Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are going to be part of your remodel, and your current lifestyle due to local regulations in most parts of the country.  This weekend, I was reminded of how to dispose of an old CFL during a trip to Home Depot in Campbell, CA.

Last year Home Depot announced a CFL recycle program, that is available at all of their stores.  Simply take your CFL to the store, and drop it into their recycle-disposal bin – free of charge.  The bins are located near the Customer Service/Returns kiosks.

Home Depot will then ensure the compact fluorescent bulb is properly disposed of, so the mercury in the the bulb does not harm our environment.

So pleeeease don’t drop them in your kitchen garbage!

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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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At West Coast Green this week, Light Concepts is showcasing the L7XFD: a dimmable, 6″ fluorescent recessed downlighting fixture. The latest innovation in recessed downlighting offers the energy savings and lamp life of a fluorescent fixture, and delivering that in a dimmable fixture.  We are told this product is now available and retailing for <$100 per can.

According to the company, the L7XF dimmable is compatible with almost any dimmer switch and boasts a wide selection of trims. ENERGY STAR qualified and Title 24 compliant, Lighting Concepts says homeowners can save $100 against its incandescent counterpart, based on operating three hours per day at $0.10 per KwH over the life of the fluorescent versus incandescent bulb.

The company is also showing seven other fixtures for the decorative fluorescent market, including award-winning Elliptis and Izoro winners of the ALA Lighting for Tomorrow award in 2007 and 2008, respectively.  The products can be purchased on their website.

The company offers quite a bit of information on their site about how to work with the color of fluorescent lights.

Lithonia Lighting: an Acuity Brands Company (NYSE: AYI), is North America?s largest manufacturer of lighting equipment for commercial, industrial, outdoor and residential applications. Acuity Brands, Inc. owns and operates Acuity Brands Lighting. With fiscal year 2007 net sales of approximately $2.0 billion, Acuity Brands Lighting is one of the world’s leading providers of lighting fixtures and related services and includes brands such as Lithonia Lighting®, Holophane®, Peerless®, Mark Architectural Lighting®, Hydrel®, American Electric Lighting®, Gotham®, Carandini®, SpecLight®, MetalOptics®, Antique Street Lamps?, and Synergy Lighting Controls®.

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Earlier this Summer, GetWithGreen.com selected a Solatube Model 160 DS Daylighting System for a residential hallway installation. A daylighting system was selected because a dimly lit hallway constantly required energy consumption for lighting — even during daytime hours.

Solatube was selected by GetWithGreen.com because of the sheer amount of clear information on the company’s and reseller’s website, and because it was so easy to find the product locally. It’s now time to update you on the install, and our final opinion of this specific daylighting system.

The Solatube 160 DS installation was a snap. Our GetWithGreen.com contractor installed the daylighting system within 90 minutes, and if you use a Solatube dealer this time could likely fall well below an hour! Our installation did require the wiring of electricity to the daylighting system, so that it could be used during the night as a light as well.

So what happened to the once dark hallway?? The hallway is now brilliantly bright during the day, and often glowing with moonlight in the evenings. GetWithGreen.com did use both a diffuser AND a softening lense for the installation because the light coming through the Solatube was too bright at first!! In addition the light was very white, and not as soft as a traditional incandescent bulb. The diffuser and the softening lenses took care of this. (Special thanks to Marjorie at Sunlight Concepts for allowing GetWithGreen to sample the various diffusers and softening lenses!) Should you still want to tone down the light, or perhaps change the color of the light, you might be able to use a colored gel to further alter the color and mood of your daylighting system — but this has not been confirmed by Solatube.

It does take time to get used to a new daylighting system. For weeks following your daylighting system install you will reach for a light switch because you will think a light has been left on!! You may also feel it is too bright, but we urge you to give it a few weeks. You will grow accustomed and fall further in love with your free and environmentally friendly light source.

GetWithGreen.com gives daylighting systems two green thumbs up!! In our opinion, the Solatube daylighting system performs beyond expectations, and Marjorie at Sunlight Concepts (our dealer) was amazing to work with. If you are considering one of these systems, GetWithGreen.com urges you to take the plunge. If you haven’t considered a daylighting system before, then take note and check out these incredibly eco-friendly products for lighting your home!!!

Read more about Daylighting Systems on GetWithGreen.com.

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As you work through your remodel, you can now drop off old compact flourescent light (CFL) bulbs to The Home Depot for recycling while you are picking up new home products.

This free service is the first such offering made so widely available by a retailer in the United States and offers customers additional options for making environmentally conscious decisions from purchase to disposal.

At each Home Depot store, homeowners can simply bring in any expired, unbroken CFL bulbs, and give them to the store associate behind the returns desk. The bulbs will then be managed responsibly by an environmental management company who will coordinate CFL packaging, transportation and recycling to maximize safety and ensure environmental compliance.

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PCBC, the largest home builder show, is coming to San Francisco next week and the announcements are starting to flow.

