1. One idea is that an accredited buildings professional would come in to conduct an energy audit to determine where energy efficiency improvements can be made, help you decide on a plan of action, and then execute that plan. The expectation is that homeowners could get back 50 percent of what they spend up to a maximum rebate of $12,000.
2. The other way to get government money is to buy an energy-efficient furnace, windows, or other component. There are federal rebates already available and several states also offer rebates for purchasing energy-efficient appliances and more.   

• Install a programmable thermostat.
• Weatherstrip windows and doors.
• Caulk the obvious leaks.
• Insulate your water heater.
• Replace incandescent bulbs with CFLs or efficient halogens.

Like many of you, my house has (had) an old furnace that I swear was a rocket engine taking off when it started up!  Struggling with PG&E bills north of $600/mo in the winter, I was determined to change this consumption of cash and energy during my remodel.   (Granted the single pane windows and minimal insulation were also contributing factors.)

So the furnace was one of the first items to go as the house was remodeled.  I wrote earlier about Carrier furnaces, and their associated rebates.  I actually took advantage of that, and saved an additional $1,100 with that offer when I purchased an Infinity model for just south of $15,000 fully loaded, installed with all new duct work.    Anyway getting to the point here, my new Carrier furnace enables my house to have multiple ‘zones’ which enables me to save my energy consumption and stop the bleeding of dollars sent to PG&E each month.

What is a ‘zone’ you ask, and how does it work?  A ‘zone’ is an area of your house that you define with your heating/cooling installer.  A zone is heated (or cooled) to a certain temperature while leaving other ‘zones’ at a different temperature.  I went with two zones in my house.

One zone is the family/kitchen/dining living space, and the second zone is the sleeping area of the home.  What I have found is that during the daylight hours more time is spent in the first zone.  Temperature is set at appropriate levels while the family is in that area of the house, and the second zone is dialed down (off) when because nobody is there.  During the night, the situation is reversed.  The family living space is dialed down low, and the sleeping area is kept at a more modest temperature.   BEFORE this transformation, the rocketship was humming, and heating the entire residence!!!

I suggest taking a look at multiple zones with your next furnace purchase!  As I see the savings in my PG&E bill, I will let you know the improvement — but I can already feel the difference

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What is orange, green, and good for a residential home remodel or improvement project? GetWithGreen thinks one answer is the ever growing inventory of Eco Option products located around the corner at your local Home Depot.

This past week Ron Jarvis senior vice president of environmental innovation with The Home Depot and GetWithGreen.com, sat down to talk about the Eco Options program, and retail trends in green home product market.

Ron’s home improvement career spans 23 years, starting early on with Lowe’s, followed by 13 years at America’s largest home improvement retailer, The Home Depot. For the last eight years Ron has been tracking energy products for the retail giant, and now leads the company’s Eco Options program, among other environmental initiatives, reduced energy consumption by stores, reduced waste and increased recycles as well as increased sustainability into all business functions.

Eco Options is Home Depot’s product labeling program that allows customers to easily identify products that have less of an impact on the environment. The 3,000+ products are located throughout the orange shelves of the retailer. Early on, the Company decided to place green home products next to their lesser eco-friendly counterparts, rather than go for a “green aisle” approach. The Depot believed that consumers should be able to compare products, and also wanted to make it easy for homeowners to find green home products.

Today these products range from indoor construction materials such as insulation, moldings and green paints, to outdoor organic fertilizers. Ron tells us that adoption of green home products is accelerating as television, advertising and other media continue to keep ‘green’ red hot in front of homeowners. Ron estimates growth to be around 10% over the next 12 months even in a negative growth economy and like a presidential candidate knocking on rural doors, Ron often walks the aisles of THD sharing his green home product knowledge. (He claims that he has never met a customer that he couldn’t convert to CFLs J.)

