But you won’t see me wearing tye-dye ever…

Turns out these are about $7000 installed, and renting would be a killer monthly payment. Instead, we’re opting for a Tankless Gas model (INFO)

The price for the Tankless Gas model is less than half of that, so it works out alright.

As a note, when we were talking to the provider of the solar units, we were advised that a solar model “would pay itself off in 7 years”. decent deal I think.

We’re also going to be doing far more recycling at the new house, you’d be really surprised what is and is not recyclable these days. Check your with your Local Municipality to find out what can be done here. Also, see if they provide a ‘Green Bin’ which is essentially a composting option. Yea, sure composting smells, but it’s actually a far better way to get rid of all the excess food stuffs that don’t need to be sent to the dump.

Eventually Kim and I want to install a Turbine, for generating power. Here, if we do this, we can actually end up putting power back into the “Grid” and in turn, the City/Municipality/Electric company would Pay US for our usage. A pretty sweet deal.

Natural Lighting options are also available. They have what are known as “Solar Skylights” commonly, or “SolaTube” … You can read/see more here: http://www.solatube.com

These things look very cool, and can add more light that conventional lighting systems, in many cases.

One other, very simple thing we’ve started, is we’ve got canvas grocery bags… Our grocer actually discounts our bill, and credits our ‘points’ cards for using the canvas bags, based on the number we use.. 1pt for each bag we use that day. It’s so simple, and it makes a difference when it comes to plastic manufacturing, and consumption.

There are so many more little things, and so many more things we are planning to do over the next few years to get to our eventual goal, of being as Green as can be. (dreaming of 100% green efficiency)

Jay