Members of the home building industry have voted and named the “coolest” homebuilding products in the annual Cool Products contest. PCBC 2008, the largest PCBC, the largest home builder show is on it’s way to San Francisco, and the announcements are starting to flow. Today members of the home building industry have voted and named the “coolest” homebuildinghomebuilders show on the West Coast, organizes the annual Cool Products contest for the more than 600 exhibitors at the conference.

Exhibitors entered more than 125 products in three categories – Consumer, Green and Industry products. Five products were chosen for each category by 679 home building professionals who voted online. All companies, products and booth information is available at www.pcbc.com/cool.

Here are the Cool Products from the Green Category, and stay tuned as GetWithGreen writes live from PCBC in San Francisco…

2008 Cool Products – Green Category:

1. Rinnai Corporation’s Rinnai LS Series Tankless Water Heater – Offers 30% to 50% energy savings over traditional tank-style units and can supply hot water when you need it, for as long as you need it, while contributing to a greener environment.

2. Eagle Roofing Products’ Eagle Solar Roof powered by SolarSave Integrated Solutions – This solar system integrates seamlessly with Eagle concrete roof tile and maintains the aesthetics of the roof, maintains the integrity of the roof system, prevents leaks and protects the home or building.

3. Cree LED Lighting Solutions LR6 Light Bulb – Has a 20-year life span (50,000 hours under normal use) and 85% less energy than a conventional incandescent and less than half that of a comparable fluorescent.

4. Akeena Solar’s Andalay Solar Panels – Uses a Lego-like, snap-in-place process to lie flat on rooftops. The Andalay panels have 70% fewer parts than a conventional system and 20% fewer rooftop penetrations.

5. The new GE Profile SmartDispense Frontload Washer and Dryer – Uses as little as 10 gallons of water and stores and automatically dispenses detergent and fabric softener based on each load’s size, soil level, water hardness and fabric or cycle type.

Here are a couple others from the “Industry Category”:

2008 Cool Products – Industry Category:

1. FAFCO SunGrabber Solar Hot Water System – The lightweight, quick-installation solar hot water system can easily bring about savings of up to 50% on water heating bills for the homeowner. The entire system fits in a single box and weighs just 70 pounds.

4. Panasonic Home & Environment Company WhisperComfort ERV – Ventilates polluted air with fresh air and transfers up to 70% of the heat and moisture to the air going out.

About PCBC

PCBC is the largest regional builders’ show in the nation. Held annually at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, PCBC features an extensive display of product innovations from more than 600 of the industry’s leading manufacturers and suppliers and a four-day educational conference with more than 60 keynotes, seminars and workshops in fields ranging from business strategies to marketing to product design to applied technology. PCBC 2008 will be held June 24-27 and registration is now under way. For more information, visit www.pcbc.com, or call 800-956-SHOW.

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GetWithGreen.com set out last week to purchase a tubular skylight. We needed a tubular skylight for a remodel we are doing, and we chose a tubular daylight device because we wanted to reduce the need for electricity to light a hallway.

Using the list of tubular skylight manufacturers GetWithGreen compiled last year, we selected Solatube. Solatube was selected solely because their website provided the most complete information about tubular daylight device. After a great introductory conversation with Marjorie Clark at Sunlight Concepts, Inc. (Solatube reseller and installer), we decided to drive down and make our purchase.

There are many options when purchasing a tubular daylight device. Here are the items you will need to consider:

1. How much space are you attempting to light? The Solatube products come in a 10″ diameter (Model 160 DS) and a 14″ diameter (Model 290 DS). Tricky in their naming, the 160 DS means that it lights roughly 160-200 square feet, and 290 DS means it provides coverage for 300 square feet. For our hallway we decided that a 10″ skylight would fit the bill. The 160 DS retails for $350, and the 290 DS for $450. Your contractor will likely receive a discount on these products.
2. Light or No Light. Solatube sells an optional electrical light fixture that installs inside the skylight for night-time use. This is a really nice option if you are installing the light in a hallway or closet. Since a tubular daylight device looks just like a recessed light when installed, we found this to be a great option! We purchased one. Depending on which one you want, the price ranges from $99-125 MSRP.
3. Diffuser Type. Each product comes with a standard diffuser. A diffuser is the lens that you see when you look up at your skylight. Each diffuser offers a different type of light. Make sure the showroom you visit has different installations so you can see the differences. The standard diffuser was very appealing. Marjorie let us borrow the optional OptiView diffuser so that we can test it after our install. The OptiView delivers a bright light, and will also let off a prism effect on your wall in some cases. We urge you to ask your retailer to borrow the different types.
4. Softening Lens. Once the diffuser is installed, you can purchase an optional softening lens that changes the color of the light. Once again, Marjorie was awesome, and she let us borrow a few different types…three different ones to be exact. They are very easy to swap out once your daylight device is installed. Again, ask your retailer to let you borrow a few to test out. If you decide to purchase they can cost you $15+.
5. Tubing. Your Solatube Daylighting System will come standard with 4 ft of tubing that pipes the light from the roof to the installed “light” in your ceiling. Our installation required 8 ft, so we purchase two 24″ extensions which cost us $21.11 each. The extension allow us to make a slight angle in our way to the roof as well. NOTE: the product also include flashing for the roof. The flashing included pre-drilled holes which we thought was a nice touch.
6. Other. Are you going to install the skylight yourself? The team at Sunlight Concepts charges $250 for installation. Some towns require a permit for installing a product like this.

