Green Austin Texas » Green

Super Energy Efficient Home in Liberty Hill, Texas

Betty Saenz — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:45:52 +0000

221 Dawn Drive – Liberty Hill, Texas | MLS 4921842

2,198 square feet home (per owner), 3 bedrooms, 2 full, 1 half bathroom, 2 and a 1/2 car garage

Lot Size is 1 Acre

Neighborhood: Ancient Oaks Sec 01

Detailed Information

Located just northwest of Austin, Texas, this is a greenbuilt, SUPER Energy Efficient custom home only about 10 minutes from Public Transportation. The lot is over an acre with a Fenced, low water use Zoysia lawn and a professionally designed low water use landscape including a Culinary Garden!

Call Betty Saenz REALTOR® EcoBroker® at (512) 785-5050

Just to Compare : My electric bill with the current drought and resultant daily high temperatures is $350. I am going to add the spray foam to my attic like 221 Dawn Drive has, not doing the walls in wet blown cellulose as this house has because I can’t afford it. Retrofitting is more costly and never works as well as a home engineered to work efficiently. I just wish my Scott Felder production home was half as well built and efficient as 221 Dawn Drive but it is not. No home is unless it is built the way 221 Dawn Drive and other super tight, super efficient homes are. The seller reports the utility bills at 221 Dawn are less than $100. per month 9 months out of the year, and the other 3 months only slightly over. The low utility bills are a result of the quality of construction and Building Science that went into the home. The price per square foot is higher than those of a standard built home but, the utility bills which unlike a house payment, never go way, are significantly reduced. With water use being also reduced, due to water efficient landscape design and delivery method, this home’s less wasteful, way more efficient design saves a lot of money.

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Renewable Energy Roundup Coming Soon

Betty Saenz — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:32:02 +0000

Our beloved annual Renewable Energy Roundup and Green Living Fair is coming up soon. Put on by the Texas Solar Energy Society, the Fair is now in it’s 11th year and coming to historic and fun Fredericksburg, Texas September 24th through September 26th, 2010. I go every year and am never there enough time. There is always so much to see, do and learn for people of all ages. Children 12 and under are FREE. Tickets are $10.00 to $12.00 and available at the gate. There are so many booths set up to learn about so much. There are food vendors, talks about any green living topic you can imagine and all at a very reasonable entry fee.

This years talks include information on small wind systems, saving water, rainwater collection, city gardening, aquaponics, wild plants, compressed earth block building, Net Zero homes, Geothermal Systems, organic farming and ranching, solar cars, solar cooking, photovoltaic systems, greenwashing and more!! There are natural cooking demos and I guarantee you will learn a lot about many topics. I hope to see you there!! I’ll probably wear my TOFGA, Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners t shirt I got at the fair last year when I joined that great organization. There is usually a ride share set up to share rides to the fair from the Austin Texas Metro Area. I am looking at all the talks now and having a hard time deciding which day to go, I think I will go to all three!!!

Greenbuilding Tour at Southwestern University Georgetown, Texas

Betty Saenz — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:41:33 +0000

Friday, March 12th, 2010 from 4:30 to 6:30pm there will be a tour of GREEN buildings at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. The Double LEED® Building Tour Higher Education Institution Facilities is being held by the Central Texas Balcones Chapter of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC-CTB). The Admissions Center building is LEED-NC Gold Certified and the Center for Lifelong Learning is LEED-NC Silver Registered. Parking is available on campus.

Greening Austin Homes 1house at a time

Betty Saenz — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:26:18 +0000

How do you help those in need and help the environment at the same time? 1house at a time is a great organization that helps Austin, Texas homeowners in need avoid foreclosure on their homes by lowering their utility and food bills. High utility bills often represent a family’s second highest expense. Homes chosen for projects receive energy efficiency upgrades and other projects to save money and help our Earth. This month’s project happens March 13TH from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Projects include removing the old refrigerator, washer and dryer and replacing then with energy efficient units. A rain gutter system with gutter guards will be installed as well as a rainwater collection cistern. A garden will be installed to help provide healthy food at low cost.

Texas Metal Cisterns and Green Zone Home are helping in this month’s event.

Texas Metal Cisterns in business since 2000 can be reached at (512) 565-0875

Green Zone Home, 8868 Research Boulevard
Austin, TX 78758 (512) 467-0005 Green Zone Home provides home energy consultations.

1 house at a time is a project of A Nurtured World

Won’t you consider helping a family in need by volunteering 4 hours of your time? If you are not able to personally help at the site could you help with a donation?

Learn more about retrofitting your home, rainwater collection and GREEN Austin Homes

Holistic Management International Texas Offers GREEN Land Management

Betty Saenz — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:59:16 +0000

Holistic Management International Texas is a great resource for managing your farm or ranch in a “greener” way. They offer many classes and workshops in various Texas towns. February 26 – 27 they are holding a Drought Mitigation Workshop together with Farm Aid in Laredo, TX. March 5 and 6 they are holding their Spring Conference in New Braunfels, TX. There are also classes in Planned Grazing, Mob Grazing and others as well as organic hay for sale in the February Newsletter. See the Holistic Management International Texas newsletter for more details and complete information directly from the source on green ranch management.

