Greening your home in the right order

Spring is a great time to think about what you could do this year to green your home and reduce your carbon footprint. As you open the windows and enjoy the warmer temperatures, you may be thinking about planting a garden, installing compact fluorescent lights, or even putting solar panels on your roof.

Reducing your carbon footprint is all about picking the right home improvements in the right order. What good is generating solar electricity or hot water on your roof if you keep forgetting to turn off your computer or closet light, or your leaky faucet drips all day and uses up all the solar-heated hot water?  

Eat your vegetables first
Awareness of energy use and conservation must come first, and it will save you money. The good news is, this costs little (often nothing). And while energy-efficient windows might seem expensive at first, those PV panels could set you back $15,000 or more.

We all remember how we hated vegetables in our childhood. They were good for us, but gosh, did we have to eat them? Didn't all the cool kids eat their candy bars first, not their carrots? 

The same is true today, but now we're grown up and own a house or rent an apartment. Saving energy by replacing that leaky window is like eating vegetables. It's hard, we don't want to do it, and we're jealous of that cool new house down the street that already has a solar panel or two on the roof. 

We need to eat our energy efficiency "vegetables" before having our renewable energy "dessert."

The same effect at a fraction of the cost 
In our consumer-conscious society, we want people to see what we buy. See my iPod! See my solar panels! See my new Prius! See, I'm sustainable!
 
But the reality is we must first minimize our consumption, change that pesky leaky window, and fix that dripping shower faucet if we want renewable energy to fully support our needs. The cost of installing solar panels on your roof is much lower when you only need to install half as many to meet the needs of your more efficient lifestyle.

Becoming energy efficient doesn't have to involve pain and suffering. At Rocky Mountain Institute, we often joke that you can cut your energy consumption significantly and still have your hot showers and cold beer. It's just that, in the future, that shower and that beer will be enjoyed with the knowledge that much less (if any) fossil fuel was required to deliver them.

I for one have already converted nearly all the bulbs in my house to CFLs. I recycled the ancient beer fridge in the garage. And I've got EPA Energy Star appliances in the kitchen. 

By taking these steps first, I'm consuming less of the renewable wind-power from my electric company. But as much as I'd like to install solar hot water panels on my roof to heat my house and show my neighborhood just how green I really am, I know that I must first replace those cheap windows so that I start with the real, important savings. And my wallet will thank me.