So what are homeowners buying when it comes to green home products at Home Depot? Ron says we are snatching up ENERGY STAR appliances, Freshaire paint, CFLs, ceiling fans and programmable thermostats. In fact the Freshaire line of paint was one of their most successful launches ever selling more than we had anticipated across all markets. This zero-voc paint in eco-friendly packaging is being used from baby’s room volume to hospital volumes because it does not carry the toxic fumes of other paints.

But are the Eco Options products really green, or this just ‘green washing’? “That is the hardest part of our job,” Ron says. He employs a small team that vets all potential green home products. They check certifications, documentation, look at peer reviews, and always err on the conservative side to protect the Eco Options brand reputation.

And how do our favorite green home products get in line to be tested? Like a job applicant researching a potential employer, we are told manufacturers who want shelf space for their green home products typically pick a local market of 10-15 stores, study the stores in that market for how their product might sell, noting competitive prices, shelf location, and more. Once the research is complete, these manufacturers are set for a discussion with Ron’s team. “Manufacturer’s have got to do the in-store detail,” Ron says. The Eco Options team helps smaller companies with innovative green home products with distribution, so it’s not just the big boys that you see on the shelf.

During our conversation, I had one bone to pick with Ron, and it was the fact that the Eco Options products remain almost invisible on The Home Depot website! GetWithGreen.com brought this up last year as we generated our list of top eco-friendly home products and retailers. As of right now, the only way to find the Eco Options product online is by following a microscopic link at the very bottom of The Home Depot home page!!

Ron acknowledged our frustration in finding green home products in their online store. This being said, he wouldn’t tell me when this would change, but did say a plan was on the table to start labeling Eco Options products in all product searches on the site – thus placing the eco-friendlier options next to the lesser friendly. For now, one could argue the Company has taken a ‘green aisle’ approach online, when they voted against it for their in-store strategy – puzzling. (If you would like Home Depot to make Eco-Options green home products more visible, then click this link and tell them so!)

Upcoming products to soon hit the Depot shelves include a wider selection of high-efficiency toilets (HETS), faucets, window shades, organics and innovative building materials. Ron believes that, consistent education to the homeowners around these products and others will dispel outdated thinking that green eco-friendly home products have to cost 3x as much, and don’t work as well. GetWithGreen agrees, as this was and remains our founding mission.

By making green home product options as visible as possible, then homeowners can make easy and better decisions for our environment. “Our impact can be felt here on earth, and everything we can do, we should.” Ron says.

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Financing your remodel is more difficult with the state of our economy (speaking from experience), and if you are like me you are looking for all opportunities to secure additional funding to make your remodel what you have always dreamed it would be.  

To help, The Home Depot is offering up a $5,000+ prize and more to homeowners who are remodeling, and getting green at the same time.

To win this bounty, you’ll need to shoot a short video showing how you are saving money and helping the environment by making your home more energy efficient.  According to THD, your video must focus on home energy issues such as insulation, appliances, and water usage. 

Not only is there (1) Grand Prize winner who will win that $5K (plus additional cash toward insulation services), but there is also a 2nd place ($1,500) and a 3rd place ($500) prize. 

Submissions started on September 25th, and the final day to submit is November 9th.  The Home Depot tells us that winners will be announced no later than November 24, 2008!

Read all details on a Home Depot website on YouTube:  Save Money. Save Energy. Win Big.

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7,000,000 tons of newspaper are recycled each year to make eco-friendly “green” cellulose insulation. But, can it really be safe to put newspaper insulation in the walls during your home remodel? What about fire risk?

This video tells a story that will surprise you, and they talk about the safety of less eco-friendly fiberglass insulation as well. Watch this great overview on the safety of cellulose insulation.

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 2008 is fast approaching, and the team at GetWithGreen.com is stopping now to recognize a few of our favorite eco-friendly home improvement products for 2007.  These products are assembled together under one roof:  GetWithGreen.com’s 10 Best Green Home Remodeling Products for 2007. 