Check back with us in a week or so, and we’ll let you know how our installation goes. For those of you in the San Jose, CA area, stop in and see Marjorie at Sunlight Concepts. She has all the various products installed in the showroom, and she is super friendly and an absolute pleasure to work with!

See more on Daylighting Systems from GetWithGreen.com

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Next week in Las Vegas, the lighting industry will be gathering in for LIGHTFAIR International.  LIGHTFAIR is one of the top lighting shows for architectural lighting, and this year efficiency, eco-friendly, and green lighting are on the most talked about list.

The announcements are starting to roll out about energy saving bulbs, and LEDs are the ones we are watching at GetWithGreen.com.   Just today Renaissance Lighting announced their commercially available 4-inch solid-state LED downlight (Model: ED04).  This LED recessed product offers more than 16 million color combinations without glare or visible LEDs.
  
As the newest arrival on the general illumination scene, solid-state LED lighting has yet to make a major market impact commensurate with its potential for outperforming and even replacing other types of lighting — until now.  How does solid-state lighting differ from conventional lighting?

Incandescent lamps create light by heating a thin filament to a very high temperature. The reason for their low efficiency is that more than 90 percent of the energy consumed is emitted as invisible infrared light which creates heat.  A fluorescent lamp produces ultraviolet light when electricity is passed through a mercury vapor, causing the phosphor coating inside the fluorescent tube to glow or fluoresce. There are efficiency losses in generating the ultraviolet light and in converting the ultraviolet light into visible light. Incandescent lamps typically have short lifetimes ? about 1,000 hours on average ? due to the high temperatures of the filaments. Fluorescents, including compact fluorescent lights, have lifecycles 10 times greater than incandescents, while LEDs can produce quality light anywhere from 50,000 to 70,000 hours.

The ED04 downlight’s compact package greatly expands its potential for use in all kinds of applications, and especially those where ceiling congestion tends to restrict the use of larger fixtures. The ED04 downlight adapts seamlessly to virtually any lighting scenario. Where smaller is better, the ED04 is easier to install from a weight standpoint, too, and it performs extremely well in wet locations or in outdoor under-canopy applications, according to CEO Barry Weinbaum.

“Utilizing green technology to make it environmentally friendly, our new ED04 outperforms the most popular 4-inch 50 par 20 products, yet uses only half the energy. It’s fully dimmable, and like all of our solid state products, is virtually maintenance free over the course of its 50,000-to-70,000-hour life span. Our customers will discover that Renaissance Lighting’s new pricing makes the decision to use our solid-state products an easier one, especially when considering the total cost of ownership,” Weinbaum said.

Renaissance Lighting’s unique downlight design begins with a circular array of LEDs at the perimeter of a patented integrating dome inside each fixture. The company’s unique optic design combines light uniformly before exiting the luminaire in glare-free fashion. The result is consistent color production and concealed sources that create smooth, uniform illumination patterns. 
 

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“Heating and cooling systems in the U.S. emit 150 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, and also generate 12% of the nation’s sulfur dioxide and 4% of its nitrogen oxide, the chief ingredients in acid rain,” according to data that accompanies Crestron’s recent “Green Paper” entitled Intelligent Efficiency: Crestron Makes Life Greener.  How can we control the usage of these home systems (heating, AC, lighting, sprinklers, audio/visual) better, and optimize the duration and timing they remain in operation?  Home Automation.   

I had my first exposure to home automation while working with Kaleidescape whole house video/audio systems (not ENERGY STAR rated) some years back, and later working with Siemens.  Home automation systems and controls (like Crestron) can cut down the energy you use in your home.  With a home automation system you can automate the lighting in your home, as well as Heating, AC, computer and audio/visual to only operate during times it is needed, and to shut off automatically.  According to the Crestron paper, the potential savings on energy in your home can be 3% for scheduling and dimming lights, and 4% for automating thermostats — based on a 4,000 square foot home where lighting accounts for 10% of total energy usage and heating/cooling accounts for 31%.

In addition to the green paper, the Crestron team has a ”green” area of their website, www.crestron.com/gogreen.  GetWithGreen.com recommends taking a look at these systems and controls as you do your remodel.   A good time to get them quoted is once your architectural drawings are completed.  Typically you will purchase the systems through an audio/visual specialist in your area.

With their recent announcement, Crestron also published a 7-page “Green Paper”, entitled The paper discusses

Download the Crestron paper.  Note you will need to Name, Email, and State to get access. 

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GetWithGreen.com  was recently contacted by the eco-friendly online retailer re:modern.  We took a look at their homeowner products, and we found a few greener lighting options designed and made by Jerry Kott. 

These designs are made from recycled glass, and would fit nicely into your remodel project if you are leaning toward a more modern design.  If you are going with a modern look for your remodel, take a look at re:modern.

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