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Go Green

Save energy and money, around the home and in your personal life.

Volitile energy costs and America's ever increasing dependence on imported oil, there is a lot of talk about how government and industry can help reduce our consumption of energy and dependence on fossil fuels. There are, however, a lot of things we can do as individuals to reduce our own energy consumption, which would not only help reduce global demand for energy but save us money as individuals. The battle cry for energy should not be "drill baby, drill" but rather "save baby, save". Our "Go Green" section will focus on real world home projects that demonstrate different ways to reduce energy consumption and/or carbon footprint or just be nicer to the environment. In time our goal is to feature many different green projects from new home construction, to home renovation projects, to basic home maintenance to home garden projects.

• 70s House Eco Renovation 
  A series of articles documenting the eco renovation a house built in 1970 and reviewing products used in the renovation. We expect the renovations to be spread out over a few years.
  • Redecorating
    Eradicating the color green: This phase of our eco renovation focused primarily on aesthetics, interior decoration, and critical safety issues.
    • Painting Walls
      Bright walls require less light, Low VOC options, recycled painting supplies.
    • Replacing Carpets
      Soybean based padding, recycled PET carpets, low VOCs, reduced health concerns
    • Updating Light Fixtures
      Better ambiance, energy efficient CFLs
  • Bathroom Renovation
    This make over may come in stages as we may replace the most wasteful fixtures before the full bathroom renovation takes place.
    • Installing a low flow showerhead
      An easy DIY project that will result in immediate savings.
  • Switching to Renewable Energy
    One of the ways we will reduce our carbon footprint will be to replace some of our fossil fuel energy consumption over to carbon neutral renewable energy sources.
    • Buying local clean power electricity
      One of the easiest ways for us to reduce our carbon footprint by around 1.5 tons per year was to start buying our electricity from a clean power provider.
  • Kitchen Renovation - Coming in 2010 or 2011
  • Weatherization - Coming late 2009
    The most important part of reducing one's energy usage is weatherizing one's home. The first step in this is conducting an energy audit.
    • Energy Audit
      This energy audit was conducted on our house to help us prioritize weatherization and energy efficiency projects.
    • Revised ROI Calculations
      These are updated return on investment calculations for the energy audit that was conducted on our house and reflect updated information.

We are looking for projects to feature

Do you have an eco renovation, green construction or related eco home or garden project that could make for a good series of articles? If so, please contact us as we are looking for projects to feature. We are particularly interested in projects here in Southern Maine that we can easily visit in person and follow.

Citing this page

If you need to cite this page, you can copy this text:

Go Green. EnvironmentalChemistry.com. May 1, 2009. Accessed on-line: 4/16/2024
https://EnvironmentalChemistry.com/gogreen/
.