GetWithGreen.com’s 10 Best Green Home Remodeling Products for 2007 consists of manufacturers (or categories) who deliver eco-friendly products, which make our planet a greener place.  These products help us conserve, help us reuse, help us recycle, or help us become less reliant on existing harmful resources.  We also looked heavily at the popularity of these products with you, our readers.     

Let’s give a GetWithGreen.com Thumbs up to our 10 Best Green Home Remodeling Products for 2007:

1)   Cyber-Rain ? ?The smartest, greenest, and easiest irrigation system on the planet.?

The Cyber-Rain XCI System caused quite a bit of stir at GetWithGreen.com in 2007.  It was one of the most widely read stories, and for good reason.  Resetting the sprinkler timer at every change of season, or for un-seasonal weather changes, just isn?t practical ? and we don?t do it!  Instead we just let our sprinklers turn on when it is not necessary, and we waste our most precious resource.  The Cyber-Rain XCI System made it to our list because it automatically adjusts our sprinklers depending on the weather forecast, thus greatly reducing water usage, and associated needless run-off.                                      

2)   EcoTop- The next generation recycled paper and wood composite countertop

Countertops are one of the most popular remodel topics on the web today, so it was only fitting that one material made it into the GetWithGreen.com 10 Best for 2007.  This year we?ve talked about just about every type of alternative to granite, and our top pick for 2007 is the new material called EcoTop.  Following up success at PaperStone, Joel Klippert has another winner here with EcoTop.  We expect big things from his team in 2008 as their color pallet increases, and they go broader in distribution!  Again we expect this one to be a game changer in 2008, and probably one to watch on next year?s list!

3)   GreenFiber – Out with the pink, Get with the Green

There are many alternatives to the pink fiberglass, and GreenFiber is our pick for 2007.  The GreenFiber team had the guts to come to GetWithGreen.com, and ask our audience for recommendations on packaging alternatives because they care.  Sure you can go with recycled denim, or new types of bio spray foam insulators, but we like the simplicity and the cost of GreenFiber.  We were also amazed at how well this product stands up in a fire vs. traditional fiberglass.  Don?t let you contractor put in fiberglass for your remodel ? check out GreenFiber cellulose insulation.

4)   Solar Tunnel Skylights- Who needs CFL’s or LED’s when you have one of these?!

Solar Tunnel Skylight as a category took the #4 spot this year on our List.  We like these products because during the day they go one step better than any fluorescent light bulb or LED solution could ever do ? they give you light via the sun so you don?t have to turn a light ON.   Ranging in various sizes, all homeowners remodeling should consider these products!  Check out our list of solar tunnel skylight manufacturers.

5) Holiday LED Lights ? The save power, enough said.

GetWithGreen.com estimates that one of the top (if not the top) most talked about green products of the year was the traditional incandescent light bulb who grew up to be a CFL in 2007.  Consumers, utilities, retailers, businesses and news outlets alike embraced and were a buzz around CFLs.  Judging from your interest and support of our 100+ places article that excitement and interest spilled right over to the energy saving LED holiday lights that took stores by storm this Fall and Winter.  These little lights save a lot of energy, and they are here to stay.  Way to go Philips and others!  Note To Manufacturers:  GetWithGreen.com would like to see a plastic color that matches the warmth of traditional white lights.  If you get this right you will have the killer product according to our readers!!

6) PlayMart ? This product is doing something for our kids in more ways than one!

Playground equipment and green are not typically something that you would think about in the same thought, but you should!  Why do we care about going green, getting green, being sustainable, or read sites like Treehugger.com?  Because, most of us are working to save our environment for our children and generations to come.   So please look seriously at installing backyard playground equipment alternatives to wood, especially wood that is harvested inappropriately.  Play Mart equipment makes use of recycled milk jugs, recycled metals, and other materials and then delivers them all back to your children in the shape of backyard play equipment.  We challenge you to find another product by the way that carries a 100 year warranty!!

