Monday I wrote "The first five steps to a greener home are not what the NYT's Green Home column says."
I was critical both of the author Julie Scelfo and Eric Corey Freed, the author of Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies. But having corresponded with Freed, it seems that his recommendations were taken somewhat out of context. He in fact provided a rough list of 20 things to do.
So I asked him for his list, which he cleaned up a bit (reprinted below). I am not going to number this list because the list is not in any particular order and in any case every home is different.
The list pretty much covers the vast majority of my recommendations. I do think that for those who want a truly green home, you'll want to get 100% renewable power from a local certified provider if you can, but that should be done in concert with the efficiency measures below. I also recommend getting your home tested for dangerous pollutants.
Finally, there is one technology I had never heard of until I hired someone to help green my home a few years ago. That is a "Drain-Water Heat Recovery" system, featured in the picture. It costs a few hundred dollars and pays for itself in a few years — and everything you could possibly want to know about it can be found here.
If you want to know more about Freed, buy his book, or even hire his services, go to OrganicArchitect.com. Here is the list:
- Insulate and turn down your hot water heater. It only takes 123 degrees needed to kill Legionnaires Disease. You can save up to 10% off your water heating bill.
- Insulate your hot and cold water pipes, especially the first 10 feet from the water heater. You'll get a 5% savings off your hot water bill.
- Install a dual flush (ie: Brondell) kit into your toilet, or at least insert a 2 liter bottle into the back of the tank.
- Install occupancy sensors on select rooms around the house. Look for rooms where lights are left on. The California Energy Commission estimates 35-45% savings.
- Use smart strips (or manually unplug devices) to kill vampire loads. $3 billion a year lost from Vampire loads.
- Replace your thermostat with a programmable model. Look for EnergyStar pre-programmed model. Save $180 a year off your heating bill.
- Seal your ducts with mastic. Most homes average 30% duct leakage. $300 a year in potential savings.
- Install a simple greywater system, ie: Aqus or SinkPositive. Stop flushing fresh drinking water down the toilet.
- If you repaint, use only zero (not low) VOC paints, or try earthen plaster finishes instead. The plaster potentially adds thermal mass to your wall and maintains a consistent temperature.
- Caulk and seal around your windows and exterior doors. Most homes average a 20% air leakage. Replace leaky single paned windows with low-e, double glazed ones.
- If you have a pool, install a solar pool heater. Save water and energy by using a pool cover.
- Skip the sprinklers, install a drip irrigation system. Better yet, plant xeriscaping plants to avoid the need for additional watering altogether.
- Install an ultra low flow showerhead. (ie: Evolve, Bricor or Oxygenics.) You can jump from the standard 2.5 gallons per minute down to 0.5 gpm.
- Install a whole house water filter and never buy bottled water again.
- Install a solar powered clothes dryer (aka a clothesline). Your dryer consumes 10% of home energy use.
- Recycle AND compost at home.
- Explore solar leasing programs (ie: Sungevity, Citizen RE, Solar City, et al).
- Install a whole house fan into your attic to avoid using air conditioning on all but the hottest of days. Add a solar powered attic vent to flush the heat out. Cut AC bill by 30%. Install ceiling fans to help. Cooling is really the feeling of cooling, not cold air.
- Insulate your attic. Be careful to not block the soffit vents. Add a radiant barrier if you re-roof. Use light colored roofing (ideally reflective) to create a cool roof. Lowers temperature at roof by 70 degrees.
- Upgrade old appliances to smaller, EnergyStar models. Target your refrigerator, dishwasher, washer/dryer first. Move fridge away from oven. Replacing a fridge older than 1991 will pay for its replacement in less than a year.
Posts
March 18th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
>Insulate your hot and cold water pipes, especially the first 10 feet from the water heater. You'll get a 5% savings off your hot water bill.
This should bloody well be standard building code. Unfortunately, I'd have to rip open an enormous amount of wallboard to do this fully, so I only insulated from the tank about four feet to the first wall it enters.
I like the Drain-Water Heat Recovery system. When you say it's a few hundred dollars, is that including installation? What if the drain pipe is a long way from the hot water heater?
