• CONSUMER TIPS VIDEOS
  
  

  Remodeling with an Eye Towards Resale: Cost vs. Values	How to Maximize Your Home's Selling Potential: Tips on Preparing Your Home to Attract Buyers
  House Hunting Tips	Preparing for an Open House
  The Home Inspection Process	Financing the American Dream
  Who are the people involved in the Real Estate Transaction

  
  

TOP 10 GREEN WEBSITES

The Daily Green

Earth 911

EcoGeek

Ecorazzi

Energy Star

Ideal Bite

Lighter Footstep

Mother Nature Network

Planet Green

Yahoo! Green

ENERGY (Money) SAVING TIPS

Insulate your hot water heater: Take a quick trip to the hardware store or home improvement store for a hot water insulation kit to wrap your water heater and save on water heating costs.

Use a programmable thermostat: Programmable thermostats automatically adjust the temperature of your home while you are away and while you are sleeping, allowing you to reduce the temperature when appropriate.

Replace traditional lightbulbs with CFLs: Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs use about 75 percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer. If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

Seal and insulate your home: Sealing and insulating your home will improve comfort and reduce heating and cooling costs. To improve the "envelope" of your home, add insulation, seal air leaks, and choose energy-efficient windows if you are in the market for new windows.

Maintain the right temperature in your refrigerator and freezer: Refrigerators can use up to 20 percent of total electricity in your home. To keep your power bills low, use only as much energy as is necessary. The refrigerator should be set between 38º F and 42º F. The freezer should be set between 0º F and 5º F.

Wash clothes in cold water: With today's cold temperature detergents, most modern clothing cleans just as well in cold water. Wash in cold water on economy cycles and always have a full load. Keep in mind, 15 minutes of presoaking and 5 minutes of agitation get clothes cleaner than 15 minutes of agitation.

Take advantage of incentives and rebates: Check with your local utility to see what incentives or rebates are available for the purchase of energy efficient appliances, lighting or heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems and renewable energy technologies. Or just ask your EcoBroker®

Install low flow toilets: A state-of-the-art low-flow toilet may consume less than two gallons of water per flush compared to  five or more gallons with "old" technology toilets. The new toilets can cut your expenditure for flushing in half, or more.

Upgrade your refrigerator if it is 10 years old or older: Energy-efficient models can reduce energy consumption by up to half that of a 10-year-old conventional model.