Free Water

If you have central air conditioning, and you're not harvesting the condensation, you're missing out on free water. Many air conditioners have a condensation line that dumps water out of a pipe right next to the house. Water near the house is a problem for a few reasons. It could cause land subsidence, which could damage your foundation. It can also attract termites and other wood destroying organisms like mildew. 

So grab that water! Buy a garden hose fitting like the one in the photo at a hardware store. Attach a garden hose, and put the other end on a thirsty plant. 

Being the geek that I am, I got to wondering how much water this system produces. A few days ago when the temperature was 95 and the humidity was only 26%, I collected the water from the condensation line in a measuring cup. I was impressed to find I collected 0.7 gallons per hour! 

Someone pointed out that this water doesn't have a lot of minerals in it, which is true, but it also doesn't have the nasty chlorine that comes out of the hose that's attached to the hose bib. It doesn't seem to hurt the plants. Here's my new Mexican Honeysuckle, about to get a nice drink. 

Low Cost Shade Trees

Tucson Electric Power offers shade trees for the amazing low price of $8 each. Check this out. Homeowners can get two trees per year, and if your home was built before 1980, you can get four trees per year.

Green Acres Meets Old Pueblo

Live your dream of urban farming. The owners of this sweet Garden District home have been working the soil and creating a wonderful home for several years. In the far corner of the back yard, you see a spacious chicken coop that awaits your flock of hens.

Composting bins produce rich gardening soil. The blue tank is for the washing machine grey water. Between the house and the chicken coop you'll find that rich soil with irrigation lines ready for you.  After doing the garden and digging the weeds, relax in your sauna.

Stay cozy on cold winter nights by the wood burning stove in your tin-roofed straw bale ramada. This unique home has character to spare.

Tasteful colors inspire energy and harmony.Dual cooling for energy efficiency and comfort.

The low-care brick floors throughout will delight you.The floor plan is here.

Great location on a quiet street just three miles from U of A. Tucson Botanical Gardens, Trader Joe's,  and Crossroads Festival are just blocks away. Tucson Medical Center, The Loft Cinema and the lovely Rillito River Bike Path are just a little further.

Be the envy of your friends. Enjoy home-grown food plus all the benefits of city life. Have it all.

This sweet home sold for $110,000 on Cinco de Mayo.

Go Solar with No Installation Cost

The amazingly fabulous Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has found a unique and affordable new way for you to lease solar panels for your home, and at the same time raise $500 for the CBD. If you get the panels installed, please let me know how it worked out for you. Here's the plan:

Sungevity, a home-solar installer serving California, Arizona and Colorado, puts up solar panels on your house for free when you sign up to lease them.
You pay Sungevity on a monthly basis for your home-solar lease, usually the same or less than what your pre-solar electric bill used to be.

Sungevity pays the CBD a $500 referral fee for sending you their way.
Sungevity pays you an additional $500 cash bonus for joining the solar lease program, plus $1,000 credit toward your future lease payments.
In the end, you could end up having home-solar power for nothing more than you were paying in electricity bills before, plus $500 cash back and the chance to earn a generous donation for the Center for Biological Diversity. Not to mention the fact that the atmosphere will be spared roughly 8.24 metric tons of CO2 a year (roughly what you'll conserve by using solar on your home). It's a win-win-win situation.

To take advantage of this offer, please follow the steps below:

Go to the Sungevity home page to request an iQuote: www.sungevity.com
After you submit your request, you'll be taken to a page that asks you where you heard about Sungevity. Enter the following referral code: CBD.
Within 48 hours, Sungevity will send you an iQuote with your estimated monthly lease payment and savings. You then decide whether to enter a lease agreement.
If you are excited about this promotion and about raising funds for the Center's work, please spread the word among your friends and colleagues who live in Arizona.
This offer is good through the end of 2010.

If you have any questions about this program, please contact Brian Somers at Sungevity (bsomers@sungevity.com).

Walk Score

Green is the most sustainable color. As energy costs increase and resources are depleted, more and more people are recognizing the benefits of energy conservation, clean air and healthy living. I have talked with several buyers lately who have told me they want a home that's close to shopping, restaurants, services and entertainment. The green word for this type of location is "walkable".

