I gave up my wall-to-wall carpeting because I got tired of cleaning it all the time. Even when we all took our shoes off at the door, the carpet never seemed clean. That led to a lot of vacuuming! And when it needed to be washed, which it did a couple of times a year, it actually made me sick. Many carpet cleansers contain volatile chemicals that cause serious allergic reactions. I got what I thought was the flu once when it was just a very serious reaction to the chemicals in the carpet cleaning solution.

(You can read all about it in “How Carpet Cleaning Almost Killed Me!“)

Once I decided to replace my carpeting with wood, I wanted the most eco friendly wood floor option available. I chose wood rather than tile because tile can get so cold; unless you’re in the tropics, tile is better suited for a bathroom or kitchen than a living room. Here’s something else I learned: wood offers seven times better insulation than ceramic tiles. That could save me money on my energy bill.

I didn’t want cork, either, because I was re-flooring my entire great room: a living room/dining room space that just wouldn’t work if it was all cork. Also, I had teenagers home at the time and I knew how hard they could be on floors.

Besides, I just liked the cozy look of wood flooring.

Now that I’ve gone through the process of re-flooring my space (pictured below), I wanted to share some tips with you if you’re thinking of doing the same thing. They’re brought to you by Lifestyle Flooring UK and Kährs, a European company committed to sustainability and PVC-free flooring. (Here’s another thing I like about Kährs: they have an entirely solvent-free production process to minimize the use and disposal of toxic chemicals during production).

Consider Using Reclaimed or Upcycled Wood Flooring – This is not the cheapest option by any means. But it’s among the most eco friendly. That’s because it uses wood that’s been reclaimed from an old barn, warehouse, house, even horse fence. (There’s a lot of wood reclaiming going on in some of Detroit’s neighborhoods, where a the city’s renaissance is leading to all kinds of usable goods being recovered from abandoned homes and buildings). It doesn’t involve new trees or the production of new wood.

Choose Wood From Forests That Meet FSC Standards – The Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC, is an international group that promotes “environmentally sound, socially beneficial, and economically prosperous management of the world’s forests. responsible forest management.” FSC-certified forests are supposed to protect water quality, prohibit harvesting of rare old-growth forests, prevent loss of natural forest cover and prohibit use of highly hazardous chemicals. For example, FSC prohibits the use of the pesticide atrazine because it has been shown to cause water pollution and birth defects.

Look For Floors That Can Contribute to Your LEED Certification – LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED-rated buildings save energy, water, and resources, generate less waste, and support human health. Having a LEED-certified home increases its market value, too.

Avoid Wood Processed With Toxic Chemicals to Protect Your Indoor Air – Kährs, for example, uses a water-based lacquer system to reduce emissions. Other chemicals to avoid, especially in pressed wood flooring, are volatile glues and formaldehyde. Some flooring planks are made that allow the boards to mechanically lock together, rather than need glue.

Support Manufacturers The Minimize Waste –Kährs sends waste wood, saw dust, bark, and wood chips to a local energy company. It claims that around 6,150 Swedish homes per year heat their homes using recycled wood waste.

By the way, whatever floor you install, make sure to finish it with a zero VOC (volatile organic compound) finish. That way, you’ll avoid nasty fumes that could pollute your indoor air and make your sick. I used a water-based finish on mine and wasn’t sick for a minute!

Non-Toxic Wood Floor Care

Once you do install your floor, it’s easy to take care of in a non-toxic way. I’ve pulled together my five best suggestions for you in this post:

My Top 5 Secrets to Non-Toxic Wood Floor Care

Here’s a Final Recommendation: Recycle Your Carpet!

We found a facility near our home that would take all our carpet and recycle it into new materials. That was great, because most carpeting and padding can be recycled into new products. You can go here to find a place near you that will accept carpeting for recycling.

NOTE: Partnering with sponsors helps us bring you the expert content you need to lead the greener life you want. All editorial opinions remain our own.

The post How to Replace Wall-to-Wall Carpeting With An Eco Friendly Wood Floor appeared first on Big Green Purse.

Are you wondering how you can live the green life you want if you’re renting an apartment rather than living in a space you own? We’ve teamed up with apartment search website RENTCafe to bring you these great ideas for enjoying an eco-friendly lifestyle in an apartment, condo, or home you rent.

How to Green Your Rental Apartment

 If you live in an apartment, you’ve likely made several changes to the décor to help suit your style.

But if you aren’t also making green improvements to your home, then it may not be as healthy or as energy efficient as it could be.