7)   EnergyStar Special Offer/Rebate Finder ? A service that pays you back!

Our tax dollars are hard at work over at the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency when it comes to ENERGY STAR.  ENERGY STAR makes GetWithGreen.com?s 10 Best List this year because we really like their Rebate Finder.  Simply enter your zip code into the locator, check the product types you are interested in (e.g. appliances, heating and cooling equipment, home electronics, etc.), and out pops available rebates for ENERGY STAR products in your neighborhood.  How cool is that?

8)   RainTube? The only eco-friendly gutter protector solution

In a world of metal gutter protectors, 2007 saw the emergence of an alternative ? RainTube.  It blew our minds at GetWithGreen.com that we could not find an alternative metal solution (e.g. recycled aluminum, etc.).  After all, you can buy metal roofs made from 100% recycled materials!  RainTube?s eco-friendliness starts with its composition of 100% recycled plastics materials.  Once installed the product keeps your gutters clear, which helps diversion of water from your homes foundation ? thus reducing other long-term costs and the need for pesticides for termites etc.  To top it off this product is priced to sell, so we all save!

9)   Ready Solar ? Reducing the requirement for specialized installers

Ready Solar?s ?Solar in a Box? gets our vote this year, as the company is on a mission to demystify and drive down the overall cost of solar installation.  They are making an attempt at accomplishing this by punching out standardized solar systems that can be installed by any Ready Solar certified contractor.  Ready Solar is still a young company, but we still like their IKEA box-like approach to solar.

10)   Pella Windows ? Windows that work to conserve

Fully insulated windows cut down greatly on energy consumption ? especially the Designer Series from Pella.  This year homeowners voted via J.D Powers that you liked what Pella is offering, and GetWithGreen.com is voting with you.  The company is working hard to tell both their internal recycling story, the story of reused materials in their products, and the conservation of energy that their products provide.   Virtually all of our remodels will involve one or more windows.  Before you buy, take a look at Pella and their Designer Series.    

In addition to the 10 Best above, GetWithGreen wanted to recognize 3 others who made a difference in 2007. These three didn’t necessarily fit into a specific product category in 2007, but deserved a mention for their ability to influence others. 

From the big box home improvement retailers we wanted to give a mention to The Home Depot.  THD continued to evolve their eco-friendly educational material throughout the year.  You may not know it, but the company has an entire green section on their website called Eco Options!  If you don’t know this, it is probably because the company has placed Eco Options at the bottom of their website!  THD, please move Eco Options closer to the top of your page and expose your customers to your very valuable material, so that others can learn and make a difference!!

And to close things out for this Year’s 10 Best, we wanted to mention a couple of the web giants out there for committing valuable resources in an effort to spread the word about getting green.   Specifically, we are calling out the team at Microsoft with thier MSN Green website, and the team at Yahoo! with their Yahoo! Green site.  These massive web titans are taking each other on, and this battle for your readership will only help bring better educational news to a broader base of readers – leading to a greener planet in 2008 for everyone.  

In closing, thanks to all other manufacturers who have helped move the home improvement industry toward a greener place.  We look forward to 2008 at GetWithGreen.com!  Thank you to our readers and advertisers for continuing to support our efforts!

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Going with green with insulation is actually one of the easier choices in a remodel project. There are many alternatives to fiberglass such as UltraTouch Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation, spray foam from BioBased Insulation, or recycled shredded paper from GreenFiber. Below you will find a story written by Ryanne Hodson, and brought to GetWithGreen.com from the team at PodTech. Ryanne tells us about how Jay made his decision to use recycled paper insulation in a garage remodel.

