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Research is key to a good deal. Learn if the item will have a manufacturer’s warranty and, especially with plumbing, comes with all the components, or what their replacements will cost. Inspect items carefully for dings and defects, and decide if you can live with them.

Since many contractors — including plumbers, electricians and designers — buy items discounted and then charge customers full price, know beforehand if the workers you hire are willing to forgo that markup and use your products.

For instance, I found my Japanese soaking tub for half price on the manufacturer’s website.

“It was the luck of the timing,” said Diamond Spas Inc. owner Stephanie Bennett. The company was selling its display models before moving into a new facility in Frederick, Colorado.

read entire article: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/nov/19/bargain-hunting-can-lower-renovation-costs/

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

Australian solar power researchers have achieved world-beating levels of efficiency, potentially making large solar plants more competitive with other energy sources such as coal.

A team from the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (PV) at the University of NSW has achieved 40.4 per cent “conversion efficiency” by using commercially available solar cells combined with a mirror and filters that reduce wasted energy.

Martin Green, the centre’s director, said the independently verified breakthrough eclipsed previous records without resorting to special laboratory PV cells that “you’ve got no chance of buying commercially”. Other top-performing solar panels convert about 36 per cent of the sunlight that falls on them into electricity.

The advance involved two steps. Three solar panels were stacked to capture energy from different wave lengths of sunlight, and then excess light from the stacked panels was directed by a mirror and filters to a fourth PV cell, making use of energy previously discarded.

“This is our first re-emergence into the focused-sunlight area,” said Professor Green, who pioneered 20 per cent-efficiency levels in similar technology in 1989.

The institute was prompted to revisit the technology in part because of Australian companies’ efforts to develop large-scale solar towers using arrays of mirrors to focus sunlight on PV cells.

read more at: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/solar-energy-world-first-in-australia-20141207-121w8n.html

disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

See them all at:    http://gizmodo.com/5978598/21-amazing-off-the-grid-houses?utm_source=NEWZ%3A%2F%2FFee+surveys%2FOff-the-Grid+Houses%2FLoan+apps+up+7.3%25%2FBest+apps&utm_campaign=1222&utm_medium=email