burner)
There is no candle flame to put black soot on the ceiling! This is an essential oil heater using a small, clay flower pot and tray, and a plastic boil-proof container of hot water from the tap or jug for the heat source. The oil dish at the top, which is wide and shallow, releases oil vapour into a room, or the whole house very quickly, depending on how much is being heated.
As long as the air in the room or house is not removed by heat pumps or summer fans, the vapour will remain for at least a few days - long enough to give relief to people with hay fever, colds or flu and bronchitis. I know it sounds very morbid, but that is what I can get at any time of the year!
The oil dish (tray) fits neatly on top of the clay pot with the plastic container inside, keeping the heat in long enough to evaporate all of the oil in several minutes, if boiling water is used. After half an hour, some of the oil embedded itself in the clay dish, giving off a very pungent Tasmanian Blue Gum smell because Eucalyptus globulus was used.
Much better than using a plastic container, which can leach chemicals into the water, is a glass bottle!
Paper logs for the fire
Make fire logs out of paper and cardboard.
Potato Chips
Potato chips - no salt needed and no waste packet to dispose of, but just as much fun to eat! All I need now is some kind of herb or sauce to dress them up!
Garlic sauce sounds pretty good, which is loved by many people!
Pet Cooler
Summers can be hot, but I either didn't realise or forgot that dogs don't sweat! Other pets - especially furry ones, will love this idea!
Power Boards
Check yours for safety so they don't spark or catch fire!
Product Review
Most of these should be avoided at all costs!
Then turn the fan heater off. Heating a room only with an oil-filled heater can take 1 hour more - and 2 kilowatts, but 2 heaters using 4 kW from 2 power points on 2 fuse circuits will only take about 5 to 10 minutes. With 1 heater, 2 kilowatt/hours are used, but with 2 this way, the amount of power saved will be between 1/3 and 2/3 to initially heat a room to the same temperature.
Renting
Good ideas to use when you can't renovate!
Safe Use of Power Points
Any equipment with switches is included!
Self-Watering Pots
Get your plants to water themselves while you are away!
Smoke Detector
Hard-wired smoke detectors! Know their vulnerabilities!
Solar Energy
Get it while direct sunlight lasts!
Spray Bottle (Zero Waste)
Any PET bottle and its lid can be quickly turned into a spray bottle for use around the home, garden and workshop! Glass bottles and metal lids can be used, but a hand drill, and a steel drill bit smaller than fish tank tubing are needed.
1. Turn the lid upside down on the carpet and use one blade of scissors to bore a small hole.
2. Turn the lid the right way up and continue boring, but the hole must be slightly smaller than fish tank tubing so it will be a tight fit.
3. Screw a jet spray into one end of the tubing and cut a length to go to the bottom of the bottle.
4. Fill the bottle with fluid, screw the lid on, and firmly squeeze the bottle.
One or more jet sprays came from a hardware store and the tubing came from a pet shop. There is no waste in the production of this item, even though all of the plastic was purchased from different places at different times. Living close to shopping centres will allow you to walk there and back!
Turbo Heater
Boost your heater manually - and heat a room very quickly using much less power in the same amount of time as one heater. Simply point a fan heater towards the fins of an electric oil-filled heater (such as Dimplex or Vulcan) for about 5 minutes - or until the oil-filled heater is hot. Place the heaters about 1 metre apart, with the front of the fan heater pointing towards the side of the oil-filled heater.
Waterproofing
Protect those important documents and items from water damage!
Water Filters
Water Savers
To the best of my knowledge, the idea for the first of these (the self-watering pot) has been with me for about 28 years - long before they were widely distributed in hardware and gardening stores in Tasmania. Mine uses a more efficient nylon rope for capillary action instead of a deep well, which will flood the soil, possibly drowning native plants.
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(Updated 31 December, 2017)