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In a market where hardly anyone is building green in San Jose, this newly constructed house in Milpitas area stands as a monument of energy efficiency and inspiration.  

It is about 35% more energy efficient than a standard home and prides itself on green elements like engineered lumber, radiant barrier roof, solar water heater, energy star furnace, extra thick insulation, excellent indoor air quality and much more.  

Come with us on a video tour and discover for yourself what makes this property truly unique.

This beauty is a five year project by Green Earth Construction, a Milpitas based and family run company.  Sylvia Leung and her husband had a vision to go green 15 years ago and are finally able to marvel at the fruits of their labor.  In addition to what you’ve seen on the video, keep in mind that the home is wired for solar and if one decided to invest into solar panels, one’s utility bills for the most part of the year could be virtually zero.  Now that’s a good number, isn’t it? 

Building green normally commands higher costs so perhaps the most pleasant detail about this home is that when considering a dollar per square foot basis, the home is priced comparably to a 25 year old home.  If you like more details, you can find all the info under Featured Listings on http://GreenHomeParter.com.  Feel free to contact me directly with any questions. 

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Alright folks, it’s here!  A solution that gives access to solar power even to the most cash strapped green minded suburbanites and… it’s brought to you by the very people who delivered to us the sub-rime mortgage debacle.  It’s called a “residential solar lease” which is a “no money down” program that can get you electricity cheaper than what you cash out to PG&E on monthly basis.  Sounds familiar? 

The idea is simple; instead of buying your panels by dishing out thousands of dollars upfront you lease them for “one low monthly fee.”  You win, the solar company wins, environment is happy.   So what’s not to love?  How about a 15 year contract, a 3.9% increased payment every year and our Wall Street friends who have their fingers all over this sweet deal? 

On the surface, this sounds like a viable option for many home owners.  It solves an expensive problem of purchasing the panels outright for around 27,000 dollars (average 1,700 sq. foot home).  It works a bit like a car lease where home owners sign a deal that locks them in for 15 years with the option of extending their lease or buying the panels at the end of the contract.  With a solar lease, your monthly payments can be around $110 which, according to the service providers, will normally be around 15% less than your PG&E bill.  Are you sold yet?

After all, the way these companies and even our media like to paint it – it’s a no brainer deal.  SolarCity, which is based right here in our backyard of Silicon Valley, is one of the very well financed operations that is the first to start aggressively market this contract for home owners all over Bay Area and western states.  SunRun is another similar co. based in San Francisco.

Who really finances these deals?  (more…)

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Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the greenest of them all…?  As if we didn’t already have hundreds of eco labels to worry about every time we visit a store, now there are green home certifications that are mushrooming up all over the Bay Area and the country.  Understanding these new ways of classifying quality and operation costs is becoming a must, especially when you build, remodel or in the market for a home.  Yet another chief reason for being able to decipher these new terms is to avoid growing generalizations or greenwashing. 

Frankly, most folks could careless about “green” homes. Very few want to pay extra for labels they don’t understand.  And why should they?! Price and quality are and should be the two high priority areas of concern.  However, if you remember from a previous post called “What’s a Green Home and Why Do We Care?“, green homes address much more than just fancy “eco-friendly” building materials.  They also encompass elements like energy efficiency, indoor air quality, water efficiency, materials use (recycled, reclaimed, sustainable), community and environmental impacts.   

Third party sources play an important role in verifying that green homes are truly are as they are cracked up to be in their marketing.  Here are the three most prevalent green home titles you are most likely to see in our Bay Area neighborhoods:  (more…)

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Which part of the world does your bite come from?

It seems not just that many years ago, imported food was considered a status symbol, no matter what condition it was in when it finally arrived at the table.  This was just as true in Eastern Europe, where I grew up.  My mother used to be a “produce director” at one of the biggest grocery stores in town.  Once in the blue moon she would bring home what everyone called “deficit” goods.  Those included exotic nuts from India, baby fruit purées, and of course the mighty banana!  Gosh you should have seen the looks in our eyes.  My sister and I were more excited to see a banana than most people buying a brand new hybrid today. 

