Teaching an Old House New Tricks

by Lester Graham - The Environment Report

Listen to the NPR story here:

Maybe a brand-new home equipped with all the latest technology isn’t in your budget. The Environment Report’s Lester Graham reports on another approach that takes an existing house and recycles it. Environmentally friendly architecture is becoming very common. Architects are designing innovative, cutting edge, energy-efficient homes, using renewable resources. But, Lester Graham reports on another approach that recycles an entire house:

You know, we’re always hearing about new green building construction - new homes with all the latest. That’s nice, but it’s a little ironic to think about all those resources being used to build new to save resources.

That’s why I kinda got interested when I read about Matt and Kelly Grocoff. They bought a modest, century-old house and started making energy-efficient changes. A lot of them as Matt showed me in the bathroom.

“We have the motion-sensor light. We have the compact fluorescent bulbs. We have a dual-flush toilet that will use only (flushing sound) use point-eight gallons for a flush. This is actually a one-gallon-per-minute shower head by Bricor [Note: Standard showerheads are 2.5 gallons-per-minute]. It will save you at least $120 in electricity your first year of having that because of the sixteen-thousand gallons of hot water that you’re going to be saving. (faucet sound) This faucet aerator is also point- five-gallons-a-minute. It’s plenty of water to wash your hands. Most people will never notice that they’re using two-gallons-per-minute less in this faucet than another faucet.”

(stairs sound)

And that’s just the bathroom. As the couple took me upstairs, they told me about the really, really efficient geo-thermal heat. They insulated everywhere. It’s tight. But everything was off-the-shelf. None of that, ‘oh this is custom, you can’t buy it anywhere’, type stuff.

Kelly Grocoff says if your house is a statement about you, then having a low-impact on the earth’s resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is part of the statement they want to make.

“For us, we proclaim loud and clear 'this is where our values are. And this is where we’re going to spend our time and it’s incredibly important to us'.”

And with all the efficiencies, all the updates, the house looked normal, comfortable. And the Grocoff’s say that’s the way it should be.

Matt: “One of the things with building green, everyone thinks that you’re going to sacrifice something, you’re going to spend more money and you’re not going to be as comfortable. And that is completely not true anymore.”

Kelly: “We have made zero sacrifices. We have gained enormously. And we have no time to waste. Your house is the number one place where you can make a significant impact on a daily basis. For me there’s no other choice to be made.”

Matt and Kelly Grocoff say doing something about reducing energy use, reducing the emissions that are causing global warming, and re-using old lumber and this old house is just a start for them. They want to help other people do it too. That’s why they’re launching an online site for do-it-yourselfers called ‘GreenovationTV.com’

Matt: “Uh, through Greenovation TV, we’re going to take everything that we’ve learned from this house and teach others about it.”

Kelly: "We need that kind of resource there as we're going through this process. And so there was hours upon hours spent researching things. And that's kind of the goal with this station."

Matt: "Once you have the knowledge to do it, it's really, really easy."

The Grocoff’s say the one thing holding people back from making their homes more environmentally friendly is they feel like they have to do it all or it won’t be right. They say just take the first step. Even if it’s just changing to a lower-energy compact fluorescent bulb, it’s a good start.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Aged and Ripened . . . but Still Green

How we restored our historic home and reduced our carbon footprint

by Kelly and Matthew Grocoff

When we bought our 107 year old home on Ann Arbor's Historic Old West Side, it was a dream come true: lead paint, zero insulation, a half-century old furnace, asbestos siding, and a gas powered mower in the shed. What more could a couple of treehuggers ask for?

We wanted to buy a historic home, turn it green and prove that, even on our limited budget, we could create a home of unparalleled comfort and design while using less energy and water and fewer natural resources and toxic chemicals. Our efforts have rewarded us (and the planet) with an approximate 50% reduction in energy bills compared to similar sized homes in Michigan. As energy prices rise with global temperatures, our home will increase in value as well.

We always joke that there are three things that set back the environmental movement: the original low flow showerhead, the original low flush toilet, and Jimmy Carter's sweater (Kelly would add a fourth: silken tofu). These icons perpetuated the myth that living green meant paying more while sacrificing quality, performance and comfort. We wanted to restore our home using Environmentalism 2.0, which means improved quality, performance, efficiency, value, health and comfort.

In upcoming articles, we will share the choices we made when renovating our historic home. We will review the little stuff and the big stuff. We separate our efforts into those which can be done easily and inexpensively (the little stuff) versus those that require larger investments of time and money, but create higher long term savings (the big stuff). Both are important and both go a long way towards reducing your carbon footprint.

It is important to imagine the day when all homes are carbon neutral, but don't wait for the windmills or affordable solar panels! We developed a plan based on our budget, the historic standards of our neighborhood, and how we wanted our home to look and feel.

We included a large portion of our renovation costs in our mortgage. The first step was deciding how to allocate the money. We prioritized in order of energy consumption, working our way from the worst offenders to the petty criminals. In other words, we started with the big stuff.

The most hardened criminal in most homes is heating, cooling and hot water systems, which account for 58% of home energy use. We chose a hyper-efficient geothermal HVAC system (also called a ground source heat pump or geoexchange), and then moved on to the little stuff like cost effective motion sensor lighting controls and compact fluorescent lights. Remember, the cheapest form of energy is the unused kilowatt.

A green home isn't only about energy efficiency, but also about health and sustainability. With each decision we made we asked ourselves: 1. can we buy reused instead of new materials? 2. is it durable? 3. can we purchase locally? 4. how can we reduce construction waste? 5. will this harm air or water quality? 6. will this harm us, our guests or our community? 7. how was this product made?

In our modest home, our improvements seem small compared to all we need to do to curb climate change. However, choices we've made are being rapidly adopted by others and are often becoming policy. In California, the motion sensors we installed are now mandatory in all new residential construction. Our geothermal system reduces greenhouse gases equivalent to taking two cars off the road! We hope to see Michigan adopting progressive policies and incentives soon.

In a coming article, we will share with you the details of what we've done to green our home and what you can do to green yours - easily, affordably and elegantly. It's inspiring to know that not only can we improve the comfort, efficiency and health of our home, but be part of a collective monumental change.

To schedule a group tour of our Ann Arbor home you can contact us at greenovationtv@gmail.com
Coming soon . . . GreenovationTV.com - the world's first internet TV station for healthy home improvement.