Home & Garden...

When it comes to greening your home there's plenty you can do yourself. From simple lighting adjustments, to making a homemade solar water heater, to building the whole darn house, anyone can learn how to do green home projects. It's true, there's a learning curve, but that's good for your brain. Just think how much more adapt you're becoming by tackling home renovations, adjustments, and building yourself.

Here are 4 good DIY projects related to alternative energy and or saving resources.

1. Build an integral passive solar water heater: This project sounds like a tough one, but it's really not that complicated. It's also super inexpensive. Really. Materials include electric water heater tank, plywood box, window glass or plastic, some basic plumbing fittings, paint, pipe and some insulation. Great instructions and an easy read.

2. Build a solar cooker: Four great links that will get you cooking in no time.

• Bernard Solar Panel Cooker
• The Pizza Box Solar Oven
• Zoom Solar Cookers
• Building a Solar Oven

3. Build your own small scale hydroelectric generator - a pretty cool fun time project that allows you to create a decent amount of energy.

4. Build an electricity producing wind turbine. Not too hard, but you'll need to locate your own parts, which is not tough if you have access to the internet.

Bonus project - get out: Staying home all the time is no fun. If you'd ever like to leave your house, but hate the gasoline situation then how to make ethanol, might come in handy.