Home Green Homes

What does it actually look like to flip a house the green way — and make the numbers work? In this episode, Izumi sits down with Mary Love, a North Carolina-based green realtor, building scientist, and project manager who has been doing eco-conscious real estate investment long before "green homes" was a mainstream term. Mary shares hard-won lessons from decades of rehabbing and renting energy-eff...

Are homes really built to last… or just built to sell? In this eye-opening episode, Izumi sits down with documentary filmmaker George Siegal, creator of Built to Last: Buyer Beware , to uncover the uncomfortable truth about how most homes are actually built—and why so many fail when disaster strikes. From hurricanes in Florida to wildfires in California, George shares heartbreaking stories of home...

In this episode of Home Green Homes , Izumi Tanaka talks with Nick Grimm — a father, homeowner, and sustainability professional who is gradually transforming his 1953 Los Angeles home into a healthier and more energy-efficient space. Nick didn’t begin with a master sustainability plan. Like many homeowners, his journey started with basic maintenance: replacing appliances when they broke and making...

If you're a homeowner wondering whether it’s time to replace gas appliances with electric alternatives — this episode is for you. In Episode 102 of Home Green Homes , Izumi chats with Akanksha Mathur, General Manager for Southern California at Elephant Energy , to discuss what it really takes to electrify your home. From heat pumps and induction cooking to rebates, incentives, and indoor air quali...

What does it really take to build homes that are beautiful, efficient, resilient, and responsible? In this special 100th episode of Home Green Homes , Izumi Tanaka welcomes Steve Glenn, founder and CEO of Plant Prefab , for an in-depth conversation that weaves together architecture, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and climate action. Steve traces his path from an early love of architecture to fo...

“So when I think about a future that is solving climate, I think about raising our quality of life. I think about more inclusive cities with wonderful parks, and it's a fantastic mass transportation that's really considered a luxury good because whether you're the wealthiest person in that city or the poorest, you all want to be on the same subway or the same bus because it's simply the best way t...

“We’re always inspired by nature and using nature as a starting point . So we can use the most advanced technology whether it’s robotics or parametric design using algorithms, AI.  Regardless of the technologies our goal is to create something that’s beautiful and it’s just works as far as the simplicity.  And there’s kind of a synergy in the work we do.  So we’re hoping to use this advanced techn...

“I think there's a whole new awareness right now after these fires in LA, at least for people who live in California of like, just actually how toxic our whole houses are.  So, you know, the answer for some might be, “oh, I was going to buy a new couch and I'm going to buy a couch that's cotton instead of like plastic,” you know, just smaller things.  And, yeah, the more people that could be build...

“The secret is cost shifting.  That’s the secret. So we shift the cost from expensive mechanical systems into the quality of the building shell, of the building envelope.  We have what we call a super-insulated building envelope.  We have triple-glazed windows. We have insulated frames.  They get installed in a certain fashion.  And we basically take… we beef up the building envelope.  it’s super-...

Healthy home supports your health, in my opinion, from the air we’re breathing, the materials around you, it's designed to promote your health and it prioritizes air quality, has items that are made from non-toxic materials, and it actively reduces toxins, you can actively reduce toxins when you have practices that support a healthy home. So all that is also going to be good for the environment ty...

"The fact of the matter is your heating  your home and cooling your home and heating your water are the two biggest loads to your electric bill. They cost the most in in your home.  So this is an opportunity to yes decarbonize and do right for the environment and our grid but also for energy usage.  And the products are there.  There's more and more coming for sure. " - Anita Singha The much antic...

We are focused on incentives for home upgrade projects.  We’re focused right now on residential space.  If anyone is listening or you might have applied for a rebate program in the past, like an appliance rebate program through a government agency or utility, it oftentimes can be quite challenging.  So we provide an end to end solution to make it very easy for folks to pre-qualify projects for all...

