Redefining the phrase ‘living green’

[2008-5-16]

Tag: bamboo bedding

When Wayne resident Charlie Szoradi needs to get some work done at home, he climbs up to his loft via an aluminum ladder made from 600 cases of recycled Bud Light cans.

When he takes a shower, the water steams up through a flash water heater, which he says only costs a few hundred dollars more than a regular water heater and instantly boils the water in the tank (unlike a regular heater, which wastes energy in order to keep water hot all day).

He eats off recycled plates, warms himself under a quilt made from his old flannel shirts, and sleeps under bamboo bedding (which is more environmentally sustainable than many other fabrics). Even his business cards are earth-friendly — they’re made of cardboard from cereal boxes.

Szoradi, an architect, and his wife, Cynthia, a real-estate agent, made the commitment to live green about five years ago, when they purchased their Tredyffrin home. But it took them two years to learn about “where the sun was best” for the solar panels on the back roof, where the wind was coming from, and other key details, a year and a half after that of researching and designing, and the last year and a half to do all the construction. It’s finally complete, and Szoradi says that it has 50-60 elements of eco-friendliness, in every room from the bathrooms to the basement.

Szoradi also created a Web site, www.greenandsave.com, detailing the things he learned along the way, and the site educates viewers on a number of ways they can save money and energy in their homes. Each method has an explanation, the average cost of such an investment and the ROI (return on investment — in other words, how long it will take before the investment “pays” for itself). And Szoradi practices what he preaches: he has used each method in his own home.

The site advises readers on the best and most efficient things they can do to be good stewards, and the cheapest suggestion (standby power strips, into which one can plug in appliances and cut off energy when they’re not using those appliances) costs just $20 extra, with a full return of that money (via a cheaper electric bill!) in just 10 months on average. Another suggestion is a radiant floor, which sends heat up from below and, according to Szoradi, decreases heating costs by about 40 percent, costs about $4,000 per 1,000 square feet, and pays back 13.8 percent of that cost each year.

And did you know that floors can be made from cork, which is peeled off of a tree without killing it? Some of the rooms in Szoradi’s home use cork flooring, which looks much like a regular hardwood floor.

Another of Szoradi’s methods is a system of solar panels on the back roof of his home, which he says will cost an extra $25,000 on average, but if the cost of electricity goes up as predicted, the payback will be in the next eight to 10 years.

“We have done so much research over the past three years that we wanted to share it,” Szoradi writes on his Web site. “Since the initial unedited Web search results were overwhelming and contradictory, we dug deep, made the calls and met directly with manufacturers, suppliers, installers, engineers and other architects to determine exactly what to buy and where to buy it. Our recommendations come from what we chose for our own home. Out of budget concerns, we calculated and then ranked the return on energy and other savings, so this site has the first Return On Investment (ROI) calculation rankings for green home improvement…”

Szoradi is already getting good publicity for his site, including an award from Clear Channel, who picked it as the “best user-friendly site for homeowners,” Szoradi says. He’s also on the cover of the March 2008 Inventors Digest.
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Guess it really does pay to be green — in more ways than one.