A Few Green Steps in Amador County Real Estate

As Amador County’s First EcoBroker certified® REALTOR® and GREEN designee, I obviously have a thing for “GREEN,” I love to share and discus opportunities and choices in energy efficiency, sustainability, and the triple bottom line in Real Estate. In these next few posts I aim to share a few ideas on ways to save you money as you save energy, water, and other resources. Making good green choices is not about suffering for savings, but just the opposite, living a comfortable life with less waste.

So lets go!

Low Hanging Fruit.

Lighting and electrical use…

This is free, and rather obvious; turn it off if you aren’t using it. This goes for almost anything, and this is getting easier and easier all the time. Now you can even have smart systems installed to do the more difficult part of this for you. They can even be set up to automatically power down the things you really can’t use while you are away. This type of system knows when you leave and shuts down power for things like your TV, PC and wall warts. All of the little electrical draws do really ad up to a big difference in your bill and in the need to “fire up” power plants and even build new ones. Standard size wall switches are even avalible that will turn themselves off if they do not detect motion for a preset time. Areal "no bainer."

And how about the lights themselves? Those old off color, slow to warm up, and costly, Compact Fluorescent Lamps are just about a thing of the past, These days CFL’s are mostly instant on and many are even dimmable and color temperatures have improved greatly as well. As for the neysayers who ballyhoo about mercury in the lamps, of course, it is contained unless you break the lamp, and even then it is a very small amount. So that you have an idea what to do when this happens, here is what the EPA says to do with broken CFL’s.

Old CFL’s should always get recycled. Here in California we have the “Take It Back” program at many hardware and home stores (take old household batteries there also).

Spring and fall are great times to walk around the house and look for things like weather-stripping that needs to be replaced or upgraded. This inexpensive little fix can save hundreds of dollars in energy bills and make you more comfortable at the same time. If you are thinking of moving in the future, or just want to doing the best job of sealing those leaks you can, you might think about having a home energy rating done. This will tell you ware the biggest bang for your bucks will be, and often you can do “before and after” tests to show real improvements. You want to do these fixes as early as you can to be able to show good data to buyers. Keep in mind, and be sure that those prospective buyers are informed that these savings are real dollars that can let them more comfortably buy (Their) your house. If the question is between your house and an other similar house, if you can show that your energy bill is one or two hundred dollars (or more) less that the norm, that can make a big deal to a buyer who is already stretching every penny to buy.

Other things to keep in mind are passive solar opportunities. Don’t think that this is all just about site selection, and that your home is already where it is so you can’t fix this. Go out and take a good look at what you have, figure out those solar angles, and think about planting some shade trees on the sun side of your home. Maybe a canopy or some drop down shades? You will be surprised at the difference these changes can make.

These are a few cheep and easy things to think about doing, whether you are just starting to look, moving in, thinking about selling or looking for the little thing that will make your listing stand out from the crowd. In my next post I will up the ante a bit, we can look at some of the bigger things…

By the way if you are looking for a great easy way to shop for green products, Let me invite you to look at New Leaf America, I will vouch for them, I have met and talked with the owner, Chris Prelitz and he is very “dark green” and very well informed.

As always I would love to talk to you about these things and Amador County Real Estate.
Leave a comment, Email me, Give me a call (209) 257-4590 or visit Mainstreet Brokers’ Website.