Those days are long gone and now Europeans as well as Americans live in economies where food is so plentiful that we are faced with hundreds of choices of fruit and veggies from every corner of the globe.  Things change but today we’re facing a very different dilemma.  There is a growing awareness that the food that ends up on our dinner plates has a much higher price tag than what we actually pay for it with our hard earn dollars.  What does this mean? 

In many cases, Western society routinely purchases food that was grown more than 1000 miles away and transported to the local grocery store.  While food prices in the store are relatively inexpensive, the environmental cost of transporting our food is often very high.  You see, all these trucks, trains, and boats, all of which consume fossil fuels, are the primary methods for transporting large quantities of food around the world.  Inevitably, transportation of these goods leave a trail of pollution and produce (more…)

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Love and relationships are our biggest assets

Before you bought your home or rented an apartment, did you consider how green is your community?  Chances are you haven’t.  Most people don’t.  Not only majority of folks have no clue as to what a “sustainable” community really is but for years, there has not been much need for it.  Today, however, we’re much more aware of our carbon paw prints, wasteful lifestyles and the ever growing need to just simply connect with people around us.  Fact is, sustainability of the community is becoming a huge factor when choosing a place to plant our roots for the future. 

So what is a sustainable community?  After looking at many definitions, perhaps the UK Sustainable Communities Plan defines it best: “Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all.”  Ahhh… the English, they do get some things right, don’t they?  

So ideally, a true gage of sustainability is where the environment prospers along with the people who are living in it.  In order words, the housing developments must be incorporated in the natural environment already present on the ground and not the other way around which was much too common years ago.  

Such an idealistic concept as community living in harmony with the environment and local ecosystems may sound far fetched but its not.  In fact, one such example in Bay Area is (more…)

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Green homes stand out from the pack

Whether one takes global warming seriously or not, one truth stands tall for any home buyer – energy efficiency, resource conservation and healthy indoor air is becoming a must.  But with the economy still unraveling and the cloud of uncertainty hanging over our heads, a question looms… Can green homes gain traction in the real estate market?

As you may be aware, our real estate market in the entire Santa Clara County has been quite unpredictable.  It went from four months of inventory into less than one month of inventory in one year and no one really knows what the future holds.  Even some of the biggest market experts have been embarrassed and increasingly keep their Nostradamus like market predictions to themselves. 

At the same time, for the past few years, we may have noticed a quiet revolution taking place in our hearts…  Not only we are craving to live happier, healthier and more empowered lives, we are seeking friends and environments that will support that earning.  Also, with raising energy costs and ever growing health problems, many of us are looking for answers right where we sleep – our homes. 

So what has kept more people from seeking out these eco and health friendly homes?  Mainly, (more…)

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If going solar would cost you nothing would you consider it?  A few weeks ago I attended a small Green Business Show in San Jose, where our local vendors had a chance to present their services to the community.  These shows are always a great fun because green vendors pack a good punch of specialized knowledge. 

That day, one of my inquisition victims was Jeremy, a solar design consultant with Solar Technologies.  So I started as usual… “How are you”, “How’s business?”, and then “Why in the world don’t we have more solar panels in our neighborhoods?” 

After quite a few minutes of warm exchange of insights we realized we haven’t come up with anything that much revealing except for one awesome fact – affording solar energy is not as hard as most home owners think.  In fact, it makes total financial sense.  We parted by sharing one last sentiment  – most home owners simply have not taken a chance to look at this opportunity. 

So why most of us have not embraced the sun as a source of energy? 

1.  The main reason home owners have not adopted solar technology more widely is because of initial cost.  These days it’s in the range of about $25,000 -$28,000 for an average 1,600 square foot home.  Big price tag indeed. 

2.  A secondary rationale is esthetics – some folks feel that having big solar panels on their roof hurts the curb appeal of the property.  

3.  A third reason most folks have not gone solar could be one or a combination of these simple reasons: they are not sensitive to environmental issues of today’s world or they are simply waiting for a kick in the (more…)

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You’ve seen it on TV, you’ve heard it on the radio, you’ve read it in the papers – PG&E wants you to conserve energy and save the planet.  They’ll even send you rather substantial rebates in the mail if you are willing to upgrade some systems in your home or purchase new appliances.  

