Incremental Green: Greening As You Maintain, Replace and Upgrade with Tony Pratte

Over the last couple of months, due to the global pandemic, the entire structure is being re-analyzed, and people are starting to make changes based on what they’re finding.

Today, Tony Pratte, our regular co-host, joins us to talk about what we can do, incrementally, to green up our homes. This is an exciting topic because now that we are all spending more time at home, we’re beginning to notice the things in and around our homes that we would like to change, repair, or upgrade.

Incremental green

The concept of incremental green is that as you’re caring for, maintaining, and upgrading your home, you’re thinking about the next step you need to take to uplevel whatever you’re doing and make your home greener. In doing that, you will be providing an enhanced experience for everyone living in the home, by making it healthier, safer, or more comfortable.

So, for example, if it’s time to paint your house, instead of going straight for the paint you’d usually buy, first check to see that it’s a no-VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) paint. Or if you’re replacing a thermostat, instead of buying the cheapest one that you can find, invest in either an Ecobee or a Nest. Those are learning thermostats so they will cost you more money initially but they are sure to save you money (and frustration) in the long run, over the next ten years.

A free consultation

Greening your home incrementally is quite similar to doing a product swap as you maintain or upgrade your home.

If you would like to know what kinds of things are available for a product swap, you can go to the Green Home Coach website and schedule a free consult with Marla. She will spend twenty-minutes with you, and give you some awesome tips to help you to start thinking in the right way about what some of your product swaps could be, to best suit your particular situation. Marla would love to help you out!

The way Marla looks at things

The everyday kind of things that we all do in our homes include how we take care of our homes, and the cleaning products we prefer to use. Marla refers to this as the living part, and she breaks everything down into five different categories, for green and greener things.

Doing product swaps and incrementally greening your home in five different categories 

There are many parts to a home, and lots of things inside every house, so breaking everything down into five different categories is a helpful way to avoid feeling overwhelmed when you’re thinking about all you need to do, to green your home.

The five different categories are:

1. The place where your home sits on the land.
2. All the materials and the different products that are brought into the house to make it a home.
3. Energy
4. Water
5. Breathing

Everything that happens outside of your home fits category 1, like windows and natural light, trees for shade, rain barrels, and garden plants and flowers.

Category 2 could be as simple as using reused, recycled, bio-based or wood-based materials in your home, and sourcing your materials locally.

For category 3, make sure that any new appliance you buy has Energy Star, repair whatever you can, upgrade your lighting to LEDs, and buy the kind of plugs that you can turn on and off remotely.

For category 4, you need to do whatever you can to conserve water. Don’t leave the water running when you’re brushing your teeth, shaving, or doing the dishes.

Breathing, in category 5, is all about the indoor air quality in your home. This category is most closely tied to your health and wellness. A good place to start is with the air filters in your heating and cooling units.

Marla’s top three easy green steps

1. Use LED lightbulbs
2. Use only green cleaning products
3. Use only recycled or non-tree toilet paper so that you don’t end up flushing a forest down the toilet.

Links and resources:

Go to the Green Home Coach website and click on the “consult with me” link for a free 20-minute consult with Marla about the product swaps you can do in your home.

Are you interested in making your next home a healthy, eco-friendly one? We’ve partnered with RealtySagePros.com to help match you to expert agents who are matched based on your unique real estate needs. It’s free, no obligations and takes less than 5 minutes.