And while you may think that creating a more eco-friendly home isn’t possible as a renter, there are several ways you can green your rental apartment to save money and make it more comfortable to live in at the same time.

BONUS! You can get these done in one day and reap the benefits for a long time!

Invest in Drapes

The biggest source of energy loss in most homes is right around the window area. Even with double paned windows, if the area surrounding them isn’t well sealed, you could still be losing a lot of the energy you use to heat and cool your apartment.

By investing in good quality, thermal drapes, you can help stop this energy loss, eliminating drafts and making your apartment more comfortable at the same time.

As a bonus, most thermal drapes are also light blocking, so you can control how much sunlight your apartment gets – perfect for weekends when you want to sleep in.

By the way, if you install floor-to-ceiling drapes, you can easily take them with you when you move. They’ll fit other windows.

Swap Out Your Lightbulbs

Even if the light fixtures in the apartment need to stay as they are you can still lower your energy bill an get better ambient light at the same time by investing in new LED lightbulbs.

LEDs use far less energy than incandescents and last for at least a dozen years!

Plus, they can give off more lumens per watt (which means they produce more light for less energy), so you can get a brighter living area while saving energy at the same time.

Here’s how to choose the right LED for your apartment.

Replace Your Water-Wasting Showerhead for a WaterSense Model

It may be best to leave the main faucets and toilet in your apartment alone and encourage your landlord to make them more water efficient. But it’s easy to replace your shower head with a low-flow WaterSense model. Just look for the WaterSense logo, pictured right, when you shop.

Older shower heads use as many as 7 gallons of water a minute. New water saving units that meet EPA’s WaterSense standards use around 2 gallons. WaterSense technology helps make up the difference by spinning the water droplets as they leave the head, making the shower feel fuller.

You’ll reduce your water bill, paying for the modest cost of the shower head in no time.

Plug Into Power Strips

Many appliances end up sucking up energy even when they aren’t on or in use.

Sometimes known as “energy vampires,” these appliances and devices add a lot to your monthly energy bill.

To help save energy and money, put a power strip at each outlet, then plug your standby devices like lamps, televisions, gaming sets, and computers into these.

When you’re not using any of the items, turn off the power strip to stop the energy drain.

FYI, here’s one of the power strips I have my video monitor and Roku plugged into.

Purify the Air

If your apartment was painted in the last five years, chances are that it’s still giving off VOCs or volatile organic compounds, into the air. The effect is worse the closer you get to the time the paint was applied. In fact, about 50% of the VOCs are given off in the first year after the room was painted, with the rest “off-gassing” over the next four.

Plus, you might use air fresheners or cleaning products that are filled with synthetic fragrances, chemical compounds that can cause head aches, flu-like symptoms, and even trigger asthma attacks.

To help clean the air you breathe and eliminate some of those harmful toxicants, first switch to no VOC paint when you repaint.

In place of air fresheners, remove the sources that stink (like rotting food, dirty clothes, pet waste), circulate fresh air, and make potpourri out of fragrant natural herbs and dried flowers.

Use baking soda, vinegar, and fresh squeezed lemon juice for most cleaning projects. Open boxes or bowls of baking soda can also help absorb unwanted odors.

Monitor what’s in your air using a system like HomeLab’s, which will tell you what chemicals you’re breathing, and how you can turn your space into a healthy home.

Add Some Plants

Air purification systems aren’t the only way to clean up the air in your apartment and make it healthier; adding plants can make a big difference as well.

Greenery like English Ivy, rubber plants, and peace lilies clean the air in your home and enhance your décor, too.

Place plants in areas that may need air cleansing the most, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms and breathe a little easier.

In my living room, I have a big peace lily. It gets beautiful white flowers once or twice a year.

Check and Replace Your HVAC Filter

If you have a furnace, central air conditioning unit, or HVAC system that uses ducts to heat or cool your apartment, make sure that you’re checking and cleaning the filter at least once per season (some companies recommend changing or cleaning filters monthly).

When the filter gets clogged, it causes the unit to work harder, spiking your energy bill.

If you aren’t sure if the filter needs to be changed, hold it up to the light; if you can’t see through it, it should be cleaned.

NOTE: You don’t need to buy a new filter every month; get one that’s reusable and wash it by spraying it with a hose or running it under a faucet. Just make sure it dries thoroughly before re-installing it. You can keep an extra on hand so you always have one to clean and one to replace it with.

Decorate Using Vintage and Recycled Furnishings

From rugs and bed frames to sofas, dining room tables and lamps, you can find great bargains and repurpose gently used (and sometimes brand new) furniture rather than buy brand new.

