GREEN INFORMATION

What Makes a Green Home?

A green home incorporates smart design, technology, construction and maintenance elements to significantly lessen the negative impact of the home on the environment and improve the health of the people who live inside. No matter your location or living situation, the opportunities for living a greener life at home are limited only by your imagination.

Making your home a greener place is a commitment – to yourself, your family, your community and the world. But more than that, it is a learning process. As exciting new technologies, products and scientific breakthroughs constantly emerge, staying educated on the hows – as well as the whys – of maintaining a green home is the best way to ensure your efforts are as effective and beneficial as possible.

Green Home Defined

A green home uses less energy, water and natural resources, creates less waste and is healthier for the people living inside compared to a standard home. It’s as simple as that!

A home can be built green, or you can make it green later. A green makeover can happen all at once, or it can be a gradual process. But what it all comes down to is a new way of thinking – and a new way of living. From a more energy-efficient kitchen to a tree-filled backyard paradise, your home can be green top to bottom, front to back, inside and out. And it doesn’t matter whether you rent or own, live in an apartment or single-family home, or live in the city, the suburbs or the country.

The Benefits of a Green Home

There are many very real benefits to living in a green home, and every day, more and more Americans are discovering those benefits. Green homes are healthier, more durable and more cost-effective.

That’s why green homes are expected to make up 10% of new home construction by 2010, up from 2% in 2005, according to the 2006 McGraw-Hill Construction Residential Green Building SmartMarket Report. Owning or renting a green home is good for your health, your wallet and our environment. Read More...

Incentives

Beyond the health and environmental benefits of living in a green home, many local and state governments, utility companies and other entities across the country offer rebates, tax breaks and other incentives for adding eco-friendly elements to your life. Read More...

 Green Homes Check List

Whether you’re a homebuyer or a renter looking for a green home, how do you know if a home is truly green? What should you look for? This checklist will help you identify a truly green home and ensure you get a healthier, high-performance green home that costs less to operate and has fewer environmental impacts:

• Location: New green homes and neighborhoods must not be built on environmentally sensitive sites like prime farmland, wetlands and endangered species habitats. The greenest development sites are “in-fill” properties like former parking lots, rail yards, shopping malls and factories. Look for compact development where the average housing density is at least six units per acre. Your home should also be within easy walking distance of public transportation – like bus lines, light rail, and subway systems – so you can leave your car at home. A green home should also be within walking distance of parks, schools, and stores. See how many errands you can carry out on a bicycle. That’s healthier for you, your wallet, and the environment.
• Size: No matter how many green building elements go into your home, a 5,000-square-foot green home still consumes many more natural resources than a 2,000-square-foot green home. The larger home will also require more heating, air conditioning and lighting. If you really want a sustainable home, choose a smaller size.
• Building Design: The home should be oriented on its site to bring abundant natural daylight into the interior to reduce lighting requirements and to take advantage of any prevailing breezes. Windows, clerestories, skylights, light monitors, light shelves and other strategies should be used to bring daylight to the interior of the house. The exterior should have shading devices (sunshades, canopies, green screens and – best of all – trees), particularly on the southern and western facades and over windows and doors, to block hot summer sun. [t4]Dual-glaze windows reduce heat gain in summer and heat loss during cold winter months. The roof should be a light-colored, heat-reflecting Energy Star roof, or a green (landscaped) roof, to reduce heat absorption.
• Green Building Materials: A green home will have been constructed or renovated with healthy, non-toxic building materials and furnishings, like low- and zero-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints and sealants and non-toxic materials like strawboard for the sub-flooring. Wood-based features should come from rapidly renewable sources like bamboo, but if tropical hardwoods are used, they must be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. A green home uses salvaged materials like kitchen tiles and materials with significant recycled content.
• Insulation: A non-toxic insulation, derived from materials like soybean or cotton, with a high R (heat resistance) factor in a home’s walls and roof will help prevent cool air leakage in the summer and warm air leakage in the winter.
• Windows and Doors: Windows and exterior doors should have ENERGY STAR® ratings, and they should seal their openings tightly to avoid heat gain in summer and heat loss in winter.
• Energy Efficiency: A green home has energy-efficient lighting, heating, cooling and water-heating systems. Appliances should have ENERGY STAR® ratings.
• Renewable Energy: The home should generate some of its own energy with technologies like photovoltaic systems.
• Water Efficiency: A green home has a water-conserving irrigation system and water-efficient kitchen and bathroom fixtures. Look for a rainwater collection and storage system, particularly in drier regions where water is increasingly scarce and expensive.
• Indoor Environmental Quality: Natural daylight should reach at least 75% of the home’s interior. Natural ventilation (via building orientation, operable windows, fans, wind chimneys and other strategies) should bring plentiful fresh air inside the house. The HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system should filter all incoming air and vent stale air outside. The garage should not have any air handling equipment or return ducts, and it should have an exhaust fan.
• Landscaping: Vine-covered green screens, large canopy trees and other landscaping should shade exterior walls, the driveway, patios and other “hardscape” to minimize heat islands. Yards should be landscaped with drought-tolerant plants rather than water-guzzling plants and grass in most regions.

