Unusual Staffs: How To

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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

How to Save Gas When You Drive

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Don't drive

Without a doubt, the best way to burn less gas is to driver fewer miles. That doesn't necessarily mean biking the whole way to work, though it couldn't hurt. Think about combining trips, walking, biking or taking public transportation when possible. If you've got to go to several stores in the same plaza, park centrally rather than driving from one store to the other. It takes some extra planning and some physical effort, but it might be worth it if you can squeeze a few extra days between fill ups.

Fix your car

Sure, buying an electric car or a hybrid can save you a bundle in gasoline costs, but if you're worried about gas prices you probably already have a car. You might as well make the most of what you've got.

Ditch that roof rack. If you're not carrying skis or kayaks, there's no need to create unnecessary drag.

Clean up. Remove unnecessary items from the trunk. The extra weight doesn't help.

Kick the tires. Make sure all of your tires are properly inflated. The more rolling resistance your tires exert, the harder your engine has to work. But don't over-inflate. That can lead to a dangerous loss of friction or other problems.

Tune up. A well-kept engine runs more efficiently. A simple tuneup can save gas, as can friction-reducing motor oil.

Fix the driver

If your window sticker said 25 MPG and you're getting 15, there's a chance your foot is what's wrong with your car. The easiest way to improve your mileage is to fix the driver.

MPG computers are available on many cars, and there are some available aftermarket, such as the ScanGaugeII, and some you can build yourself (MPGuino). Observing your "instant" or current MPG as you drive your car in different ways is eye-opening. For example, those who drive manual transmission vehicles may discover that you hold your car in a low gear too long, and you may find that upshifting sooner and gently nudging the car along with the gas pedal can cause a huge rise in MPG. You would not see this kind of immediate feedback without a trip computer that displays the current MPG.

Learn to anticipate the flow of traffic as you drive: Leave some distance between your car and the car in front of you during stop-and-go traffic, so you can coast. When coming down a hill, leave your foot off the accelerator. Don't floor it just to get to a stoplight.

If you're really looking to maximize your mileage, check out websites like CleanMPG and Ecomodder, which are devoted to the fine automotive art of hypermiling. Hypermilers use Newton's First Law of Motion to its full extent, keeping a car in motion for as long as possible.

Hypermilers think nothing of pushing their car out of the garage to avoid using extra gas, or parking in a space that's on an incline so they can coast back into traffic. You may see a hypermiler wearing an "ice vest" to avoid using air conditioning or rolling down windows during summer.

Some of the techniques work best on lightly traveled roads, such as following the "racing line" through a corner or timing a traffic light by slowing down many car-lengths away from the stop line and coasting until the light turns green.

Other tactics, such as cutting through parking lots to avoid red lights and shutting off the engine while coasting, are dangerous and often illegal.

Whether you're hypermiling or just giving up hot-rodding, the key to increasing your mileage is paying attention to your commute, your car and your driving habits.

~Source

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How to Make Brew Sun Tea

Photo: jspatchwork via Flickr

Sun tea is quite possibly the most perfect drink for the summer. Lemonade is a classic, but it can be a little too tart for the hot days. Juices are too sugary, so they'll dehydrate you and cause a sugar crash halfway through that softball game. Water? That's just plain boring.

This article is a wiki. Got extra advice? Comment Below and I will edit it.

Step 1: Pick a container. Gallon-size pickle jars or gallon pitchers work best. Wash the container thoroughly with soapy water. This is important even if it already appears clean. Leaving dirty dishes in the sun can promote bacterial growth.

Step 2: Fill the container with a gallon of cold water. If you prefer sweet tea, remove about 25% of the water from the container, add sugar, make sure it's dissolved, and fill the container again. Kool-Aid sweetness requires 1 cup of sugar per half-gallon of water. However, sugared beverages don't quench your thirst; they make you thirstier. Unsweet tea is an acquired taste, but one that's well worth acquiring.

Step 3: Put in the tea bags. You can use any kind of tea. However, we prefer black tea for its caffeine, antibacterial properties and its dozens of other benefits. Our method: Tie three Lipton tea bags on a chopstick or wooden spoon, straddle it across the top of the container, and dangle the tea bags in the water. Add some sprigs of freshly-washed mint to the mix for a cooler taste.

If you're making tea in a jug of spring water, hold each tea bag sideways, and tap it gently so that the tea mostly ends up in the lower side of the tea bag. Fold the bag, and insert it through the neck of the jug, allowing the string to remain outside the bottle. When you finish - five bags of Red Rose tea will give you tea very similar to what the Five Brothers burger restaurants offer - grasp the tags on the strings, leaving most of the string inside the jug, and close the lid. Cheesecloth keeps flying insects out, but not airborne yeast, bacteria, mold, and other nasties.

You can make sun tea with virtually any tea bags. Jasmine tea (easily found at an oriental grocery) is interesting, but like many specialty teas, it doesn't wear well. Your favorite orange pekoe and pekoe-cut black tea will probably remain your favorite for sun tea as well. An additional tweak to this recipe is to choose fruit teas. Any fruit herbal tea that features rosehips is quite a refreshing drink in the summer. The Celestial Seasonings' Zinger teas, for example.

Step 4: In the morning, place the pitcher in a sunny spot like a windowsill. The sun's heat will brew your tea all day long. Put a screen or a piece of cheesecloth over the pitcher to prevent bugs from flying in and drowning.

Don't worry if the sun isn't shining. Five hours in a dark closet is just as effective as 8 hours in the sun. If you don't use enough tea, you'll be tempted to brew the tea too long, which extracts more tannin, making the tea rather bitter. You might as well use hot brewing if you're going to do that.

Step 5: When you come home, pour over ice and enjoy.

Pouring room-temperature tea over ice tends to make the tea "brighter" in flavor than tea which has been refrigerated. You'll want to drink the tea right away, however. Whether you refrigerate it or not, tea precipitates a sediment within about 2 days, and will have a "muddy" flavor thereafter.

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