Environmentally Conscious Real Estate of Cincinnati

The real estate I sell normally, is incredibly inefficient.  They’re almost always 50+ years old, they barely have any insulation, have old windows, old appliances, etc…  As I take clients through houses and help them purchase one of these old beauties, my goal is to help them see that they can immediately start saving on their home, if they take some time/money and make some energy upgrades.   Its just a part of my job.  I love helping someone see where their potential energy leaks are and connecting them with the right resources to help them not only save money, but also consume less resourses.  Its a win/win for everyone!

With this always on my mind, I came across an interesting article today in Time Magazine.  It basically stated what I’ve been helping my clients with.  Becoming more energy efficient, is not conserving energy (like turing down your thermostat and putting a sweater on)  its doing the same things but in a more efficient manner!  You don’t have to freeze in your house to lower your heating consumption, you just need to make your house more efficient! 

They say:

“There are two basic ways to save energy without deprivation or daily effort. We can use more efficient machinery, like fuel-efficient cars that guzzle less gas, or those pigtailed compact fluorescent lightbulbs that use 75% less power than traditional bulbs, or state-of-the-art refrigerators that are three times as efficient as 1973 models. We can also use machinery more productively. That can be as simple as insulating pipes and ducts, caulking doors and windows and otherwise weatherizing our homes to avoid heating our attics and the outdoors. Or installing motion sensors and programmable thermostats that turn out lights and air conditioners when no one’s in the room. President-elect Barack Obama noted on the campaign trail that if we all just properly inflated our tires and maintained our engines, we could save as much oil now as new offshore drilling would produce by 2030. And since buildings devour two-thirds of our power, commercial and industrial operations can weed out even more waste through green construction and automated systems that practically import power as needed. “We’ve hit rock bottom in our addiction to fossil fuels,” says Ian Bowles, Massachusetts energy and environmental affairs secretary. “We need an intervention, and energy efficiency is it.”

If you’d like to know how you can start making your home more efficient, email me!  We can help connect you with local professionals who can identify your biggest energy losses.