Building the Clean Tech Economy

GreenCitiesFlorida.com

Now is the time to get the funding you need to propel your business or government agency to the next level of energy leadership.  The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (a.k.a. the Stimulus Bill) contains over $110 billion for clean energy technogies and green jobs! Technologies such as solar, wind, biofuels, tidal, biogas, and energy efficiency will generate the next wave of economic growth. This market is expected to create 2 million new jobs in the next two years! How can you tap into this? Green Cities™ Florida will teach you how. 

Snapshot of Topics Covered at Green Cities™ Florida:

• FL State Rebate Program:
  • PV: $4/watt DC
  • Solar Water Heaters: Residential - $500
  • Non-residential & Multi-family - $15 per 1,000 BTU/day
• Federal Tax Credit: The federal government provides a tax credit of 30% of the value of a solar electric or solar hot water system
• Corporate Tax Credit: $0.01/kWh for solar, wind, biomass, tidal, co-gen, etc.
• Orlando Utilities Commission: $0.03/kWh for solar thermal, $0.05/kWh for PV
• Plus many more federal, state, local, and utility programs to help finance renewable energy and energy efficiency upgrades

Source: www.DSIREUSA.org (Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency)

Rail Shipping - 1 ton 435 miles on a gallon of fuel

Can a freight train really move a ton of freight 436 miles on a gallon of fuel?  

Yes, and some do even better. The figure used in the rail industry's advertising is a national average. 

This question is generated by an advertising campaign by the railroad industry, which is arguing that a good way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to move more freight by rail rather than by truck. An example of the industry's ads can be seen on the Web site www.freightrailworks.org .

We'll remain neutral in the perpetual competition between the railroad industry and the truckers, about which we'll say more later in this article. But we can vouch for the 436-mile claim. It's the average for all major U.S. railroads for 2007. 

Each year the railroads are required to submit reports to the federal Surface Transportation Board, the regulatory body that took over some of the functions of the old Interstate Commerce Commission. The annual reports of each railroad are public information, available on the STB's Web site. Buried amid all the facts about the number of railroad ties replaced, cubic yards of ballast placed and the cost of new locomotives, the railroads also report totals for the number of gallons of diesel fuel consumed and tons of freight moved. The government doesn't tally up those figures anymore, but the Association of American Railroads does. And now, we have done the same. 

According to our calculations, which match the AAR's tally exactly, the nation's seven major railroad companies reported the following for 2007: 

    * Moving 1,770,545,245,000 ton-miles of freight 

    * Consuming 4,062,025,082 gallons of diesel fuel (including freight trains and trains in switching yards, but excluding passenger trains) 

The average works out to be 435.88 ton-miles per gallon of fuel. 

Some rail lines do better. The Soo Line, which is the U.S. branch of the Canadian Pacific, operating in the upper Midwest, reported moving each ton of freight 517.8 miles per gallon of diesel fuel, on average. Lines operated by the Grand Trunk Corp. reported 510.5 ton-miles per gallon. 

The national average figure of 436 miles is the highest on record, according to AAR, and a 3.1 percent increase from the 423-mile figure reached in 2006. 

The rail industry says its fuel efficiency has increased by 85 percent since 1980. It attributes that to factors that include using new and more efficient locomotives, training engineers to conserve fuel, using computers to assemble trains more efficiently in the yard and to plan trips more efficiently to avoid congestion, and reducing the amount of time engines are idling.

Remember freight trains are most efficient at transporting large loads over longer distances and commuter rail can more efficiently transport people and is a much more environment friendly mode of travel.