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Planet Green
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My Father, an Original Green Guy
My dad used to buy, renovate, and sell houses. I remember as a kid being down a crawlspace with him. We were checking out a house that we owned in the Berkeley Hills. The foundation was termite infested. So he jacked up the foundation and replaced all the sill plates. I learned early that you could do this stuff yourself. My father was not a pro. He was a true weekend warrior.
He had what they used to call "moxie"—the ability to get in there and get the job done. Plus, he had no money; he had 6 kids. So my father had to do everything on a shoestring budget. He was kind of an original green guy.
My father would salvage wood from the waterfront. This was before containerized cargo. Everything that was shipped in from the Far East would be shipped in pallets and crates. A lot of these crates were from the Philippines and were made out of plywood with a mahogany veneer. It was really gorgeous stuff. My dad would scavenge the wood. He'd drive it home in his old beater of a Buick, and he'd take the plywood off. It was all really prime material. He paneled the living room with it.
Early on, I got the idea that you could do the work on your house yourself and you could scavenge and reuse high-quality materials. That planted the seed.
The First Earth Day
By the time the first Earth Day rolled around in 1970, the environmental movement was in full swing. It had more to do with pollution than it did with global warming. Climate change wasn?t an issue back then, but pollution was definitely an issue, specifically industrial-level polluters.
The big cause that I became involved in was a rally to protest a company that was dumping sulfite waste liquor into the Spokane River. That was what got me involved in the green movement.
Seeing Green in Europe
The next big eye-opener for me was when I traveled around Europe in college. This was during the early 1970s. At that time, Europe had much higher gas prices than in the U.S. The cars were smaller and had better gas mileage. The houses were smaller, more efficient, and of higher quality. Europeans built on a much longer time scale than Americans. The houses would be owned by the same family for generations and they would hold up that long.
It was in Europe that I had a flash of insight. It struck me that the U.S. population and density would increase and the demand for resources would increase. And so would the need for smaller, more efficient vehicles, well-built, long-lived houses, and so on. And the U.S. would eventually follow the path of Europe.
That's really my origin, my seeds of green if you will. Here arr some great reasons why you should go green, too:
How to Go Green and Save Money at Home
- Install Sprayed-Foam Insulation
Average Installation Cost: $2,000
Approximate Annual Savings: $120.00
Payback Rate: 17 years
Notes: An average house needs to add about 1,000 square feet of insulation, at about $2 per square foot. The average U.S. utility bill is about $100; proper insulation reduces your energy costs by 10 percent. Spray foam insulation lasts indefinitely. Seventeen years pays for generations of savings. - Install a Permanent Air Filter
Average Cost: $100
Approximate Annual Savings: $30
Payback Rate: 3.1 years - Replace Single Pane Windows with Energy-Star Double Pane Windows
Average Cost: $3,600
Approximate Annual Savings: $285
Payback Rate: 12.6 years
Notes: The price of windows varies greatly, but we're assuming that, with labor costs, each window will cost about $300 dollars to replace. We're also assuming that the house has 12 windows. - Install a Solar Water Heater
Average Cost: $1,500 (for a passive solar system)
Approximate Annual Savings: $220 dollars per year
Payback Rate: 6.8 years
More on Green Home Renovation:
Take Advantage of the Government's Weatherization Assistance Program
Why Does Geothermal Make Sense To Install at Your Home?
Ask Steve Thomas Anything (About Your Home)