Written by Ryanne Hodson (November 29, 2007)

Recently, Jay’s dad started building on some property he owns in rural Virginia. The first structure built was the garage/workshop. Jay and I were eager for the chance to try out some green building materials as an alternative to the usual stuff. Before traveling over to the east coast for Turkey Day, we did some research along side his pops about what the cheapest, most green insulation material could be used (which could also be purchased at a major box store near by). We found that Recycled Paper Cellulose was the least expensive material you could buy, at 25 cents per sq. foot and it is available through most building material suppliers. The alternatives were The Pink Stuff, fiberglass rolls at about 50 cents per sq. foot. I was wary of using fiberglass because of its notorious itch inducing particles that will irritate not just your skin, but your lungs as well! If the particles ever become loose and get into your ventilation system, this can mean big trouble for your internal organs and cancer fighting immune system. Another recycled and mostly benign insulator are the trendy new denim rolls. These are made from recycled scraps from jean manufacturers. This was my top choice until I did a price check. This stuff goes for $1.00 per sq. foot. Yikes!

The price factor is still top priority when you have to build, those square feet can add up fast. And when you’re trying to convince a retiring baby boomer to go green even though it costs 4 times as much, they’re gonna laugh and buy the usual ‘Pink Stuff’. So we were happy to find an alternative that was cost effective and recycled. The only downside was the actual packaging of the material. It came in plastic bags, which most of you know, drive me crazy and can not be easily recycled or degraded. A would love to see this company really pull through and start packaging the product in, you guessed it, recycled paper! (NOTE: Ryanne we’ve contacted the team at GreenFiber about your suggestion. We’ll let you know if they respond!)

PodTech is the leading online video network featuring original technology and digital entertainment programming. PodTech?s media platform allows professional content producers to deliver their content to millions of people who can easily find, share, and interact with it. Founded in 2005, PodTech Network is based in Palo Alto, California, and is funded by US Venture Partners and Venrock Associates.

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Better insulating your home while remodeling reduces your need for heating and cooling, thus saving $$.

If you are interested in helping the environment with an eco-friendly insulation product at the same time, what products can you turn to for insulation?

Here is a list. If you know of others or have used one of the products below, please tell the GetWithGreen audience via Comments!!!

Eco-Friendly Home Insulation:

Air Krete, Inc. – Cementitious Foam Insulation

Applegate Insulation

Ark-Seal – Blow-In-Blank Insulation System and Fiberiffic Insulation System

BioBased Systems – BioBased Insulation

Bonded Logic – Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation

Can-Cell Industries – WallBAR and Wethershield brand insulation

CertainTeed – MemBrain, SpeedyR, DryRight, ToughGard, SpeedR Bandit insulation

Climatizer Insulation, Inc.

Demilec – SEALection 500 Insulation

Fiberlite Technologies, Inc. – Fiber-Lite, Fiber-LitePlus, Wal-Mat

FOAM-TECH – Supergreen (special product for humid environments)

Good Shepherd Insulation – Wool Insulation products

Guardian Building Products – Fiberglass insulation products

Icynene, Inc. – Icynene Insulation System and GOLD SEAL 400 Foam Insulation

InsulCot – InsulCot cotton fibre insulation

International Cellulose Corporation – K-13, Sonaspray FC, Celbar, Protek-13, and Ure-K products

Johns Maville Corporation – Spider spray, ComfortTherm Batts/Rolls, MR, EasyFit, Kraft-Faced products

Knauf Insulation – JetStream blown fiberglass, and BATT products

Monoglass, Inc. – glass fiber spray insulation

Nu-Wool Co. Inc. – Spray-in-place cellulose insulation

Ottawa Fibre, Inc. – Fibreglass insulation products

Owens Corning – Pink Fiberglas, Propink, QuietZone, Celfort, Foamular, FoamSealR Insulation

Tascon, Industries. – Spray and loosefill insulation

Thermafiber, Inc. – FS-15 and FS-25 blanket fiber insulation

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www.GetWithGreen.com is the source for making your home remodel project a “green home makover.”

Here you will soon find information on green products available for your home. GetWithGreen.com will serve as your starting point to help you find information and sources for the newest and latest environmentally friendly products for your home remodel project.

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