GM FB Friends & Family. If you’ve ever even thought about going green at home, you can create a version of green that can be executed within your budget of both cash and time. Here are a few strategic approaches to try out: 1. Adhere to Occam’s Razor. Occam’s Razor is a scientific and philosophical principle that boils down to this: boil it down! Occam’s Razor mandates that problem-solvers always look first at the simplest approach to finding an answer – and actually uses the term “elegant” to refer to answers containing the fewest variables possible. How does this relate to going green at home? Some homeowners stop themselves before they ever get started out of overwhelm at all the work they think it would take to green up their old, charming but really inefficient home. Don’t fall into that thinking – the simplest approach to going green can be the least expensive and the quickest projects often deliver the biggest return on investment. What if you had your handyman or woman spend a single Saturday: Servicing your furnace and checking for/fixing any faucet leaks Changing out all your heating and air conditioning filters Re-sealing and weather-stripping all your doors and windows Wrapping your hot water heater and Switching your shower heads to low-flow and placing a water bottle in your non-low-flow toilets? For a couple hundred dollars, you’d probably have maximized your home’s efficiency and saved yourself a significant amount of time and money. All of the above – with the exception of the furnace servicing – are also highly suitable do-it-yourself projects, if you’re into that sort of thing or want to learn. You can apply Occam’s Razor to any level of home-greening project you want. The upshot is simply not to assume that you have to install all new appliances, windows, plumbing, HVAC equipment and greywater systems to green your home. Start simple, solving for the particular areas of inefficiency that are most impacting your personal budget or comfort, like replacing the running toilet that is costing you money or sealing up the drafts that force you to wear your down puffer coat indoors. Alternatively, start by focusing on the short list of green home ideals that most appeal to your personal values, priorities and budget – see #3 below, for more. 2. Use OPT + OPM. You might not know it (yet), but Other People’s Time and Money are resources that you can put to great use in service of your vision of greening your home. For example, there are now a number of companies that now allow homeowners in certain states to have solar panels installed and maintained on the company’s dime. In exchange, the homeowner pays the company for electricity instead of the utility, at a lower rate than they were paying to the utility. (This is called solar power service, by the way – click here for more information.) If time or money are your biggest challenges to getting your green home projects done, get creative and think flexibly about how you can access the people power and funding you need. A few things you might consider: Having your friends and relatives help kickstart your vegetable beds or kitchen garden Engaging your local Conservation Corps or high school 4-H students to help with yard or urban farming projects, like composting or installing a low-water xeriscape of native plants Hiring a neighbor on TaskRabbit or Craigslist to help you install your recycling center or do some of the simple energy efficiency projects in #1, above Visiting your local Habitat for Humanity ReStore to find everything from brand new toilets to dual-paned windows at a fraction of the retail cost. And above all else, make sure you don’t overlook local, state and federal grant money and tax credits for green home projects. These range dramatically, from local offices where you can pick up a low-flow toilet hacking kit for a few bucks, to state and local tax credits in the thousands for going solar. Visit your city, county, state and IRS websites to explore the tax advantages you might be able to tap into to help fund your efforts to go green. 3. Do it Your Way. As I mentioned earlier, green means something different to everyone who has ever used the term. Don’t get caught up in the buzzwordiness of the green trend, or dismiss the entire concept of green because you don’t identify with the sorts of people you think exemplify a green lifestyle. Recent data has shown that a surprising number of Boomers and people who don’t identify as “Green” actually live green lifestyles because of their concern for saving money, their concern about preserving the environment in which they hunt and fish and the desire to simply not waste resources.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 08:59:52 +0000
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