I just finished giving a seminar for an affordable house conference here in Atlanta. I wanted to share a few thoughts with the rest of you about how you can affordably make a sustainable impact on your home or property management as well.
PART I- energy efficiency
There are 2 parts to my presentation. The first one is a summary of “low hanging fruit” concepts that a DIY can do to make their home perform better. For property managers, I would recommend, at a minimum, exploring the following items since they are low cost and can make a difference. The more advanced items would need a contractor, but most of them you can self perform.
- Install programmable thermostats- this can greatly reduce your heating and cooling bills
- Airseal holes- this will help conditioned air from going out side of your living space. You paid to condition this air- why would you want to share it with you trees?
- Upgrade insulation to meet energy code- This is actually a law that no one enforces or abides by. Whenever you are doing a significant renovation you are supposed to bring the insulation in those areas plus surrounding areas up the current energy code.
- Upgrade HVAC to high efficiency unit- As of yesterday there is even a greater tax credit for this
- Seal up the ductwork- why have a high efficiency unit and your air leaks out of your ductwork and goes outside?
- Use CFL’s and create an awareness program on how to recycle them-
For those of you in the Atlanta area here are some of the rebates you can get for some of these items:
Here is a site where you can find some of the green items to DIY:
Find out more about us here, check out our videos, and become a fan of us on Facebook!