In addition to CraigsList.com, eBay.com and Freecycle.com, browse the listings at NextDoor.com, a site that makes it easy for neighbors to swap from each other or buy at a reasonable price.

Thrift stores, auction houses, estate sales and vintage shops (think antiques) are more great – and eco-friendly – places to shop.

Here’s one of the rugs I have in my home. When I got it 15 years ago it was already at least 60 years old.

Go Green

It doesn’t take much to green your rental apartment and make it healthier and more eco-friendly. Implement any of these changes and you’ll see the benefits in no time.

What Do You Do?

What else do you do to green your rental apartment? Please share!

Note: Partnerships enable us to bring you expert content at no additional cost to you. Our editorial opinions remain our own. Thanks!

The post 8 Inexpensive Ways to Green Your Rental Apartment (& Save Money Doing It) appeared first on Big Green Purse.

You’ve probably heard about something called a LEED Certified Home, but do you actually know what it is? LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a program sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council. It encourages construction of buildings and, increasingly homes, that use energy as efficiently as possible and meet other environmental standards as well.

“As a general contractor, I’ve spent years in the construction of commercial and residential buildings. You name it, and I’ve built it (or at least something like it), and I can tell you this: most structures—from the materials, to the overall design, to the location itself—just aren’t all that “green.”

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. And with the help of LEED, increasingly, it’s not.

What is LEED?

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It’s actually a rating system created by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) that offers a standard against which green design can be measured. It does this by assigning a rating to any building reviewed.

The LEED rating is based upon factors such as:

* the sustainability of the construction site

* the renewability of construction materials

* water efficiency

* waste production, and

* indoor environmental concerns, like air quality and the availability of natural light.

 When all of the pertinent data have been compiled and considered, LEED assigns the building in question points in the different categories. Buildings receive a rating based on their overall score.  Those that rate spectacularly well in every category and earn a total of 80 points or more receive a platinum certificate. 60–79 points earn a gold certificate, 50–59 a silver certificate, and 40–49 total points a basic certification. Anything below 40 gets no certification at all.

Benefits of LEED

Most LEED homes come with built-in home automation technology that allows homeowners to save energy, water, and money by learning a homeowner’s habits and adjusting to those. Companies like Nest and others have led the way with groundbreaking home automation technology like programmable “learning” thermostats that can save us consumers money on our energy bills.

Builders and designers who adhere to sustainable practices and receive a high level of LEED certification benefit, too. Not only do they improve their own public image by demonstrating their commitment to the environment, but they’re also able to reap certain monetary rewards. Especially for those building large buildings or office or residential complexes, LEED certification can increase property values and decrease energy, water, and waste costs. Additionally, certain government programs offer rewards for buildings that are LEED certified. Overall, LEED is creating a climate in which eco-friendly design and green materials are gaining an advantage. 

Additional Value if You Own a Leed Certified Home

Given enough time, LEED should be terrific both for the world you live in and your pocketbook. In addition to saving energy, LEED certification of privately owned homes has been known to increase residential property values. Of course, the effect that it has on the value will vary from area to area, but even in locations where the demand for green housing isn’t particularly high, potential buyers will still be impressed by reduced utility costs associated with LEED construction practices.

Finding and Financing a LEED Certified Home

If you’re in the market, how can you find a LEED certified home? Your real estate agent or certain online sites such as Listedgreen.com might help you locate potential properties. Still, because they’re relatively new, existing LEED certified homes may be a bit hard to come by.

The good news is that building your own LEED certified home isn’t nearly as expensive as you might assume. For an additional 1 to 7% of construction costs, you’ll be able to create a platinum certified house from the ground up. Of course, you also have the option of renovating your existing home to make it more LEED compliant. This may be a bit more difficult for certain homeowners, given that some factors may not be alterable (location comes to mind), but there are nonetheless many ways you can upgrade your home if you’re willing to undertake a renovation. 

As a general contractor I’ve seen all sorts of buildings go up, but it’s only been during the last few years that people have really begun to take notice of the environmental and economic benefits these structures offer. The LEED certification program is a good way to judge just how “green” a building is. If you’re willing to invest a bit of extra time and money in the short term, you can get that same reassurance for your own property, and reap the benefits for many years to come.”

 David Glenn taps his 30 years of experience owning his own home-building business to review promising new technologies that offer consumers the opportunity to save energy and money and live greener lives. Connect with him on Twitter @davidglenn97.

The post Follow the LEED: Breaking Down the Pros and Cons of a LEED Certified Home appeared first on Big Green Purse.