Avoid VOC’s in Your Texas Organic Home

Betty Saenz — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:35:45 +0000

What are VOCs and what can we do to avoid having them in our homes? VOCs are Volatile Organic Compounds, and no, this is not the type of “good” organic we want in our Texas Organic Home. VOCs are pollutants in our homes and can effect the indoor air quality of our homes. The resulting poor indoor air quality can have both short and long term ill health effects. For some great information on VOCs, just visit the United States government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website and look at the web page on Indoor Air Quality. Since VOCs are emitted by building materials, furnishings and paints as well as other materials in our homes, I am concentrating on these two in this blog. One of the best ways to avoid VOC’s is in the construction or even remodeling process.

There are green cabinet makers who follow green woodworking practices for example that are aware of the problems VOCs can cause in indoor air quality. Among these are Jeff Mitzel at Green Award Custom Woodworking at 5710 E. MLK in Austin, TX (512) 323-6633. Jeff and the other craftsmen at Green Award Custom Woodworking care about our earth and the indoor air quallity in your home enough to use materials that do not off gas in your indoor living environment. They also work by a zero waste policy. Waste ply materials are recycled by local artists, teachers and art therapists as well as in other woodworking projects at the Austin,TX shop. Using locally milled woods, new green products as well as reclaimed woods, the wood shop uses over 70 green raw materials in the creation of millwork and cabinetry. Green Award is also Austin, Texas’ oldest continually running cabinet and millwork shop.

Austin Texas’ Green Garden Program

Betty Saenz — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:13:52 +0000

I am jealous. Everything’s in Austin…Sometimes, to someone who cares about the environment it seems that way…I live in Leander, Texas, Williamson County because of the affordability of homes and the Leander ISD school system. I am trying to help the City of Leander to encourage greenbuilding and green yards. My yard meets the criteria for Austin’s Award Winning Green Garden Program yet I am not a City of Austin water customer so I can’t share my yard in that venue. The City of Leander gets the water from the same place, Lake Travis but we buy it from Leander, not Austin. Part of being a Texas Organic Home is to have a green yard. By green I do not mean a huge, water hungry synthetic yard but a water conserving, sensible and beautiful yard that is safe for humans, pets and wildlife due to lack of synthetic chemicals. “Synthetic” yards use non-native plants and grasses from some rainforest that do not jive with the Austin/Central Texas climate. These plants drink too much of our water and may be invasive and take over our wild spaces.

Call or e-mail me and I’ll help you learn more.

signed, a Native Texan and aspiring Master Naturalist, Citizen Gardener, and Master Gardener.

The GREEN Car for Your Texas Organic Home

Betty Saenz — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:51:34 +0000

It’s time to shop for a “green car” to go with my “green lifestyle”.

Having been clobbered in Austin by a charging car recently, I am having to car shop. My 4 cylinder Camry was totalled. I am now looking to purchas a hybrid aka “green” car.

High miles per gallon is important to me. As a REATOR I put a lot of miles on my car compared to the average consumer. Through my Twitter page I found a great California based green car Twitter user site Clean Car Talk for information on hybrid, electric, plug-in and clean diesel cleaner driving choices.

Other websites that I am enjoying are The Green Motorist site as well the the United States Government fuel economy site.

Living Green in Austin

Betty Saenz — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:01:49 +0000

We just had another presentation at our Sky Realty Austin office about the new City of Austin Ordinance requiring energy audits. Today’s presenter was Living Green, an energy audit and home energy conservation company in Austin, Texas. Now, since June 1st, 2009, any home sold in Austin, Texas that uses Austin Energy is required to have an Energy Audit. Living Green not only does the energy audit but Living Green can also make the improvements to help you save the Earth, as well as save money on your water, gas and electric bills. Your ROI or Return On Investment can be high. What this means is the time for the improvements to pay for themselves by saving you money is low.

Living Green uses radiant barriers, solar screens, window tinting, CFL & LED lighting, motion activated light switches & dimmers, low flow toilets, solar wind turbines and Low E windows as elements in your home to save you money. Living Green also installs rain water harvesting systems.

Green Funeral Home to Open in Leander Texas

Betty Saenz — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:34:29 +0000

I know funerals, funeral homes & death are a taboo subject for many, including my husband. So, if taboo for you too, then move on to another article. Me, I am interested in anything that professes to be “green” or “eco-friendly” even if it is a funeral home. And funeral homes and dying do not bother me particularly, they are a fact of life. That being said, I’ve see this piece reported now twice and wanted to research it a little myself. Leander has no funeral home now, so Wrench Funeral & Cremation Services will be the first. Even the fact that this business professes to be green appears good but I want to know more, to see if this is mere greenwashing or truly has green features, is a geen service. The Austin American-Statesman ran an article entitled “Leander’s first funeral home to be ecofriendly” Thursday, May 7th, 2009. The article stated that the funeral home will “offer environmentally friendly options, including green burials”. I am curious about what that means. The Statesman also reported that the building will be built from energy efficient materials yet did not report what those will be. The Austin Business Journal, in an article entitled “Dying to go green” said they will offer green burials & environmentally friendly products. Paul Wrench, the owner has a position as chairman on the Green Initiative Task Force of the Texas Funeral Directors Association.

In my research I found a site on home funerals. It reiterated the point that home funerals, like home births had gone by the wayside but are green, legal & now making a comeback.