Now all of this is enormously helpful and commendable but I couldn’t rid myself of that nagging question…  How does all this make financial sense for our friends at PG&E?    Never before had I seen in our capitalistic society a company encouraging its customer to consume less of its product.  Can you imagine McDonalds saying – “Eat less hamburgers!  There are no happy meals here… they will all make you fat!”  

So what’s going on with PG&E?  Is this truly enlightened business that wants to save the environment or does it all in some convoluted way actually make business sense?  I set out to find the answers at the last West Coast Green Show in San Francisco where I interviewed lovely Katie Romans, an Environmental Communications representative from PG&E.  (The video is about 3 minutes.) 

So now you know.  The answer is “Decoupling”  – a novel approach towards utility pricing that separates a utility’s ability to make money from the amount of electricity that it sells.  So while PG&S forest conservation and methane capture efforts appear genuine, it was nothing but a California Decoupling law, enacted in 1982, that effectively disincentivized PG&E to sell more energy for profit.  

No need to worry about them though; they have other ways to make the bank.  In fact, last year the utility filed for, and received shareholder earnings based upon energy savings they delivered to customers, and the program costs were already recovered in their rates.  Besides that, the utility company also benefits from increased customer satisfaction, a boost in its “environmental” image and gets a lot of community and political support.  

You have got to love the business model.  The company is required to sell less of its product and help its customers save money.  And in return, it makes more and appears as an environmental hero.  Not bad at all, is it?  Go PG&E, or to be more accurate – go California!

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West Coast Green 2009 was as informative and inspiring as ever.  Hundreds of vendors and thousands of people have gathered once again in San Francisco to check out world’s latest cutting-edge green building technologies. 

I anxiously waited for this event and when the day finally arrived, I jumped out of bed full of enthusiasm, grabbed my mini HD camera and “went to town”.  In this video I interviewed a few vendors that offered some clever and innovative solutions on how to go “eco friendly” at home.  They were asked to give their “green” pitch in 20 seconds and describe the product or a service.  I had some fun at the end so make sure to watch the entire video…  Enjoy.

Keep your eyes out for two more videos where I interviewed a lovely lady from PG&E asking her why PG&E cares about sustainability.  Considering the usual behavior of big corporations all these incentives to “save energy” and spend less money on gas and electricity just didn’t make sense.  Normally businesses want us to spend more don’t they?  Well I got some answers and some of them will surprise you.

Stay tuned and make sure to subscribe to our updates.  This way you’ll stay on top of the local events and latest developments very effortlessly.  In addition, you’ll get an informative manual on how you can Go Green and $ave Green at the Same Time.  You may love the fact that living a more eco friendly life actually makes financial sense!

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We love our electronics, don’t we?  There seems to be hundreds of new and improved gadgets hitting the market every day.  Today however, the headaches of recycling computers and the rest of the e-waste abound.  It also happens to be one of the most controversial issues.  You see, it appears our spending and recycling habits affect much more than our local landfill.

For years now we have been stuffing our homes, cars, offices, pockets wit the most exiting technologies that makes our lives easier and more fun.  Like our own bodies thought these items tend to age and eventually brake down.  So what do we do with them? 

It’s easy to recycle paper, plastic and aluminum cans but how do we recycle a computer and all of its components?  Or that grandma’s TV from the world war two era?  There are no bins in our drive way to toss that tv, vcr, fax machine and all those crazy gadgets we bought a year ago on a Christmas binge.  So where does all this “e-waste” go?  Unfortunately, most of it heads straight into the nearest dumpster. 

According to Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), electronic discards is one of the fastest growing sector of our nation’s waste stream:

- There are 500 million obsolete computers in the U.S. alone.
- 130 million cell phones are disposed of annually.
- 20 – 24 million TV’s and computers are stored annually in homes and offices.
- Only 10% of unwanted and obsolete computers are recycled.

Now, as eco mindful earthlings we make an effort to recycle them somehow, don’t we?  Some of us will even find a local e-waste recycler and happily rub our palms after we drop of our age old computer at the (more…)

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