At events for Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda questions often come up about how one can make a home more “green”. The list of things one can do is nearly endless, but we all have limits to what we can do. One way to get started is to think of a few simple priorities that
can inform the decisions you make about your home. Here are the highest priorities that should order your thinking:
- Conserve – the resource you never have to use is the best resource. This thinking applies to energy, water, as well as materials.
- Healthy Indoor Air Quality – Americans spend 90% of their time indoors (scary isn’t it?). Do all you can to insure that the air you breathe is good for you.
- Recycle/Reuse – look for opportunities to reuse the things around your home. If you are purchasing new things for your house, look for products made from, or with, recycled materials.
If you make decisions with these priorities in mind, you will be well on your way to a “green” home. What are some examples of how these principles are put into action?
Conserve
Energy – look for ways to better seal and insulate your home. As much as 30% of the heat in your home is lost through doors and windows. Create better seals on your existing doors and windows. If you are purchasing new doors and windows, look for products that are Energy Star rated. After that look to better insulate the walls, ceiling, and floor of your home. These types of steps will save you money and make your home more comfortable.
Water – there are many ways that you can save water in and around your home. Install a low-flush (standard these days) or dual-flush toilet. Install low-flow fixtures and water saving appliances. Take out some (or all!) of your lawn and install a beautiful native, drought tolerant landscape.
Materials – For just one example, when shopping for wood framing for your home, look for wood that is FSC certified or use engineered wood products. Using these products will help further the conservation of old growth forests.
Healthy Indoor-Air Quality
Many products that we put into our homes are made with chemicals that off –gas, filling our rooms with a chemical brew that is not good for our health. A thorough discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this post, but one easy step you can take is to purchase low-VOC or non-VOC paints when redecorating your home. All major paint manufacturers carry these types of paints these days. They work just as well as their more chemical laden cousins, but you will breathe a lot easier, literally, when you use them.
Recycle/Reuse
If you are remodeling your home, think about how you can re-order existing spaces to use them better or have multi-functioning spaces. Is it possible that some of the materials you are thinking of discarding can be re-used in your home, or taken to a place like The Reuse People to be reused by others?
If you are purchasing new materials look for products made from, or include, recycled materials. This marketing has been growing exponentially over the last decade and there are incredibly cool and beautiful choices out there. I love exploring the products available and you will love the way they look in your house. A few examples, out of many, are tiles made from recycled glass and flooring from reclaimed wood.
These ideas are just scratching the surface, but give you an idea of the possibilities open to you. When you are thinking about making changes in your home, set your priorities, do your research, and look for professionals (architects, landscape architects, contractors) who are experienced in
sustainable design and construction to assist you. And, most important, have fun!
Shameless plug – keep up with ideas on how to live a more sustainable life, and help Alameda meet the goals of the Local Action Plan for Climate Protection, by following Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda (CASA) on our website and on Facebook.
In addition to trying to save the world though his work with Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda (CASA), Alamedan David Burton is an award-winning architect, and as you all know, nothing is higher than architect.
David,
Thanks for this post.
Changing the ways in which we handle (or mis-handle) items that normally enter our waste stream always helps. For about 10 years I have been washing and reusing the plastic produce and carry bags that sometimes unavoidably come into my life. (I wash and rinse them when I wash the dishes, then air-dry them by clipping them to the plastic clothes pins on a small folding clothes-drying rack that hangs in a sunny kitchen window.) This takes a while but the number of bags that I reuse (and the number of “new” plastic bags that I do not use) is remarkable. (Only the plastic bags that get torn or shredded go to the recycling bin at CVS or the grocery store.)
I have been using canvas and nylon carry bags in favor of plastic and paper shopping bags for over 20 years, too. (Hello, KQED totes!
It took a while to train myself to keep fabric shopping bags on my bike and in the car so they are always handy, but it’s worth it.
Transportation counts, too: while remodeling our now-sold home, I often brought home tools and supplies on my bike, including 40-pound boxes of drywall mudd, boxes of nails and screws, brooms, and gallons of paint. That was great exercise as well as one small way to limit our household greenhouse gas emissions. Since Alameda is almost flat it is easy to shop or run errands on a bicycle….
Comment by Jon Spangler — June 23, 2011 @ 12:16 pm
It isn’t all that hard to try to live as “green” as possible. I appreciate all you did, David, to insure our kitchen/bath/laundry remodel was done in as “green” a way as possible, including framing materials from sustainable forest products. We do the same plastic bag exercise as Jon, but they are used mostly for doggy-doo pick ups, which can’t be done well with cloth. Our garbage production is dwindling and our reclyling barrel is getting fuller, which I think means we are getting somewhere. I am still looking for a bike.
Comment by Kate Quick — June 23, 2011 @ 6:38 pm
Your work may be green, but it doesn’t look like the safest place to be in an earthquake!
Comment by notmayberry — June 23, 2011 @ 7:32 pm