Eco-Remodelers

The green renovation continues! I spent all day Sunday installing bamboo floors in our dining room. It’s the same bamboo I used in the 2nd floor bedroom/office. I had to run over to Lumber Liquidators to pick up 2 additional boxes to complete the work.

It turned out really well. One problem I had was the two additional boxes of bamboo. They were from a different batch - even though they were from the same company, there was a difference. The coloring was very similar but the new batch had a smoother and shinier surface.

I noticed right away and made two piles of bamboo planks. I would take a different plank from each pile and mixed them all together. I also adjusted the lengths of each row I would start so the entire floor has a completely random pattern of cuts to go along with the different looks on the planks.  I’m pretty happy with it.

I didn’t complete the baseboards or the transition pieces. I was too tired. I did the entire room, about 300 square feet, in 6 and a half hours. I made sure I completed anything I would need the pneumatic floor stapler for before I returned the rental to Home Depot.

Until I start on finishing our basement, that’s pretty much it for our flooring needs in the house. We’ve got recyclable carpeting and bamboo flooring (along with the new hardwood floors that came with the house.)

Next, I’m going to look into composting.

One room is done! The fourth bedroom, which is also going to be my office, is finished. I installed the bamboo flooring in this room because it is my practice room - if I mess it up there, not many will ever see it!

So, the dining room will be next, but it will have to be after we move. Our current, official move-out date for our townhouse is October 15th. I’ll take up the dining room, which is considered a non-essential room at this point, after we’re in and settled.

The bamboo floor was not very difficult to install. And all the planks were perfect. I didn’t have a single bad one in the bunch.

To install this flooring, I had previously screwed down the plywood subfloor to give it a stable base.

Next, I bought an air compressor (that also came with a brad nailer) and I rented a flooring stapler from Home Depot.

I put down the black felt underlayment that I bought with my bamboo flooring. I nailed down my first row of bamboo planks using my brad nail gun. I had to cut a piece around the air conditioner register using my mitre saw. It’s important to start on the longest “outside” wall in the room - it’s usually the straightest. But you’ll want to put down a chalk line to make sure you’re installing the boards straight.

I had to nail down the 2nd row as well.

You might be able to see the brad nails in the picture above. I used a nail set and hammer to tap down the nails below the surface of the bamboo. I’ll use a wood filler that matches to cover up those nail holes.

After that, I had room to use to my stapler. I would tap each plank into place, making sure the bamboo boards were tight against each other, then I would line up the staple gun. I simple whack of the mallet on the staple gun and it would drive a two-inch staple through the tongue of the plank and into the subfloor below.

As you can see in the picture, the staple split the tongue on the bamboo plank. I backed off the pressure of the compressor to under 95 psi. This kept the staple from driving in so hard that it would split the bamboo.

I did it on my own and I completed a 13 foot by 9 foot bedroom in one day. I would line up each row of bamboo and then go along and staple each board down. Luckily, I didn’t have to use a table saw to slice up the last row to make it fit. The last row was an exact width of the bamboo plank. I did, however, have to nail in those last two rows - because the staple doesn’t allow you to have any room to strike it with the mallet when its so close to the wall.

I staggered all the boards in a random pattern. Never let the seams of the boards line up. This helps give the flooring extra strength. Also, you don’t want to install the flooring right up to the walls. You want to give the wood (or bamboo, in this case) room to expand and contract. Leave about half an inch all around the floors to make sure there is space. When you install the baseboards, if you can still see a gap then you can install a section of quarter-round to the baseboard to fill it.

Also, I did one particular room in an “un-green” fashion. While I was at Lumber Liquidators, I tried to see if they had any spare bamboo or other eco-friendly flooring options. But… they didn’t. They did have some hardwood flooring but it was in such a small amount leftover they couldn’t sell it. I only needed to fill a 6 foot by 6 foot walk-in closet in our master bedroom. So… I bought the hardwood. I needed to do it.

