Only EcoBroker in San Joaquin County advises house hunters on buying green

Janet Graham is an EcoBroker for Century 21 home sales in Lodi. Graham specializes in selling homes that are made with sustainable products and green technology. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

Only EcoBroker in San Joaquin County advises house hunters on buying green

By Amanda Dyer
News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Saturday, August 2, 2008 6:36 AM PDT

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Nowadays, Janet Graham says, building an environmentally friendly house is more than slapping some solar panels on top of your roof to heat your pool. It's even more than installing a bunch of double-paned windows and all Energy Star equipment.

Sure, those things help, she says, but there's a world of possibilities beyond your basic improvements.

Graham, 67, is an EcoBroker, or a real estate agent who has gone through extra training and received certification on how to connect clients to greener homes and advise homeowners on how to make their existing homes more energy-efficient and environmentally sound.

"You can do a lot by just putting your house in the right spot on the lot," Graham said.

Currently, Graham is the only real estate agent in San Joaquin County to hold the designation.

Though she has been a Realtor since 1973, Graham's interest in environmental issues began when she fought alongside other activists to stop the building of a dam along the Kings River near Fresno in the early and mid-'80s.

"That was a seven-year fight, but we did stop that dam," she said.

Graham insists that she's not anti-dam or anti-farmer, but the Kings River dam would have destroyed her favorite fishing hole.

During the seven-year fight, Graham read vigorously about water politics. One of the books that had the biggest effect on her was "Cadillac Desert," by Marc Reisner, about water politics in the western United States.

Beyond solar panels

Here are a few more inventive ways to make your home more environmentally friendly:

Artificial grass — Janet Graham, San Joaquin County's only EcoBroker, says this turf has come a long way from the stuff you used to see at miniature golf courses. Now it stuff looks and feels like real grass, and it lasts for 25 years.

By using artificial grass, a homeowner would save water and reduce the amount of fertilizer that seeps into the ground and runs down the drain.

Radiant floors — Water heated with solar energy runs through pipes laid just beneath the floor, reducing the amount of time families must run the heater.

Bamboo flooring — Bamboo grows fast. So fast, in fact, that it kills off other plants in its path. However, its wood makes for great flooring, and you don't have to feel guilty for cutting it down, because it's an invasive species.

Lot placement — Just by building a house in a certain area of the lot and facing a certain direction, you can take advantage of the natural breezes and sunlight that come through it.

— News-Sentinel staff

Even after she moved to the Lodi area, Graham never lost her interest in California's water.

Graham obtained her EcoBroker certificate a year-and-a-half ago, when green was becoming the new black and builders were doing all they could to keep up with demand.

Graham also noticed a greater demand for "green" homes. Environmentally friendly homes are a bit more expensive, she said, but the buyer makes up the difference with the money he saves on utility bills.

She received the certification from EcoBroker International, which requires students to take three courses, either online or in the classroom, during the course of a year.

Courses include information on ways to deal with existing environmental problems in homes, like mold and asbestos; how to make homes more energy-efficient; and how to use the EcoBroker designation to the real estate agent's benefit.

Total cost for classes, licensing and miscellaneous online services is $395, according to EcoBroker International's Web site.

Now that the housing market has tanked, Graham said she has had little opportunity to use her skills. However, she's not discouraged, and is using the down time to refine her skills and go to conferences while she waits for the housing market to pick back up.

When it does, she said, she plans to meet with developers and builders to give them ideas on how to build greener, more sustainable houses.

There has been an upswing, Graham said, in builders who advertise that their houses are environmentally friendly, but in her opinion their techniques fall short of what they could be doing.

"If you don't have a graywater, you're not green. I'm sorry," Graham said recently.

A graywater system takes the water that's used in the home — except the water that goes down the toilet — purifies it and uses it to water the lawn or fill a swimming pool.

Graywater systems vary in price from $1,500 to $6,000, Graham said. It's easiest if they're put into the house while it's being built. Retrofitting a house can be done, Graham said, but it's more costly and complicated.

It mystifies Graham that people use three-fourths of their drinking water to wash their bodies, wash their clothes and water their lawn.

"Every new home in California should have (graywater)," Graham said.

Graham also wants to counsel people on how to retrofit their homes to make them more environmentally friendly.

She said homeowners can start with their windows, those that are dual-paned and, when open, allow a natural draft to circulate through the house.

But homeowners can also install solar hot-water heaters, water-heated floors and use sustainable materials, such as bamboo, when they do renovations.

One could build a whole house out of recycled material, she said, and nobody would even know the difference.

The problem is that, most of the time, going green involves a large initial purchase. And while the improvements will almost always save consumers money in the long run, it's hard to take that jump.

Chris Little, an EcoBroker who works in Sacramento, said right now people are concerned about the environment, but they're more concerned with their pocketbooks.

When the economy turns around, Little thinks people will place a bigger priority on environmentally friendly practices, even though they might cost more.

More than anything, though, Little thinks the concept of "green" will eventually become the norm.

"That's just the way everything will be," he said. "We're just on the frontier."

Contact reporter Amanda Dyer at amandad@lodinews.com.

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