March 18th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I discovered my electric bill went DOWN after I turned my hot water heater thermostat up.
To take a hot shower before, I cranked the water all the way and probably depleted more water from the tank. Now, I have the hot water at about 25% and tank needs less electricity for heating.
Not running the clothes dryer probably made the biggest difference for me. I haven't noticed any savings from CFLs. In the summer, it is nice because they don't generate so much heat.
March 18th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Architects, contractors, and developers should learn all these techniques, and they should compete on energy efficiency (and zero toxicity). Lift the supply curve (and the demand curve) for energy efficiency.
We should compete on efficiency (and conservation) rather than on consumption. (How about: "My bills are lower than your bills!")
Energy use in buildings is probably the fattest target for lowering global CO2 emssions, from new construction and retrofits. A new home or office can now be better than net-zero: net energy positive.
Amory Lovins has been educating us about efficiency at www.rmi.org for decades (I think I learned about Drain-Water Heat Recovery there a few years ago). OK, OK, so he was wrong about fuel cells in cars — no one's perfect.
March 18th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Low tech tip… leave the hot water in the bath till it cools right down. You can even leave the bath 1/2 full to help stabilize the bathroom temp.
March 18th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
I did an audit about 6 months ago and found almost 40 watts of vampire power being used continuously. So I:
1) Unplugged a bunch of stuff I didn't use much anyway that was drawing the wasted power
Put in a 1.6 GPM showerhead (I don't know about those 0.5 GPM ones, doesn't sound like a shower at all)
2) Stopped leaving desktop computer on a lot and switched to mostly using laptop computer (with hibernate mode set for 10 minutes of non-use)
3) Got a more energy efficient phone answering system and cordless phones
4) Switched to CFL
5) Opened the windows in the evening in summer instead of using AC
6) Bought a new energy star refrigerator to replace 10 year old model
7) Turned down water heater (side benefit–less risk of burning self)
9) Decided to hang my clothes up to dry instead of using the dryer
Result: use 10-20% less natural gas (it wasn't very high anyway) and electricity use dropped from 10 KwH per day to 3 KwH per day. Even though I signed up for 100% green power from LA DWP, my electricity bill still went down dramatically.
March 18th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Is "earthen plaster" easily available? I've never seen it for sale anywhere, at least not in paint stores. I've read about people using it. Is it something you have to make yourself?
March 18th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Thank you for the newer list. Like others reading this blog, we already do many of these. My comments, in no particular order:
1. rotating nozzle sprinklers (0.5 gpm) may be better than drip irrigation, since drip irrigation can leak, plug, etc. I believe some LA politician had a large water bill that turned out to be the result of some animals gnawing his drip irrigation line, resulting in an unnoticed leak. Also the nozzles provide better overall irrigation. With xeriscaping, low water need plants, water use will be well reduced from a grass lawn.
2. test home for toxins AFTER tightening up the home as well. If you bring less fresh air inside, more pollutants can build up from natural gas, cleansers, and (perish the thought), smokers.
3. We set the hot water heater (highest efficiency model I could find in the store) at a 'warm' setting. It is more than warm enough. The upstairs shower takes a long time to warm up, we we capture the water in buckets until it warms, and used the capture water to do shaving, hand washing, etc.
4. In my part of the world, air conditioning is not a concern. Heating is minimal, and new homes (since at least 1997) have programmable thermostats. Heating only.
5. I find that the CFL life is much less than seven years. I do not think a peer-reviewed study has been conducted on the CFL life in real world conditions, but I know that mine have suffered several early failures.
6. We make it a habit to turn off the power strips, etc. The PC has a hot key that will put is in hibernation when I plan to be away for a period of time.
7. Some of the ideas look interesting, such as the plaster for the walls, insulate tha attic (I should check) and so on.
8. New appliances work better than the old ones. The front-loading clothes washer can wash more clothes at one time, and they look cleaner. The dishwasher gets dishes cleaner, and they do not need to be rinsed prior to washing.
9. I still think we should have targets, by region, for energy consumption. I don't know if my consumption is low enough, I suspect not, but we need goals to work towards.