Using all the same equipment, I installed the flooring in our closet on Sunday.

It’s a maple hardwood that was stained a rich, red cherry color. I had just enough to fill the small closet with only one 3 foot board left over.

Even though hardwood is not a green material, I was able to put their small leftover quantity to good use so that none was wasted. I know… I’m rationalizing, but I needed flooring and I got it for less than a dollar a square foot.

Here’s a closeup shot of the stapler resting on the floorboard so it can drive the staple into the tongue.

And the final product. It turned out very nice. Now I just need to re-install the baseboards around the floor in both rooms. I’ve primed and painted the baseboards before installation to avoid spilling any paint on the new floors.

One of the disadvantages of buying a “used” home is that someone else made quite a few choices about it before you came along.

I was hoping to buy a home with a two car garage that had not been “finished.” A finished garage means that there is drywall installed on the studs. Usually the walls have also been textured, primed, and painted.

In the case of our house, there are walls in our garage but they haven’t been done well. I can see the drywall tape that patches two sheets together. There are holes in the drywall. And the walls are very dirty (but covered with one coat of cheap, flat paint so they can’t be washed.)

One thing I also wanted was to insulate the garage walls before I put up drywall. This would allow the room to be comfortable in cold weather and would help act as an insulating barrier between the outside and the house during winter.

I’m torn. I don’t know what I should do. I’d hate to tear down the existing drywall just to make the garage more to my liking. I’m wasting drywall by removing it, buying more, and installing it. I know that drywall can be recycled - the gypsum has to be separated from the paper, with dust being kept to a minimum - but I don’t know if it’s possible here in Ohio.

I could spend a large amount of time patching the drywall, repairing holes and bad tape jobs, and painting it. But there are so many more projects needed to be done before we can move in.

I’ll have to do some checking to see what my options are.

Update - I called around to the City of Columbus, Solid Waste Management, and a few other sources and found there is no recycling program here for drywall. If I dump it, it will go into a landfill… Which I don’t like the idea of. I may have to repair and paint the existing drywall and not bother with insulating the garage at this time…

Okay. I’m ready to start turning my new (new to me!) house into a green home…

Where do I start? Oh, man, this is going to be tough.

I think it’s so much easier to have a specific project in mind and not have to deal with getting an entire house ready to live in. I’m one of those people who will pick a project and as I’m walking past another problem… I will stop and work on that new problem. I need to force myself to look at the larger picture.

We closed on our house on Tuesday (yesterday) and we had a brief window of time to take a few things over before we picked up the kids. I’ve got two daughters (4 and 9 months) and so the house is not something we can spend all day, every day, working on.

I managed to take over a lot of tools as well as a few working lights so that we could see in the dark and for safety purposes when we’re not there. I put CFL bulbs and timmers on the lights so they would turn on and off on their own and not use much energy.

Our first steps, I believe, will be to get the house ready to be painted. We’ll also need to remove the day-glow bright blue carpeting. Our plan is to recycle the carpeting at the Re-Store. It’s a store run by Habitat for Humanity where they sell items from previous remodels or use the items in the houses they build. They only take recent or new products (to make sure they are efficient products or materials.) The carpt is fairly new, but extremely ugly and not something we want to live with.

I also need to address a few problems around the house to make sure things are sealed up tighter. Many people have a high heating and/or cooling bill and it can really help to cut down on any major holes, gaps, or cracks in windows, door frames, siding, flooring, etc.

I’ll be taking a lot more tools and supplies that I’ve brought with me from L.A. over to our new house over the next day or so. I’m sure I’ll have to purchase a few things that I don’t already have.

Lots to do. Lots to do.

I’ve been shopping for a lot of eco-friendly products to check availability and pricing. I’ve noticed that it’s not very easy to find a green alternative to regular products. When I ask salespeople about it, I’ve been getting a lot of the same reactions…  that look (or even the comment) that says, “Oh, you’re one of those hippie liberals.” As noted, it happened when I was carpet shopping and it happened again at Sears, Home Depot, Lowes, and a few others this past week.