I have discovered a fabulous web site where you can type in an address, and get its "walkability score". You will get a map showing all the amenities close to the address, and a ranking from 0 to 100 indicating the ease of living at that address without a car.

Try it. It's lots of fun.

Chicken Coop Tour

Years ago, a woman who lived next to one of my clients in Northwest Tucson gave me some gorgeous green eggs from the hens she kept in her back yard. The yolks were a rich deep yellow and the taste was fantastic. Ever since, I've wanted to have my own chickens.

I've been thinking lately that we need to get more self sufficient. Plant an organic garden, install some solar panels and a rain water harvesting system, and get some chickens.

I guess a lot of other people are thinking the same way, because this Saturday from 9 to noon, the Food Conspiracy Coop is sponsoring a back yard chicken coop tour.

A lot of these chicken wranglers are way ahead of me in the sustainable technology game, and some of them will be demonstrating their solar ovens, rain water harvesting, and other cool ideas.

Living Green

My client Pamela Portwood is an interior designer who owns the green design company Greener Lives LLC. The Renovation Nation show on the Planet Green television channel recently visited Tucson to talk with a family who hired Pamela to help them design a non-toxic, environmentally-friendly nursery.

Solar Power

A few weeks ago, I went to a solar power workshop sponsored by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Tohono Chul Park. I have often wondered why Tucson isn't the solar capital of the world. I learned that for solar power to be practical on a large scale, we would need not only a lot of sunshine, but also a lot of water. A solar power plant uses the sun to heat salt water solution. The steam turns turbines, which produce electricity. So solar energy production is not feasible for public utilities in deserts with the current technology.

Getting off the grid is very expensive, and is only practical in remote areas where connecting to the power grid costs more than $100,000, which is the cost of an off-grid system.

The good news is that homeowners can generate their own electricity and send the power to the public utility company for storage. Then the homeowner will have power at night and on cloudy days. However, if TEP's power is down, the homeowner will be without power unless they have a battery back up. Power outages are not currently a problem in Tucson, so this back up is not essential at this time.

Installing 3,000 kilowatt hour (kWh) solar hot water requires a $4,500 investment. TEP will give the homeowner at $1,500 rebate. State and federal tax rebates are also available, making the out of pocket cost about $1,000. The pay back time is about three to five years.

The typical home uses 11,000 kWh per year. Installing a system that could produce that much power would cost about $44,000. The TEP rebate would be $20,000 and the state and federal tax credits would be $1,000 and $7,000, leaving a net cost of $16,000.

For every kWh produced by a solar electric system, the owner can save 10 cents on his TEP bill. A typical 3 kW system will reduce the monthly bill by about $40.

For more information, go to www.Giffords.House.Gov .

Of course, before considering any solar energy projects, it's important to improve the energy efficiency of your home and adjust energy use patterns to minimize wasted energy.

Tax credits are available for installing energy efficient products like water heaters, furnaces, air conditioners, building insulation, window, roofs and doors. I received a tax credit for installing Solatubes because they don't transfer heat to the extent that skylights do, and they enable me to leave the lights off in rooms that used to be dark during the day. For more information go to www.energystar.gov.

Solar Energy

Tucson should be the solar energy capital of the world. We won't speculate on the frustrating reasons why it's not. But if you have been thinking of adding solar panels to your home, as I have, it might be a good idea to do it sooner rather than later. Tax incentives that make the installation more economically feasible may be expiring soon.

Tucson Green News Magazine

Tucson Green News Magazine is a free, two month old newspaper intended to bring together Tucsonans who want to live in greater harmony with the planet. The November issue contains articles about a group of bicycle recyclers, the energy-efficient features of Amory Park del Sol, bamboo farming, biodiesel, organic cotton, book reviews, a calendar of events and lots more.

My friend and house buying and selling client, Mary Sisson Eibs, writes the Desert Gardening column. In the current issue, she discusses composting. Mary also writes beautifully illustrated articles for Tucson Lifestyle.

You can pick up Tucson Green News Magazine at health food stores, coffee shops and most of the commercial establishments where tree huggers congregate. Distribution of the new issue starts on the 15th of the month and takes three days.