HGTVs Carter Oosterhouse Gives Green Home Tips

Carter Oosterhouse of HGTVs Carter Can and Red Hot and Green recently took time to share with My Green Birmingham.com a few tips to help the environment, as well as easy and affordable ways to green your home this summer. He dishes out a lot of these tips on HGTV, but he wanted to make sure Birmingham locals are in the know about all they can do to live green!

Check out the interview by clicking on the following link and read his additional tips below:

http://internetmediatour.com//play.php?vid=175

Tips from Carter:
Unplug unused chargers and appliances and turn off your computer
at night. You'll lose some time booting up, but you'll save energy and more
money if you turn your computer off at the end of each day. It will also
reduce wear and tear on your hardware, extending its life.

Reduce water usage on older toilets. If you own an older toilet
and can't upgrade to a newer low-flow or dual flush toilet, the
eco-friendliest of options, a simple plastic bottle will come in handy.
Instead of throwing the bottle into a landfill, where it will sit for
1,000-plus years, fill it with water, recap it, and place it in the tank.
You'll reduce your flush by 1-2 gallons (compared to 7 gallons in a standard
toilet) and save on the water bill.

Ditch the paper towels. Paper towels create 30,000 tons of costly
waste yearly in the U.S. Switch from conventional towels to reusable
versions such as microfiber rags. If you must purchase paper towels, buy the
kind made from recycled paper. If every household in the United States
replaced just one roll of virgin fiber paper towels (70 sheets) with 100
percent recycled ones, we could save 544,000 trees.

Think about your home's energy source. I recommend using natural
gas to power your home. It burns cleaner and is more efficient. It takes
twice as long to dry clothes with an electrical dryer than with a gas dryer.
And when replacing an appliance, be sure to look for one that is more energy
efficient. Always look for the ENERGY STAR symbol and compare water and
energy usage to ensure you get the best product and environmental savings to
suit your needs.

Next great thing to consider are the actual materials in your
home. When selecting green kitchen countertops, consider laminate, paper
composite, recycled glass and concrete, which are all eco-friendly options.
Also, if considering redoing your flooring, consider reclaimed wood
flooring, bamboo, linoleum, and recycled glass tile.

Determine your home's environmental footprint by using a carbon
calculator. You can find a carbon calculator along with several additional
tips on energy efficiency on my Web site, carteroosterhouse.com, as well as
on at www.comfortableresponsible.org.