The thing I’m not sure how it ever happened, but wanting to protect your family and wanting to save money became a political issue.

When we lived in our house back in Los Angeles, it was a sixty year old home that had been built very well. Plaster on the walls, a good sturdy foundation, and great wood floors. Sure it had drafty single-pane windows and very little insulation, but it was made by people who cared.

In the past twenty or thirty years, homes were made on the cheap. Cheap counters, cheap cabinets, construction grade products throughout. And whatever was the code at the time, the houses usually just met those minimum requirements (which are never enough.) People stopped caring and started worrying about their quarterly profits.

Now that I want to conserve (energy, money, time) that makes me a liberal. A conservative liberal? Hmm. I wish we could get people away from the belief that only a hippy wants a greener home. That only a hippy wants to save money on electricity. Or prevent toxic gases from poisoning their children from cabinets, paint, adhesives, etc. that are all through homes today.

Perhaps there’s another word we can use in place of “green”? Like smart. I want to remodel my home to make it a smart home. Or safe. Or thrifty. But I think we’re stuck with green and we’re going to have a lot of ignorant, close-minded people who will refuse to help themselves and their families because it doesn’t seem to align with their political beliefs…

It’s a real shame.

Well, we’re almost ready to start work on our new smart/green/thrifty/safe home. We close today. Soon, I’ll be able to post on how to do a lot of these green projects in your own home.

Everyone loves their buzzwords.

The latest is “precycling.” And it’s something that I’ve been trying to get myself to think about and actually do it.

What is precycling? Well, recycling is the act of changing a product or material back to its original form or raw material to be used again in another product or material instead of tossing it in the landfill.  The thing to consider is that it takes energy (fuel for transport, energy to recycle, fuel to transport the raw materials, energy to create a new product, etc.) to recycle.

Precycling isn’t so much a technique or process. It’s taking an action to prevent the need to recycle in the first place. For example - - you could go to the grocery store and use the plastic or paper bags to take home your groceries. Then, you could recycle the bags. The truly smart move would be to take your own cloth or canvas bags to the store with you and avoid the need to recycle anything. That’s precycling.

Another way to precycle is to buy a product in the biggest container possible and using it for a longer period of time. This prevents you from using up a ton of little containers and recycling all of them. Some jumbo boxes of cereal hold as much as three regular boxes. Buy one big water bottle instead of all smaller 12 oz. bottles (I try to re-use those water bottles more than once if I ever do break down and buy them. I simply wash them off and refill them with the big jug of water.)

I try to use this justification whenever I buy pizza, too. I tell my wife that I need the ginormous extra-EXTRA large pizza that’s as big as the hood of your car instead of buying several small pizzas in all those cardboard boxes… She never goes for it.

So, we’re going to try to precycle more. We still collect all the bottles, cans, boxes, wrappers, and plastic we can and drop it off at the recycling once a week. But our goal is to try to cut down on some of our recycling as well.

Okay, so we’re only a few days away from closing on our new house. We’ve been terribly busy and it’s only going to get crazier!

We finally had a chance to take a look at our flooring options. We stopped by a local carpet store to look at what is available. The first thing we did was explain our situation - we moved to Columbus, Ohio from Los Angeles and we’re buying a house. We told the salesman that we’re going to be making it a “green” remodeling project. At one point, acknowledging that we were from California (which is almost a bad word here in Ohio), he called us “those kinda people” when we told him we wanted more green carpeting options. It was funny. He backpedaled but we think it was a Freudian slip…

Now. I know carpet isn’t the most eco-friendly flooring choice for our new house. Many truly want a green home without all the baggage that carpeting has. But you can only put so much cord and bamboo flooring in your house (and, yes, those two will be going into the house) before you say, “enough!” But we’re only going to be putting it in our living room and in the bedrooms upstairs. There is already a nice hardwood floor throughout most of the 1st floor and there is tile in the kitchen. I’m going to put in cork planks in one bedroom upstairs (my office) and I’m going to put bamboo in the dining room.

