Eco-Remodelers

I’ve been so busy renovating the house to be more green, I haven’t taken the time to write about it. One of my projects was to inspect and insulate my ductwork and I finally got around to doing it. And now I’m finally getting around to blogging about it.

It’s a good thing I did, but I should have done it much sooner. I started by inspecting all the ducts near my furnance. Ducts work by taking the warmed (or cooled) air and sending them to the rest of the house. More ducts are used to return the cooler (or warmer) air back to the furnace or heat pump. I wanted to look my ductwork over and make sure there were no gaps, holes, or problems.

I noticed one big problem right away. About 20 feet away from my furnace, one duct had completely come off the main line. This duct was serving warm air up to our living room and our daughter’s room. This explained why her room was always a bit cooler than the rest. But the living room is where our programmable thermostat is. This meant that the heater might be staying on and running longer than it should because the room with the main temperature readings wasn’t getting enough direct heat.

With some duct tape and duct sealant, I re-attached the duct. I also found a few other minor problems and sealed those ducts up as well. To really prevent leaks of warmed or cooled air, you can use duct tape (not the gray “regular” duct tape - but only the silver tape approved for ductwork) and/or a duct sealant. The sealant can be applied using a trowel, a brush, or even your finger. I used both to make sure I got a great seal.

Next, I insulated all my exposed ductwork down in our basement. At all home improvement stores, there is insulation designed specifically for your ducts. All you do it open it up and wrap it around the ducts. You use tape to tape up the seam where the two sides of the insulation meet. It’s that easy.

All the insulation means there will be much less heat-loss while the warm air is being sent to the rooms in your house. The rooms will warm up quicker and the heater will turn off faster and stop using as much energy. Which saves you money.

I did find up problem up in my crawl space. Apparently, at some point, the previous homeowners had cable installed. The cable installers were too lazy to do their jobs, so they pulled open my air duct return and shoved their cables up through my heating system. I was so beyond mad. I was furious that someone would compromise the heating ducts like that.

I cut the cables, screwed the opening shut, and sealed up the ducts again. The change in the heat throughout our house was amazing in February and March. The air coming out of our registers was so much warmer and the house warmed up that much faster.

I highly recommend sealing and insulating your ducts, either from in your basement or under your house in the crawlspace underneath. It’s very easy to do and very inexpensive - and it will save you a lot of money.

If you don’t want to try to do it yourself, you can always contact a heating contractor to come inspect your ducts, to seal things up, and to insulate for you. Find a heating contractor for free at ConstructionDeal.com.

I’ve been recycling. A lot. In fact, nearly three quarters of the trash that leaves our house goes to recycling.

Last week, when the garbage truck came to pick up our trash, it only had two small bags lining the bottom. But it got me thinking about all the stuff I’m taking to the recycling bins and so I did some research. It turns out I may have been doing more harm than good.

I hate to put this type of information out there, because so many people already think it’s a big hassle to have to recycle anything. But if you are putting paper and cardboard products into recycling bins with food on them, you could be ruining the batch of recycled materials.

For example, the recycling dumpsters in our neighborhood say that we can put all paper and cardboard products in - including cereal boxes and, yes, pizza boxes. What they don’t tell you is that the food contaminates the process. A pizza leaves grease and oil residue on the bottom and/or top of your pizza box. When that oil gets mixes with the water used to break down the cardboard, the paper recycling batch gets spoiled.

While it can be a big enough pain to separate all your trash and recycling, it’s important that you add another step to the process. Otherwise, don’t bother with any paper products. Don’t recycle any cardboard or paper that has food on it. Don’t bother with napkins, paper towels, tissues, pizza boxes or paper plates if they’ve had food on them. Throw them away (or better yet - don’t use them at all…)

However, you can cut away the ruined portions of these items. Yes, it’s a pain to do, but it’s got to happen to be effective.

This really only happens with the paper products. Water is used to break down the paper into a slurry material that can be recycled into new products. But metal, glass and plastic use heat to break down the raw materials to make new products. Heat isn’t affected by the oil or grease in food.

I do recommend that you rinse the food out of the metal, plastic or glass containers, though. You wouldn’t want your recycling center to get too stinky

The President signed the 2009 Stimulus Plan into law on Tuesday, February 17th. This law has some great benefits designed to help homeowners improve their homes and save our economy. And there is a section that can help motivate homeowners to go green and purchase energy-saving products.

ConstructionDeal.com reviewed the stimulus package and had some information on how this stimulus package can help you renovate with green products and save cash.

There are tax credits and incentives for energy efficiency improvements completed on your house for products that are installed between now and the end of the year.

These tax credits can be worth as much as $1,500 for the installation of Energy Efficient items, such as:

• Replacement Windows & Skylights
• Insulation
• Energy Star Appliances
• Solar Water Heating Systems
• Exterior Doors
• Metal & Asphalt Shingle Roofs
• Central Air Conditioning,  Heat Pumps, Furnaces & Boilers
• Water Heaters
• Wind Turbines
• Solar Photovoltaic Panels

These new incentives and tax breaks make buying new products for your home more affordable. Their contractors are already putting together systems that qualify for the tax credits.

To talk to a qualified installer, click on the links above and submit your request on the ConstructionDeal.com site. It’s a fast and free way to find quality contractors.

Caught up in my birthday and the holidays, so not much time to post. Happy holidays to everyone!

Dreaming of a Green Christmas?

With all the shopping, holiday parties, and traveling around many people forget about going green this time of the year.

There are a few things that I can think of to help make it a more sustainable and Earth-friendly holiday season:

• If you still have time, try making only one or a few shopping trips to one location instead of driving all over town. It saves you gas money and reduces your carbon emissions.
• Ordering online and having it delivered might not be the best green choice, because you’re still creating a big carbon footprint by having large trucks, airplanes, and small trucks ship your packages all over the country.
• Buy local - deliver local. If you can find a local company to buy gifts from, you’ll be making a big impact. And, if you can, order a gift for someone from a company local to your friend or family member and have it delivered.
• Be creative with your wrapping of presents. Do you need to buy up a lot of wrapping paper, tape and boxes to cover up your presents? Re-use, recycle and pre-cycle! We try to re-use a lot of gift bags so that we’re not buying more or wasting paper. You could also make a “present box” that is covered with old holiday paper but that is easily opened. It can be used again next season!
• Put your holiday lights on a timer. Set the timer to only run during evening but shut off by 11pm or midnight. There’s no need to leave the lights on all night long while most people are sleeping… and I’m sure your neighbors would love you more without the bright lights shining in all night.

And, my favorite method of being green during the holidays! Re-gifting! Get something you don’t like this Christmas? Save it for the next birthday or holiday season and give it away again! You don’t need to go shopping, you don’t need to spend any money, and you’ve already got a few gift bags left over from this year’s celebrations!

The perfect solution!

Have you got any more ways to be green during the holidays?

Photo courtesy of Phillyburbs.com

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 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…