Green by Design Workshop
Saturday, August 16th , 8:30 am - 4:30 pm
Austin Energy Green Building™ holds its one-day Green by Design workshop four times a year. Austinites preparing to build, buy, or remodel a home can learn how to improve energy and water efficiency, increase comfort, and reduce maintenance.

This workshop will give you an overview of the green building process. You’ll come away with a framework for making better design and building decisions, including:

·Assessing what your family needs in a home
·Choosing a designer and builder
·Selecting a lot or making the most of the one you have
·Increasing comfort and reducing utility bills
·Making smart material and appliance choices
·Developing a beautiful landscape that saves water, time, and money
·Creating a home that benefits your family and the planet

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
4801 la Crosse Ave
Austin, Texas 78739
Click here for directions

To register for the workshop:
Print the Registration Form (pdf) and fax to (512) 482-5441; or e-mail to register.
Registration fee is $35 per person.

Deadline for registration: Wednesday, August 13, by 5:00 p.m. Sorry, there is no registration at the door.

Click here for more information about this event

Tags: austin real estate, building, green, green energy, housing by Aria
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Forget about Eco-Consumerism!

I’ve written in the past about this eco-consumerism fad we’ve foundourselves in lately.  The message is good, but the practice is bad.  YES we should be making responsible planet-wise choices as consumers, but NO we should not go out of our way to purchase more useless crap because it’s green.

And as I write this, gas prices continue to rise, we continue to pump more crap into our precious atmosphere, and we continue to demolish valuable resources, such as rainforests, that help to clean up after us.

Gas prices will aid in increasing inflation which will in turn raise interest rates.  And it’s not all George W.’s fault.  It’s my fault, and yours, too.  What is your carbon footprint?  Reducing your carbon footprint and spreading education about the true signs of global warming and world economies in trouble is the way to help this problem.  Not slapping a “Not my President” or “I Buy Green” bumper sticker on your 19 MPG internal combustion car so that those who sit in traffic behind you can take in messages hand-fed to you by the mass-media in addition to your exhaust fumes.

How we can really save the world and the economy after we admit that a new president cannot do it alone:

• Stop buying so much crap.  Try minimalist living.  You’ll be more organized and I bet you won’t miss the clutter.  You don’t need to save everything just in case you need it later.  Chances are, it will be available later as well.
• Skip the trip to IKEA and try buying used furniture off craigslist or from thrift stores.  Be creative and you can have a project that creates a totally unique piece of furniture for your home.
• Skip the toy in the happy meal and the impulse purchases.
• Better yet, cut back on the beef all-together.  You’ll be healthier and we’ll need fewer methane-producing cows in the world.  It’s a serious problem; cows put more pollutants into the atmosphere than any 3rd-world country and more than all of the SUVs in the US.
• Walk or bike to the grocery store, work, or other erands.  You’ll be healthier and happier with exercise.  Exercise makes a healthier body and mind AND increased energy levels.
• Move closer to work or work from home.  The great American highway system has created suburbs everywhere.  You buy a cheap house and fill it with crap, then drive in traffic for an hour or more each morning and evening.  Save yourself the gas and crap money but investing in a home near work.  This is why Austin and other cities are urbanizing now.  You’ll fit in that 200 square foot urban home after you follow tip #1 (dumping all the useless crap).
• Are you getting the idea?  Make smart decisions, not “green” purchases.

Are you getting it yet?  Improving the environment should also improve the economy.  Frankly, it bothers me less that it should that gas prices are high.  I think this is finally the motivation we (as lazy “someone else will take care of it” Americans) need to create real, practical sustainable energy sources.

Tags: carbon footprint, economy, environment, green, green energy, health by Aria
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How much power is your computer at home using?  The site’s costs are based on $0.15 which is much lower than Austin’s low rates of $0.355 to $0.782 / kWh.

Click to enlarge (from choice.com.au)

Many companies such as Dell are now making a big movement to provide energy efficient elecronics.

Tags: economy, energy star, environment, green, green energy, technology by Aria
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I’m going to deviate from my norm of Austin real estate topics to hit on another environmental topic that I’ve been pondering lately. It’s HOT here in Austin. Not just warm but seriously HOT. Is it global warming? If so, what is the cause and how can we deal with it?

The findings of a recent survey surprised me. It seems that fewer Americans believe that global warming is an actual phenomenon now than several years ago.

Source: PEW Research Center

For me, it was the opposite. I was skeptical from the beginning talks of global warming but it now makes a great deal of sense to me. I just needed time to gather facts and make my own educated judgment. What I have yet to pass judgment on is whether it is caused by human or environmental factors. For now, I suspect it is a mix of both. With a history of cycles of ice ages and hot ages, it seems that we are entering a hot age. Yet it seems that this change has actually been noticeable in the past 5-10 years which leads me to believe than human factors are interfering with the natural cycle by speeding things up

Source: PEW Research Center

Do you accept global warming as a problem?
What steps do you believe in to fix it?