At the store, we asked if there were any green carpet lines. It turns out there is. And it was in the waaaaay ass-backend of the store. Behind a curtain. Down a flight of steps. Under a hanging bare bulb. Where only Californians would dare venture. Just kidding…

There are many types of carpet. Wool, nylon, polyester, and more.  Many claim to be stain-resistant but our last carpet in our house in L.A. was made from polyester and it was too dirty to be cleaned after 2 years. We decided we go with nylon because it wears longer, has better stain fighting treatment, and can be recycled.

Nylon comes in two types - Type 6.6 and Type 6.  Both can be recycled back into carpeting. This means that it can be considered “cradle to cradle.” This is the ultimate in green options. Anything that can come from a recycled product and then turned back in to be recycled to create that product again is designated cradle to cradle. Nylon is made from oil, which is non-recyclable, but one the carpet is made it can stay carpet for a long time.

Shaw is a company that makes Anso Premier carpeting. The Anso nylon comes with a great wear and stain 15-year warranty, a great color selection, and lots of texture choices. And, I discovered that it comes with a green “thank you” rebate of $1.50 per yard (40 yard min.) on your next carpet purchase (good for 5 years and it’s transferable to friends & family.) Their carpeting contains recycled content and the nylon 6.6 fiber can be recycled and turned back into carpet again.

So, we’re going to try it in our new house once we move in. If you’re shopping for carpeting, ask a lot of questions and see if there are any green options available where you live. The prices are reasonable and in line with standard carpeting. And most of the carpet lines now are low in Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) that can affect indoor air quality. Make sure there is a CRI Indoor Air Quality Carpet Testing Green label available on your choices.

I’ve just bought a house. Well, we’ve agreed upon a price and signed the contract. I’ve still got to get the home inspection, finish filling out the loan paperwork, and close on the house. But… I’ve taken the first steps in turning a regular house into a green, eco-friendly, and sustainable home.

It would have been possible to talk with an architect to design and help me build a home from scratch. By building a brand new house, I could have had all the green products installed with all the green materials used in all the right places.

What a lot of people don’t know, however, is that even building a new house in a completely sustainable way comes at a price.

Building a new house, versus remodeling an existing house, generates three times as much carbon.

The house I’ve just purchased was built in 1978. It’s going to be harder to install a lot of the systems I want to put in. Retrofitting it always harder than installing something during construction. But the money I’ll be saving in buying an older home will allow me to do a lot of these green transformations. And I will be reducing our carbon footprint in the process.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Green building. Sustainability. Water conservation. Solar energy.

Those words have been floating around for many years now. And they’re starting to make it into everyday conversations. People have decided to help protect the planet, help protect their families and homes, and to save money.

I’ve decided to do my part as well. My plan is to buy a home, here in Columbus Ohio, and turn it into a “green” home. This blog, EcoRemodelers, will cover the journey to make the house a safe home for family and to reduce my carbon footprint on our environment.

My goal is create a How-To guide as I learn how to do all these green renovations myself. I want to cover all aspects of the home - energy efficiency, indoor air quality, recycling, alternative power sources, and green home products to name a few. And I want to try out a few remodeling projects that are expensive as well as many that are absolutely free.

Whether you’re a professional renovation contractor or you’ve never picked up a hammer in your life, my hope is that you’ll get something out of my trials and (many) errors. Maybe you’ll try a few things in your own home. Maybe together we can make a difference and help our planet and our wallets at the same time!

Stick around. Come back often. Laugh at me. Laugh with me. Watch as I slide on these green-colored glasses and do my little part in my little corner of our big blue planet.

Email me at tim (at) ladaddy (dot) com if you have questions, comments, ideas or whatever.

Photo courtesy the Sierra Club