Northern Virginia Green Real EstateA blog by Nate Shaw, Northern Virginia's Green Real Estate Agent. Information on how to fight global warming, live a more green lifestyle, green homes and remodeling, recycling, and the local Washington DC area, and national, real estate market and economy.Calculating Your Carbon Footprint- June 27, 2008 The process of going green can be a large, and somewhat overwhelming at times, task. So, just like with any other plan you create, it can be good to know where you are starting. If you know where you are starting, you can more easily decided where you want to end up. A good way to figure out where you are now in your carbon emissions and create a plan to reduce them is to use a carbonhttp://www.novagreenagent.com/blog/2008/06/calculating-your-carbon-footprint.html Best Buy and Take Back- June 23, 2008 In a exciting and promising move, Best Buy has begun to experiment with an electronics take back program in 117 of its stores. You can take your old electronics into Best Buy and they will collect them for recycling. There are many Best Buy store locations across DC, Virginia and Maryland that are participating in this program. Although Prince William county has a great electronics recyclinghttp://www.novagreenagent.com/blog/2008/06/best-buy-and-take-back.html Higher Utility Bills and Solar Options- June 16, 2008 The price of oil not only impacts the price of gasoline you put in your car, now it is going to impact the cost of your utility bills. According to a recent Washington Post article, Dominion Virginia Power will soon be raising its rates. The result will be an increase of 18% or more in your utility bill. The average utility bill will rise from $91 to $107 starting July 1st. Dominion also saidhttp://www.novagreenagent.com/blog/2008/06/higher-utility-bills-and-solar-options.html The Green Virginia Commonwealth- June 13, 2008 I was interviewed earlier this week for an upcoming issue of the Virginia Association of Realtors Commonwealth magazine. The JulyAugust issue will focus on Green Realty. The particular article for which I was interviewed focuses on green issues are important for today's buyers and sellers. The magazine is sent out to all Virginia Realtors as part of their membership in the Virginia Associationhttp://www.novagreenagent.com/blog/2008/06/green-virginia-commonwealth.html Tips to Keep Your Home Cool this Summer- June 8, 2008 As the mercury heads over 100 degrees this second weekend of June, it begs the question, how can I keep my home cool this summer and not run my air conditioning 247 One cheap and easy way to keep your home cool is to track the incoming sun and block it using blinds and shades. For example, our house faces to the east. So, if I know it is going to be a real scorcher, I close all of thehttp://www.novagreenagent.com/blog/2008/06/tips-to-keep-your-home-cool-this-summer.html Do Your FareShare- June 2, 2008 A few weeks ago, we were doing some spring cleaning around our house and came upon a big stack of old Metro fare cards. We don't ride the Metro that much these days, so the cards were not of much use to us anymore. Most of the cards were your typical $.05 or $.10 leftovers, but some of them had values up to $5.00. When I totaled them up, it came out to be a decent amount of money. So, what couldhttp://www.novagreenagent.com/blog/2008/06/do-your-fareshare.html |