Green Community and Resources at Rate It Green with Allison Friedman

What is the green home industry?

If you’d like to learn more about it, find out how to connect with people within it, and get to know about all the new things coming out in it, you’re in the right place because you will hear all of that today!

I’m Marla, the Green Home Coach, and I am excited to have Allison Friedman from Rate It Green with me today to talk about all the wonderful work she is doing! I love what Allison has built by tying her product, company, and service together!

Rate It Green

Rate It Green is an open directory network for the green building industry or anyone interested in green building, from beginners to experts, including trade professionals, consumers, and advanced DIY-ers. They are both residential and commercial and have individual members, as well as organizational and company members. The aim is to get people together to shorten the learning curve by engaging, collaborating, sharing information online, and talking about their experiences building sustainable and healthier places to live.

It’s all connected

People are finally beginning to understand that health, sustainability, and living better lives are all connected. It is a learning process, and we all need to know that we are not alone and can help each other.

Where it all started for Allison

It all started in 2006 when Allison decided to renovate her home. It did not start out as a green project, and she made several mistakes along the way. She learned that it is hard to renovate sustainably while learning on the job- particularly back when it was hard to find any information on sustainable building practices.

A learning process

Renovating her home was a learning process for Allison. If she had known when she started the project what she now knows, she would not have done it. However, she hopes all she has done and is still doing make her the best steward for building green homes.

The future

Allison is optimistic about everyone living healthier and more sustainably in the future, but moving the needle has been more difficult than was predicted.

Sharing information

Allison would like to make the experience of sharing information online more human. However, she still prefers to engage with people and share information in person whenever possible.

Sharing her journey

Allison would like to use her resource to share her journey with others. She would like to talk more about improving indoor air quality, reducing the energy load, having clean water, and the things we are unaware of that could endanger us or cause health problems.

Health and energy assessments

The Inflation Reduction Act requires energy audits and assessments for some rebates. Unfortunately, there are very few companies doing those assessments. Free energy audits are available in Massachusetts.

Tighter homes and indoor air quality

People have been getting excited about energy efficiency over the last few decades. Many have been tightening up their homes and learning to make do using less energy. As a result, better indoor air quality management is necessary to avoid any health risks associated with air pollutants getting trapped inside tighter homes.

Advancing indoor air quality systems

Advancing indoor air quality systems happens on a level above the regular kind of energy audit, and Allison is working toward finding that.

Initial energy assessments

For an initial assessment, find someone with either a BPI or a HERS certification. Many utilities also offer some type of energy assessment, but they tend to vary from municipality to municipality or state to state. You can also go to www.energystar.gov and www.energy.gov to learn more and find resources.

Content

Rate It Green has five key types of content:

Discussions
Groups
Articles
News
Open Events Calendar

Feedback and member content

Rate It Green is a member-driven community that depends on member content and questions to thrive. So they like to know which features, information, and resources the members want.

How to get started on Rate It Green

To get started on Rate It Green, go to www.rateitgreen.com and click “Join the Community”.