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1 50 Green Home Tips, Tools, & Ideas: List courtesy of Michael McCutcheon, Summaries and links added by Dan Suich. Always consult an expert before proceeding with any home renovation or repair. Energy Efficiency: 1. Get a home energy audit. It costs about $700, and is the best way to determine the specific ways to decrease your home s energy usage and increase its comfort: 2. A blower door is a tool used during an energy audit to determine how leaky your house is. Air is blown into or out of the house with a door-mounted fan, and the amount of air leaking out of or into the house is measured: A duct blaster is used to pressurize the ducts in your home to assess how much they are leaking. This is another procedure carried out as part of the home energy audit An infrared camera is used during a home energy audit to take pictures that show the locations and extent of your home s energy losses. Infrared imaging has additional uses, including identifying malfunctioning furnaces, hot water heaters, air-conditioning units, and appliances, as well as to indentify water leaks, the location of water intrusion into your home, as well as invading mold colonies ID%3d A smoke tester, aka fake smoke or a smoke pencil is used to visualize the exact locations of air leaks in your home. Typical locations are around doors, windows, electrical outlets, ducts, and fireplaces. 6. Weather-stripping is used on doors and windows to stop air leaks. It is an inexpensive way to make your home more comfortable and energy-efficient. 7. Spray foam insulation can be used in place of traditional fiberglass or blown-in loose insulation in walls, ceilings, and roof rafters. It can fill all those tiny gaps that decrease the effectiveness of traditional insulating materials, thereby providing much better and long-lasting insulating power. Spray foam insulation comes in two types, open-cell and closed-cell. Closed-cell foam has a higher R- value, acts as a water and air infiltration barrier, but it is more expensive. Open-

2 cell foam is more economical, and can be used in applications such as roof rafters, where it is desirable to allow exterior water leaks to pass through. It also allows for a controlled migration of water vapor out of a building, so that it does not build up. Consult an expert before utilizing spray foam insulation; there are a lot of pros and cons to consider for each specific application: Denim insulation is a recycled, natural insulating material made from denim fabric scraps. Being derived from natural cellulose, it is not made using formaldehyde or other VOCs. It can be purchased in bats and installed similarly to fiberglass insulation Solar hot water systems are a great way to save on hot water heating costs. The type and complexity of the system installed depends on the application, as well as the climate where your home is located. 10. Hydronic heating systems use hot water as a heat exchange medium, such as in radiant floor heating. A hydronic air handler combines a furnace and hot water heater into a single device: Heat recovery ventilators are devices that not only exchange stale inside air with fresh outside air, but that also save energy by exchanging the heat between the two streams of air. In the summer, when it is hot outside and cool inside, your house stays cool, and in the winter, when it is cold outside and warm inside, your house stays warm. Models are available for humid climates that will also exchange water vapor to keep your home s humidity just right. These systems will make your home more comfortable and save you money on energy bills. The payback period is 7-10 years at current energy prices, but less if prices climb as expected html c=

3 12. Install skylights and solar tubes for natural light. Have a dark area in your home because there is no place for a window? Bring the light in from above, and save energy on lighting. 13. Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and fluorescent lighting use up to 5 times less energy than conventional incandescent bulbs, and lasts up to 10 times longer. Using this lighting throughout your home can generate big savings every month on your utility bill Light-emitting diode (LED) lighting uses even less power than fluorescent lighting. It is currently significantly more expensive that fluorescent, but its price it dropping over time. LED lighting is even longer-lasting than fluorescent, and does not contain mercury Short runs for pipes and ducts minimize the chances for energy losses to unconditioned space, either through heat exchange or air leaks, saving energy and improving indoor air quality. 16. Cool roofs are those that reflect much of the sun s heat back into the sky. The first generation materials were bright white and somewhat unsightly, so are best applied to flat roofs or industrial buildings. A newer generation of cool colors for residential roofing materials is better suited for the steeply pitched and visible roofs of most houses. These roofs not only keep homes cool in hot, sunny climates, but they last much longer because the extreme daily temperature swings that damage conventional roofs are minimized. uments/residentialroofscoolcolorcoolgaps.pdf PDF 17. Radiant floor heating consists of runs of tubing embedded in a concrete floor, through which hot water is pumped. The heat released warms the concrete, and through that, the room. The concrete has a high heat capacity, and so releases that heat slowly over a long period of time, much the way a sun-heated rock stays warm well after sundown. Also nice for your bare feet in the morning! 18. Tankless water heaters, which supply hot water on demand, can be very efficient and convenient when paired with recirculation pumps that get the hot water flowing when you enter the room. Open the tap, and the water is hot! 19. A passive house is one that utilizes a heat recovery ventilator to capture heat from computers, lighting, and people, while keeping the air inside fresh and clean! When solar (PV) panels are added to power everything, the result is an active house, which is very efficient indeed.

4 Resource Conservation: 20. Build small and smart. Speaks for itself. A little thinking goes a long way, and a smaller footprint means less impact on the environment. 21. Timeless design. Trendy fashions are on the trash heap in a few years not very green! 22. Build everything to last 500 years build it well, and consider its impact and uses far into the future. 23. Buying local, from within 500 miles of the job site, cuts down on expensive and energy intensive transportation of building materials. 24. Protect existing materials and finishes in a home while other work is being done, so there is less need to replace or repair them. 25. Recycle paper, glass, plastic, and cardboard from the project. 26. Salvage and re-use materials (doors, trim, cabinets, etc.). You can purchase or donate re-used and recycled building materials and appliances at Habitat for Humanity s ReStore in Oakland: Craigslist is another great way to buy or sell recycled materials and used appliances and tools: Ohmega Salvage is a local buyer and seller of salvaged architectural materials: Uban Ore is another one: Here s a great list of Bay Area salvage yards: Sort and recycle debris from your projects. 28. Use recycled wood, available at the ReStore, Urban Ore, or on Craigslist, and other salvage yards: Use high-volume fly ash concrete. Fly ash is the silicate material that is a byproduct of burning coal for electricity generation. Certain types of fly ash, when used to replace a portion of the Portland cement in concrete, produce a higher quality material. Not only is the fly ash recycled, but because a significant amount of greenhouse gases are produced when cement is manufactured, using less cement in the mix cuts down on CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

5 30. Use FSC wood products and engineered lumber. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a non-profit organization that sets standards for certification of wood products, to ensure that they come from sources that manage forests in both an environmentally and socially responsible way. Engineered lumber products improve upon the properties of dimensional solid-sawn lumber, but utilize younger, smaller-diameter trees, rather than large-diameter old-growth trees