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:
Transcript
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. It will save you at least $100 in
electricity your first year of having that because of the eleven-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 knowlege 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.