Hey, Andy here with another post – After analyzing months of PG&E bills from two houses, I put them into excel in order to compare their data. Below you will see a graphical comparison of monthly gas and electric bills between a house on Marietta Drive that is unoccupied and the sustainable house on 39th Ave occupied by a family of four…(To enlarge the graphs, click the image)
As you can see, the house occupied on 39th Ave is constantly paying less for their gas each month, a result of its efficiently and sustainability.
You will see in this graph that the electric bill paid in the occupied house is far less than that of the vacant. The 39th Ave. household has very steady payments not because it uses less, but rather because it has more efficient installations such as high efficient insulation, energy star appliances, energy star lights, and energy star windows (just to name a few!).
These numbers do not lie and show that sustainable changes do pay off!
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In dense cities such as San Francisco, roof gardens are becoming an increasing popular way to go green. In fact, we are exploring options for some roof spaces available on apartment buildings in the Tenderloin & Mission districts and plan to publish our preliminary research soon.
Design Ecology offers a variety of gardening services and water saving devices. Live Roof is a more sophisticated and popular roof option using engineering techniques to use a minimum amount of soil, save the most amount water, and be readily available to most buildings (even those on slopes). Furthermore, the plants come pre-grown so once installed, it’s ready to go.
In addition to the live gardens available for roof space, native gardens are also available. Native gardens are unique because they promote natural wildlife including insects and birds (10 – 50 times as many compared to non-native). Most likely, this is the type of garden that will be on the roof of our buildings. A few companies that offer quality native plants and trees are the Buckeye Nursery and Central Coast Wilds.
In South Boston, one of the first all green structures made was the Macallen building. You can check out a review here of the building, and make sure to look out for the amazing rooftop garden!
So if you are looking to use that empty space on the roof of your house, know that you have the option to build an eco-friendly garden!
Health club rooftop garden - San Francisco, California
There are many options for sustainable flooring on the market right now. All these locations provide “reclaimed wood” meaning that they do not cut down trees but rather purchase or take used wood and refurbish it. Earth Source offers a wide variety of woods and is based in the Bay Area. Green Waste Recycle Yard is also a Bay Area company which allows you to recycle your own tree and shrub and use credit to buy their recycled products such as lumber or mulch. One main attraction of the reclaimed wood is its age and durability. Other companies such as Restoration Timber, North Cal. Wood Products, and Wood Anchor, offer a variety of woods some of which are restored in an exotic way for various purposes. One company, Timber Tech, not only reclaims the wood, but also transports it and restores it through environmentally friendly methods. Some companies such as East Teak Fine Hardwoods and The Reclaimer focus on specific woods such as teak wood and Douglas fir, respectively. Because of its old age and slow growth the wood gains different colors and better stability.
Other products for sustainable flooring indoors include Showercork, which is made from 100% renewable raw materials, and organic carpet made by Corniche Carpet Mills by only using jute and latex.
If outdoors, products such as Airostone Corp, GraniteCrete, and TerraPave, each offer different types of sustainable pathways for small or large scale purposes. Each have different designs and are compressed to last a long time.
Oil is used to build our homes, take construction material to and from, heat, cool, power… if you do not think this has to do with building homes, your wrong.
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These numbers do not lie and show that sustainable changes do pay off!
