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Keira’s Home in Berkeley

ENERGY & EFFICIENCY

  • Rooftop Solar installed in 2007 by SunPower, built to 90% of our electric usage at the time.

  • Remodel included denim insulation, double-paned windows, canned LEDs

  • Induction: 36” Wolf range with built-in exhaust feature

  • Passive solar: upstairs gets lots of warming.

  • Skylights in our kitchen, half bath, and living room, and a light tube in my study.

  • Clothesline in basement gear room.

WATER CONSERVATION

  • Greywater system: Laundry, shower, and bathroom sinks drain to a greywater system that irrigates our backyard orchard of fruit trees and berries.                

  • Rainwater catchment system: rain from both sides of roof drains to 2400 gallon tanks under our porch. Our house is plumbed to use rainwater in toilets and laundry when we have it.

  • Drip irrigation for garden beds during dry months. We have timed irrigation so that it waters early in the morning, in zones, for defined periods of time. The devices can also dial back %s based on the time of year. Urban Farmer store (in Richmond) for DIY irrigation supplies and lighting. We did all of our own drip irrigation and lighting with their free advice. We sketched out your yard and ideas, and they walked us through how to install. We've updated and maintained ourselves over time. For example, when we first moved in, we put in a lawn in our backyard which we had for years for kids to play on. After our remodel, we converted our lawn lines to another drip zone which meant we didn't have to remove anything and are making use of the buried infrastructure.

  • Low-flow water faucets, showerheads, toilets.

NONTOXIC, SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS

  • Wood floors refinished with Rubio Monocoat, which provides a matte finish and allows you to re-finish only parts of your floor that are worn or damaged over time.

  • Bamboo cabinets in kitchen and bathrooms: durable, easy to touch up finish. Finished with wipe on polyurethane. Downstairs bathroom drawers made from recycled wood.

  • Hardie siding for its durability.

SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPE

  • Pesticide-free yard: We only use natural pesticides like Neem oil for trees or powdery mildew.

  • Permeable Pavers: we replaced all cement pathways and driveway with permeable DG.

  • Composting: we do compost and worm compost. We also have chickens who consume some kitchen scraps and provide chicken manure for our compost bin.  

  • Food production (eg. fruit trees, veg garden, bees, chickens, etc.): We have focused our backyard garden design on food production (and kids!). We keep chickens, have a vegetable garden (fenced in to protect from chickens), and many backyard fruit trees that we keep pruned small (per Ann Ralph’s book “Grow a Little Fruit Tree”). We are starting to grow mushrooms on logs and in re-used buckets. We try to grow other drought tolerant (or greywater planted) plants that are good for beneficial insects and pollinators.

OTHER

  • Fireplace removed, now use fireplace for a fishtank.

  • Radiant floor heating reduces indoor allergens and operates on a smart system that we can control via an app. It has many zones/rooms so that we can heat spaces we use and/or reduce heat at times of day that don’t need it (for example, due to passive solar heating in the afternoons). On-demand water heater is the same as the radiant floor unit.

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