Inspiration for green homes can be found everywhere. Where, you ask? Well for starters, we at GreenHomeImprovement.com found it with the World Green Building Council, during World Green Building Week in September. Along with hosting green building conferences and round-tables on 6 continents, GBCs all over came together in the report Tackling Local Climate Change: Meeting Local Priorities. This informative and hope-inspiring report gives us a picture of green building efforts from Brazil to Japan, and shows how we homeowners in North America are part of a massive world-wide push for greener living.
Exciting Highlights
Simple, fast and effective: in Cape Town, South Africa, 2300 low-income homes are being retrofitted for energy efficiency. Three simple changes—solar water heaters, insulated ceilings and energy-efficient light bulbs—are being done to each home, and it is expected to save the city a great deal in energy, and each resident a great deal in money for basic utilities.
Ciudad Verde: in Bogotá, Colombia, a new Green City is in planning, which will combine green open spaces with 36,000 (!!) green low-income homes. “Green City demonstrates that it is possible to develop scaled solutions for lower income families in ways that are socially responsible and in harmony with the environment.” Amazing.
Silver Lining: After the devastating brushfires that burned schools and over 2,000 homes to the ground last year, Australia is implementing programs to ‘Build it Back Green’, enabling homeowners who are starting over to easily find green solutions for rebuilding.
Pay As You Save: In the UK, to offset the costs of energy-efficient remodeling for homes, a plan is now in place to enable homeowners to “pay off” the costs of refurbishment with the money they save in reduced heating costs. “PAYS could have a major impact on making mainstream low carbon refurbishment a reality, by bringing the upfront cost of refurbishment down to zero, while providing month on month savings…”
These and many other exciting steps are being taken ‘round the world to make it easy to make green homes a possibility. The U.S. and Canada have no shortage of incentives as well. Check out the state and local incentives for your area, and join the green movement by making your home a part of it.
To read the full World GBC report, click here. Click to see contractors who do green work, or green materials you can consider for your home.
Make one wonder why builders still put up 2 by 4 (or their equivalent) framed homes with inadequate insulation! In the long run they are not cost or environmentally effective.
Everywhere but Ontario! Ontario seems to be way behind a lot of other areas around the world with regards to building green. we have taken some small steps ie. Energy Star etc.. but in general you cannot find local builders that build green yet or even have any idea about building green.
In response to Greg, I would have to agree with you that there are not many breen builders in Ontario. One of the main reasons is that it is more expensive to build to high efficiency greeh homes. On the other hand, it depends on where you live as there are green builders in Toronto and Guelph. Here in Guelph, Reed’s Heritage Homes built the first LEED platinum certified home in Canada in 2007. They are now building a LEED certified community development. Progress is slow as the majority of people don’t recognize the value putting money up front to build green in order to save in the long run. Generally we are very short sighted. But that too is changing.
The electric clothes dryer is the most inefficient appliance in the home. It heats up air to 140 degrees, dries the clothes and then exhausts that heat outside.
Two Senior citizens from Washington, MO have developed a new filter for an electric dryer. Jim & Sandy Atkinson were driving around and saw steam coming out of the side of homes. They thought, “What a waste of heat!”
So, they started experimenting with different products and were not satisfied with any of them. They decided to develop their own product. They named it, Dryernet; It filters the air coming out of the dryer so well, you can hardly smell anything. It filters down to .5 microns and removes all the contaminants. Jim’s physician says it filters down to the bacteria level.
The original thought was to save on heat to cut expenses but they have discovered added benefits to the product. It adds much needed moisture in the winter, you don’t have to have a humidifier going since the Dryernet adds moisture. With the added moisture, Sandy doesn’t have to use skin moisturizer. It makes it easier to breathe at night cutting down on that dry mouth feeling in the morning. It cuts down on static electricity.
They found out that if your dryervent is longer than 10 feet, the dryer dries the clothes faster due to increased airflow. So that saves energy too. Overall, Jim and Sandy saved about $20.00 a month on their heating bill. If you use your dryer more than 4 times a week, you’ll save more. Many house fires are caused by a clogged dryer vent, not with the Dryernet!
How often does a “Green” product pay for itself in a month and a half? If ten percent of the electric dryers used the dryernet, over 1 Billion dollars in energy use would be saved, each year.
We have been featured on Fox news in St. Louis, KOLR-TV in Springfield, MO and KOMU in Columbia, MO.
For more information on the Dryernet, go to dryernet.com Jim Atkinson, 636-388-2808
Green building IS NOT more expensive; that is a lie perpetrated by developers. LEED will get you nowhere if you are trying to build green. It’s a marketing tool created by and for manufacturers of proprietary technologies.
WANT TO TRULY BUILD GREEN…go learn for yourself. Why would you let anyone else build YOUR house.
Going green has become new trend. Green-athon is the name given by media for those who supports saving nature. There are many ways to make one’s home more eco friendly. We need more people contributing to this awareness spread.
We’ve just renovated our home in Toronto with an amazing firm called Greening Homes. No greenwashing here – they are truly doing renovations responsibly, with proper waste minimization, reusing/recycling what little waste is created, using only non-toxic wet products, responsible building products (FSC certified wood, nauf plywood, recycled jeans insulation, etc.). They have a crew of college educated, talented, responsible, ethical young men and women who love what they do and do it well. The crew come to work on public trans and they bring their coffee and lunch in re-usable containers. They’re a shining example of how green renovations truly can be done (and reasonably!).
We can think of having energy efficient resorts and restaurants too. Not only homes but places like such can also be targeted. It’ll be a great green movement.
Timber frame houses make ideally suited farm houses and mountain households so that you can get away from the hustle and bustle of your every day lives and spend some outstanding time alone or with your friends and friends and family. you can get your dream house built if your project is handled by the most suitable building company. This is another way to go green these days.
With so much of global warming already taking place, I think its time as to for all of us to do a bit. Having green homes is one very great step towards it.