USING WATER FOR GAS, IS IT POSSIBLE?

First of all, I am no auto mechanic and therefore I had no additional insight as to whether this "water for gas" idea will work or not. I do feel however, that as an Eco-Friendly Toolman (electrician by trade) I am compelled and obligated to purchase and review this product myself and provide my unbiased findings for my readers. This topic has always interested me, especially since gas prices have gone through the roof. The big problem is that gas will not be getting any cheaper, so it is our responsibility to either start relying on public transit more, or start looking into hybrid technology.

HOW WATER FOR GAS WORKS - IN A NUTSHELL

As most of you already know, water is a combination of 2 parts Oxygen + 1 part Hydrogen. The entire purpose of water for gas is to convert water into 2 parts Hydrogen and 1 part Oxygen. What most of you didn't know that once converted, the mixture of HHO is highly combustible, and very clean burning fuel that is actually more flammable than gasoline! Please also note that HHO is not a liquid, but an actual air form gas (similar to propane for your gas barbecue, but much much more powerful).

Sounds great and all, but you are probably wondering how to get it into your car and does it cause irreversable damages right? It is actually quite simple. When you apply an electric charge (12 volts) from your engine to pure water (Distilled or Reverse-Osmosis) and a low cost household electrolyte, you are producing HHO gas.

Once this gas is produced, it is connected to your air intake of your vehicle. For those mechanically challenged (like I was before conducting this experiment), the air intake is the "lungs" of your vehicle. Essentially the air mixes with the gasoline in your engine, and the spark plugs ignite the gas mixture to "combust" and drive the pistons in your engine. Just like a candle will not burn without oxygen, the same goes for a car without an air intake. But now imagine if the air was "laced" with a potent fuel? You can now guess how much less gasoline you will be using because the majority of the combustion is burning the HHO and NOT the gasoline. See how this is working?

The only real damage to my car was drilling the hole into the air duct, however this is a very cheap part and is easily replaceable if you want to reverse the changes (i.e. to sell your vehicle).

THE BEST WATER FOR GAS BLUEPRINTS?

With the growing popularity of this water for gas concept, there are dozens of different products
popping up all over the internet. I purchased and went through about four of the top products and
found that Water4Gas was simply the best one.

Here are the reasons I recommend Water4Gas:
1. Easiest to follow instructions. I found that other blueprints were not as well written and did not clearly explain what parts were needed or how they should be installed.

2. Lots of well documented diagrams. A good blueprint should always contain lots of diagrams with supporting text. Can you imagine assembling Ikea furniture without their diagrams?

3. Instructions for gasoline and diesel (and turbo diesel) engines. Other reports only included gasoline instructions and required an additional purchase to get the diesel blueprints.

4. 60 Day Money Back Guarantee. Very important for those fence sitters that may purchase but may not implement.

Please also note that I was able to assemble this myself in my 2005 Volkswagen TDI Jetta without the help of a mechanic, so I'm 100% confident you could do the same. I have been driving for about a month now and have amazingly averaged about 50MPG. As such, I highly recommend this product for those who are feeling the crunch on today's gas prices and would like to also impress their friends and show them how "mechanically inclined" you really are!

Stay tuned for next month as I review DIY Windmills and Solar Panels!

"GOING GREEN" - IS IT JUST A CATCH PHRASE AND IS IT AFFORDABLE?

Believe it or not, there is a way to combat the increase in gas prices and that's by reducing the cost it takes to power your home. Ever heard of "going green"? You've probably heard of fancy things you can do to your house like geo-thermal heating and professionally installed solar panels (which I personally install and average about $6000-$10000 per installation). You are probably thinking that installing this newer technology is a "nice to have", but not a necessity. With these rising energy prices, it is becoming more of a necessity to many North American homeowners than ever.

So you are probably asking what are the options available that are both reasonable in cost, and easy to implement, and will provide you with energy savings? This leads me up to my next topic, which started out as a curiousity purchase but turned into a fully executed home project.

DIY SOLAR PANELS AND WIND POWER SYSTEMS - 80% SAVINGS IN BILLS?

So I saw this article in the NY Times in March about creating solar panels and windmill turbines within the comforts of your home and saving 80% on your current power bill. The article also mentioned that you can also apply for a government grant for further tax discounts if you implement any of these two green technologies. All that was required was to purchase around $200 worth of parts from stores like Home Depot and Napa Auto, which I was totally blown away with as installation costs for solar panels run around $3000! The article contained pictures of these homemade contraptions and they looked really good (see image to the right)! The people who built these systems were also regular "joe blows", one was a banker, another was a mailman, and the other was a plumber. These 3 people confirmed saving 80% on their hydro and natural gas bills at about 2 months after installation which I was totally amazed with. How is this possible to create these technologies with just 200 bucks? My curiousity was killing me so I decided to go to the website that sold these blueprints as I had to prove whether this idea was a hoax or not.

EARTH 4 ENERGY - MY REVIEW OF THE WIND TURBINE BLUEPRINTS

So I found the website called "Earth 4 Energy" and thought I would purchase the blueprints to find out whether the idea of creating wind turbines and solar panels for $200 was a hoax or not. The price of the blueprints wasn't bad ($50), but best of all the the product had a 60 day 100% Money-Back Guarantee. So if I didn't like what I read, I could just simply return it and get a refund with no questions asked (my kind of refund policy!).

To my surprise the author's understanding about solar energy and turbine power was quite impressive, and I continued to read through to the actual instructions on how to build the two devices. I was actually amazed to see that this would actually work. The instructions were dead simple and easy to understand, and only required purchasing about $250 worth of items (not $200 as I originally understood, but still cheap considering). I decided to try the wind turbine system (as I wanted to try something different). It took me about a day and a half to get fully up and running, from purchase of the book to the final product. Once I got it going, generating electricity was almost immediate, and I was able to run some miscellaneous items (I tried my laptop, hair dryer, a lamp with 100W bulb etc) all simultaneously without being plugged in. I haven't actually performed a real stress test on it yet, but I spoke to the author of Earth 4 Energy and was told that the windmill can handle 1000 Watts of continuous output. Not too shabby for a device that costs so little to build!

For all those non believers out there, this is the real deal. I, myself am the biggest skeptic and can personally vouch that these are viable , cost effective solutions that will save you alot of money. Even a non-handy person could build either of these solutions, and the combination of a solar panel and wind turbine in your home could easily power the majority of your entire household for nothing.

Please also note that this is a great weekend project that can easily be completed in 2 days. Now is the perfect time to start preparing for those cold (and expensive) winter months!

One other note about those weary about purchasing over the internet. I did some research into "Clickbank" as I had no previous experience with making a purchase over the internet, and was weary about giving out my credit card number.  After reading more about their payment processor, I have found that Clickbank is a world-class payment network. They are approved by VeriSign and McAfee, the highest form of internet security (128 bit SSL), which is equivalent to banking standards.  I hope this helps give a bit of peace of mind for those who are first time internet purchasers.

Stay tuned for next month as I review and assemble the solar panel!