If you’re thinking about starting an Eco-Village, you wanna know, essentially you want to know what are the issues with soil, with air, with water, in your bio-region, in the ecological region that you live in; what are the relationships that you have with your elected officials that have the power over the area where you want to make this happen; who are your neighbors, and what kind of relations...

“And what we did was, ‘let’s combine the performance of heat pump, off the shelf heat pump, heat pump water heater, with thermal storage with really really smart controls, and you can reap the benefit of that heat pump by shifting the load to the middle of the day and giving you a heat and hot water whenever you need it.”  - Jane Melia Jane Melia, Co-founder and CEO of Harvest , the smart thermal...

“During Covid I started to think more about the products I was using and plastics.  I’d always used refilled bottles for water and I’d reuse plastic bags at the grocery store.  Then I heard the statistics that 2.5 billion tons of trash are in the landfill just from hand and body lotion alone and hand and body wash… “ - Libby Bourne    Libby Bourne is the store manager for a sustainable store Sun M...

"We’re not sacrificing anything aesthetic.  We’re not sacrificing anything ergonomic by being mindful.  We’re just pausing and thinking about it and making a good decision instead of rushing through to check everything off the list.  It’s not going to be apparent in the final end result that you did everything in a very sustainable mindful way.  It looks the same.  It functions the same.  It’s jus...

“You as a consumer, I as a consumer have enormous power to make the transformation that we want to see.  But one of the transformations as a consumer is selecting the right products because the competitor who is not doing the right packaging or the right product is going to see that they’re losing clients to the competitors that are doing more sustainable product, produce and materials, so he’s go...

"For me, mantra in my sort of day-to-day climate work is go for the gigatons. And while as a homeowner, a single homeowner, you can't do that, you can look at your biggest spend. So what are the most gigantic energy sinks in your home? Two-thirds of home energy use is from heating and hot water." - Trent Wolbe Trent Wolbe is currently a VP of marketing for a start-up called, Harvest, but I invited...

"For some folks, they become really motivated by the climate crisis. They start to understand that in their family, maybe their single largest source of climate pollution, and it's a big one, is sitting in their closet just heating their water and heating their house, right? So that's some folks are motivated by that, and they want to start finding out what they can do. Other folks maybe don't car...

“ …what can we do in terms of water and energy? Something that's super decentralized that doesn't make people compromise. And we started to look at where water is used most within the residential home and 50% of that water use stems from the bathroom. It's quite alarming when you start looking at how much we actually use in terms of water. ” - Alisha McFetridge A typical 10-minute shower uses 25 g...

“I feel that we have this moral imperative from a business standpoint to preserve our markets. And so, as Realtors, we are advisors.  So we explain to our developers, we explain to our buyers, we explain to our sellers how to transact in a way that is most profitable for them. how the Code of Ethics really demands that we understand the products we sell and that we do a better job of representing...

"The new thinking is around circularity. The idea of circularity is the circulation of materials at their highest value for the longest period of time.  And when you design with circular systems in mind, you are thinking about the end at the beginning, meaning what's going to happen to this product that we're making? What's going to happen to this house that we're designing at the end of life? Can...

"I think that we will continue to see high performance sustainability at the forefront of innovation. I think it's going to be a slow transition depending on where you are in the world and where you are in the U.S.  So I think we're going to see different rates of adoption. I think all of it is going to become faster as we realize the impacts of climate change. And the same holds true with the oth...

“Building science for these principles and tools to measure and test homes and treat them as an interconnected thing so that all the systems work together and you can achieve better results by looking at the house as a system.” - Dan Thomsen Dan Thompson, the owner and founder of Building Doctors , shares his journey from flipping homes to becoming an energy auditor and contractor. He was inspired...

There’s been plenty of studies over the years ranging anywhere from half of a percent to 15 percent in value for certifications.  And part of it has to do with the areas, so obviously when you get into areas like parts of Texas and California, Florida, Virginia, we saw value increases partiallybecause I think you have more educated and interested population who cares, and so they bring that value....