Source: PEW Research Center

I’m sure that there is no quick fix, however, making sustainable decisions to reduce landfills and emissions is an obvious start. Planting trees still sounds like a great idea to me. After all of the forests around the world that have been seized in order to create our great civilization, it certainly seems like replanting trees to clean the air and produce oxygen is an obvious and relatively easy decision. There’s talk, and then there’s action…

So what do you do to save the world?
How can we save the world in Austin?

Tags: carbon footprint, development, economy, environment, green, green energy, recycling, renewable energy, responsibility by Aria
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This Memorial Day will be a sales tax Holiday for energy efficient products. Think of the back-to-school tax free weekend only for your home.

Austin real estate is going to keep getting better with green choices.  “Going Green” means making environmentally conscious purchases when you need to purchase something.  Buying something because it’s green is counter-productive.

“If you’ve been thinking about finally buying those energy efficient light
bulbs, purchasing a programmable thermostat, or actually replacing the
refrigerator, dishwasher or air conditioner with a cleaner more efficient
one, memorial day weekend is the time to do it. You’ll save money, while helping to reduce energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions,” noted Lone Star Chapter Conservation Director Cyrus Reed.

But are there any downfalls? For instance, what happens to all of the old appliances when they are replaced? This ECO-Consumerism drives me nuts sometimes. While I appreciate what this piece of legislation is trying to do, I can’t see throwing out so many appliances that work for shiny new ones. How is this in the spirit of “going green”?

I say if you have an appliance that you were thinking of replacing anyway, use this tax holiday to save yourself some money while supporting the environment by making an eco-conscious choice on something you were going to purchase anyway. Don’t throw that 4-year-old dishwasher in the landfill for the upgraded model, but do replace that 30-year-old A/C unit that’s on the fritz.

Stock up on light bulbs for when your current ones burn out. If you’re going to replace working bulbs, do it only in rooms you have lit very often, perhaps your family room or study. Why toss out all of those perfectly good bulbs from the bathroom that you zip in and out of?

If you don’t have a programmable thermostat, I say go for one. I’ll make an exception here because they save so much energy!

Take advantage of this city incentive if you have been waiting to stock up on bulbs or replace a dying appliance, but remember to recycle your old appliances whenever possible and don’t bother with upgrades that don’t make sense!

And check out this link on eco-consumerism. Monbiot has expressed my concerns beautifully!

Tags: austin, carbon footprint, economy, energy star, environment, green, green energy, hot market, housing, nature conservancy, real estate by Aria
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My Live Austin Real Estate Web Channel has been Updated!

You will always find it at: http://liveaustinrealestate.com/live

I’m always searching for great content and with my new MacBook, I’m looking into giving information about my listings on there as well. This is a brand new media and concept, is there anything you’d like to see? Do you have any great videos (YouTube counts) that you’d like to see added?

The feed should load below:

Tags: facts, green, green energy, hot market, housing, info, web 2.0 by Aria
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April 1, 2008

Just announced this morning, Walmart has their sights set on yet another central Austin location. In addition to the Northcross location at Anderson Lane and Burnet Road, a new store at 42nd and Guadeloupe is set to open in the summer of 2009. Plans are currently underway to purchase 32 homes in the vicinity which will be demolished in order to make way for Hyde Park superstore. In order to keep neighbors happy, this Walmart will include a roof-top park and swimming pool as well as an in-store Starbucks.

Neighbors have mixed emotions about welcoming the mega-retailer into their quaint Hyde Park neighborhood. Chelsie Howard, a resident of the neighborhood, welcomes the store saying “Traffic is so horrible in Austin, having a Walmart in Hyde Park will enable residents to get out of their cars and walk, run, or bike to a store stocked with all of their needs.” The store is expected to boost Austin’s economy by 3.4% by 2012.

Walmart chose this location after other retailers, like the Walgreens at 45th and Guadelupe, reported booming business and even nation-wide sales records. This store will be the 5,784th in the nation and will stout the title of “Greenest Walmart in the U.S.” with energy saving features such as roof-topsolar panels powering fluorescent lighting. The store’s plans include selling excess solar power back to the city at 7.8 cents per kw hour as a way of “giving back” to Austin’s community.

(image from PRNewser)

To read the complete press release, click here.

——————

April 10th, 2008 - Update

This post is receiving so much traffic, I thought I’d make sure everyone notices the date of April 1st on the post.  There’s no need to email me in a panic, this is an APRIL FOOLS post!  It’s been fun, but don’t worry because there are no plans to put a Walmart in Hyde Park.  There are, however, plans for a Walmart at Burnet Road and Anderson land in the Northcross Mall shopping area.

For information on the Northcross Wallmart, check out the developer’s site and (of course) an Austinist post on the outrage caused by the plans.

Tags: austin, building, carbon footprint, development, downtown, economy, green, green energy, groceries by Aria
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