The green product resource for your home remodel.

Conventional water heaters, tankless water heaters, & solar water heaters.

The solar water heater buzz is rising across the internet, and feeding the frenzy is the emergence of rebates — especially in California where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation last Fall to spend $250 million over the next 10 years on rebates for solar water heaters.

Rebates from your gas utility can be as much as $1,500. Rebates are paid for by everyone who doesn’t have a solar water heater as your monthly bill will see a small increase of less than twenty cents.

The city of Palo Alto, CA this week joins communities such as Sacramento and Austin with an outline to their rebate program. The latter two programs are already live.

The DOE’s Consumer’s Guide to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has some great information on the topic of solar hot water heaters. There are several flavors of solar hot water heaters, and you’ll need to take a small amount of time to see which type is right for you. The DOE includes a cost calculation sheet on their site that you can work the numbers to understand your payback.

Take a look at the following links for more information on suppliers and pricing; AET, Solar Direct, SolarRoofs.com, Heliodyne (images in this article), Sun Ray Solar, Sun Earth Inc., Sun Systems Inc., ThermoTechnologies, and Apricus.

When a carpeting company claims to offer a green home remodel solution, what do they mean?   This week Mohawk puts their stamp on an explanation:

• Today, Mohawk will recycle 8 million plastic bottles, turning it into 275,000 square
  yards of beautiful carpeting.
• Today, Mohawk will divert more than 475,000 pounds from going into a landfill,
  recycling it into usable materials.
• Today, Mohawk will produce hardwood flooring that reclaims wood from torn-down buildings.
• Today, Mohawk will use renewably sourced materials instead of petroleum-based
  products to make soft, durable, stain-resistant carpeting.
• Mohawk will do all this and hundreds of more Earth-friendly efforts. And Mohawk
  will do it tomorrow, the day after that and every day following.

                    

                  

 

Cyber-Rain’s wireless sprinkler control system was recognized by GetWithGreen.com as the Best Green Home Remodeling Product for 2007, and the Cyber-Rain team continues to have tricks up their sleeve to improve the product for all of us.

This week GetWithGreen.com caught up with Greg Nagy Cyber-Rain’s Director of Business Operations. Greg discussed upcoming upgrades that will soon expand the functionality of the new XCI systems, as well as upgrade your existing Cyber-Rain XCI system! In the coming months you will be able to securely access your Cyber-Rain from This post continues… »

The momentum around eco-friendly EcoTop “paper” countertops continues to build as Klip BioTechnologies is locking up distribution agreements that will take this green countertop product “mainstream”, and make it incredibly easy to obtain for our home projects. 

As many of you know, and write often to us about, it is very difficult to easily buy “green” products for our home remodels.  Thus many of us just purchase what is most easily available from our contractors, Home Depot, or other — at the last minute.  (Come back later this week as we tell of our most recent difficulties trying to obtain UltraTouch insulation from Bonded Logic!)

Today, EcoTop is available to order by directly calling Klip BioTechnologies at 1-253-507-4622 in Washington.  At the moment all homeowners receive factory direct pricing.  Lead-times are running three weeks, for the present earth-tone neutral colors:  Snow White, Ivory, Cashew, Palamino, Pecan, and Jet Black.  Soon EcoTop will be available in a Charcoal, Concrete Grey, Espresso Brown, and Thistle Green.  

Sample Kits can be ordered from EcoTop for $30, and if you decide to purchase EcoTop the $30 will come off the price of your final order.  Klip BioTechnologies did tell GetWithGreen.com that the Sample Kits are on backorder, so contact them now if this is how you are planning on evaluating their product.

Remember that this product differs from Paperstone and other fiber countertop products in that it uses a completely new fiber system, a newly developed resin, and is manufactured with patent pending processes.

Finally, the team over at Finehomebuilding.com is running a great “paper” countertop overview in their most recent edition.  See the article at:  Paper counters look and feel like stone.  (Note: you might need to register to get the article.)

More news out of the K/BIS show in Chicago this week.  GROHE is making a low-flow splash with the announcement of their WaterCare® line of low-flow faucet options. 

The company is introducing more than 60 low-flow faucets and shower products at the show.  Including GROHE WaterCare® kitchen faucets, lavatory faucets and shower products to help us homeowners reduce water consumption by up to 30 percent without sacrificing performance or comfort they say.  Additionally, GROHE has also announced their status as an EPA WaterSense Partner.

Americans use an average of 100 gallons of water each day, enough to fill 1,600 drinking This post continues… »

This week at the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show & Conference (K/BIS) in Chicago, Bosch unveiled new Energy Star laundry and dishwashing products. 

• Exclusive AQUASTOP Leak Protection System on Nexxt(R) Laundry
• New Category of Ascenta Dishwashers

Here is what Bosch has to say: 

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Premium appliance manufacturer Bosch continues to demonstrate that it delivers complete ECO solutions that any family can rely on with its new advancements debuting at the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show.

As the only U.S. manufacturer with the ENERGY STAR® qualification on all its washers, refrigerators and dishwashers, Bosch is introducing its industry exclusive AQUASTOP® leak protection system to its front-loading and high-efficiency Nexxt® Washer.

Nexxt Dryers receive MISTCAREâ„¢, a quick way to refresh clothes and remove wrinkles in minutes, as well as the popular ECOACTIONâ„¢ option to reduce energy consumption up to an additional 10%. Furthermore, Nexxt Washers add a convenient stain removal program that tackles 14 of the toughest stains.

A new category of dishwashers called Ascentaâ„¢ now allows This post continues… »

It is time to buy a new bathroom ceiling ventilation fan for our hall bath, and so I am going to take you through my thought process, and review of the products GetWithGreen.com found.  It wasn’t an easy task sifting through the myriad of models.  Light, no light, heat, no heat…the Energy Star site boasts 140+ manufacturers of ventilation fans!

Energy Star qualified ventilation fans that include lighting use 70% less energy on average than standard models, saving $120 in electricity costs over the life of the fan.  Further the fans are more than 50% quieter than standard models according to Energy Star. 

The first thing that I did was write down my needs in priority order:

• Efficient: Yes
• Noise: Low
• Warranty: 3+ yrs
• Light: No
• Heat: No

I then used one of the many online tools out there to measure how much airflow my bathroom needed.  I didn’t want to buy an over-sized fan.  A couple very easy to use tools to size up your fan can be found at:   Pansonic and RE Williams.  Simply input your room dimensions, and the calculators tell you the size of fan you should be targeting.  In my case, the calculators returned a fan size slightly smaller than This post continues… »

Home Depot starts selling eco-friendlier paint in April.

ICI Paints and The Home Depot will launch an environmentally friendly paint nationwide in April 2008. The Freshaire Choiceâ„¢ Paint offers a paint free of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and is backed by a lifetime guarantee and GREENGUARD certification. Featuring a custom color palette of 66 beautiful colors available through an innovative tinting system.   Additionally, the packaging, samples, color cards are made in some % with recycled materials.  At $35-38 a gallon, here is what Home Depot and ICI have to say about it (from their press release today)…

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the air inside a home is, on average, two-to-five-times more polluted than the air outside. As the emphasis of environmental concern shifts from outside to inside, paint is a large contributing factor to poor indoor air quality and can emit harmful chemicals, such as VOCs, for years after This post continues… »