Wow, how’s that for a title. Let Google crawl all over that one.
I consider myself to be relatively green, concerned with efficiency, pretty well informed & educated, and often indecisive. It turns out, this is a dangerous combination. Let me ‘splain.
Being ‘green‘ means taking care of the environment – reduce, reuse, recycle – taking steps to reduce your carbon footprint. Being ‘efficient‘ means being productive without waste. Being ‘informed & educated‘ means evaluating all options and understanding potential trade-offs. And being ‘indecisive‘ means unable to make up your mind – which is really not all that efficient, sometimes not all that green, and seemingly not very well informed.
My plan is to get my home certified ‘Green’ after I get the addition completed. I have found the checklist that I need. Here are the basic requirements (for homes in Wisconsin):
- Energy Star Appliances
- Erosion Control Plan
- Recycling Required
- No tropical hardwoods unless certified by Forest Stewardship Council…
- Receipt of ‘Green Built Homeowner Handbook’
- Certification Plaque & Green Guide Label to the homeowner
- No Mercury Thermostats installed – all must be programmable
Then, to certify an addition ‘Green’ – I need to rack up >60 points from a list of hundreds.
Looks pretty good, except for maybe #4. What happens if the only Forest Stewardship Council wood that I can find has to be trucked in from 500 miles away? Is it better to use some local source for un-certified wood? Maybe I can offset that carbon footprint some other way? Am I over-thinking this?
Efficiency vs. Health
Let’s talk about our health for a minute. Once upon a time, I attended a life changing seminar presented by Sue McDonald (highly recommended if you live in the Houston area). I learned that the synthetic chemicals (plastics, fragrances…) in our lives are likely doing us some serious damage. Armed with this information, I plan to create a healthy indoor environment in my home (no carpets, low-no VOC paints…). In the interest of efficiency, we’ll be re-insulating all of the walls. My preference would be to blow in cellulose insulation everywhere. It’s green, it’s non-toxic, it’s flame retardant. But would it be greener to use the more energy efficient polyurethane foam and risk filling my family with toxic fumes? At some point I’ll need to make the call – in the meantime (cue indecisive music), I hope to become more informed & educated (see how that works? 
)
Carbon vs. Rocks
And as previously discussed, I love rocks. I would love to build some rock gardens in my backyard. The absolute greenest (and healthiest) way to collect rocks for my backyard would be to literally pick them up and walk them to my house. I cringe at the idea of paying for rocks, let alone trucking them in. Our home happens to sit on a moraine which means that there may be some sizable rocks buried in our own yard! I’m secretly hoping to populate my rock gardens when we excavate the new basement. In fact, that might be the part of the addition that I’m looking forward to the most… digging in my yard. *sigh* Did I mention I love rocks?
How not to buy your water heater
Recently, our 27-year-old electric water heater crapped out. I had no idea how old that thing was – no excuses though, I just never thought to check. I had the service guy out and he gave me a $450.00 estimate to fix the old tank. Funny, that’s probably more than they originally paid for it in 1982. This was an IQ test. Of course I couldn’t fix it, it was time to upgrade. In our last place, we bought a tankless water heater
So, I guess I’m looking for some advice. Have you been there done that? Do I have to make trade-offs to be green?
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