If you are either buying or bought into a non-BCIL property one can never be sure if a 'green-dream' can be achieved in a typical 'un-green' community. Sustainability can only be built into a community when the builder wants it right from the concept stage. That is why BCIL's property like T-Zed won an international award for green buildings recently. (Please check ecobcil.com). BCIL collective will arguably house the world's largest residential earth tunnel cooling system, besides having in place many of the green design elements that one can dream of with respect to water, air, energy, waste, biomass and earth friendly materials. BCIL today is India's largest Green Residential builder and recently won CII sustainability special recognition award too. Please visit http://ecobcil.com and look for the link to BCIL Collective. Or call Arvind S of BCIL at +91 80 4018 4018 or +91 90081 11099 to learn more about BCIL Collective if you are interesting in buying into it.

Having said that, we will suggest a few ways of greening your home. If yours in an independent house there is a lot that you can do. If it is a flat in an apartment complex then it is really tough to get many things done. Some ideas, though:

1) You could use energy efficient lighting products for your home. Solar lighting would be ideal. Either it could be a CFL based system or even better, a LED based system. If you give us your floor plans of the house and also your lighting points marked in the diagram we will suggest ways of reducing the needs first and then suggest appropriate lighting for your house. If LED costing is prohibitive for you, you could always go in for an energy efficient fluorescent tube lights with electronic ballasts and tri-phosphorous bulbs. We have a budding ecopreneur within our institution called Sriram who can design and get this done for you.

2) Appliances: In general look for any appliance with a 5 star rating/label. They are certified to be energy efficient. You may know this already. Washing machines and refrigerators would be ideal targets as they are energy guzzlers. Any regular home appliances shop in your city should offer 5 star products. Perhaps, you can visit and become member of www.consumer-voice.org if you wish to learn about actual tests conducted on many home appliances. They are quite revealing.

3) Go for Havells 50w energy efficient fan. Great product.

4) Try to avoid electric geysers. However, it may be impractical to go in for a solar water heater in an apartment due to access restrictions. In which case, go in for an appropriate storage water geysers. Avoid oversizing. Usually for two people, 0.5 kw geyser with 5 to 7.5 ltrs capacity is more than sufficient unless one loves bathing in piping hot water. 1 kw is beyond anyone's need. Avoid instant geysers. But most geysers are a problem. If your ground water is hard or salty then these geysers will create greater problem over time. SELCO has a great solar water heater. Please contact them. Or contact us back and Sriram will help you with this.

5) Roof top wind turbines are good to try if your apartment can permit the same. Please get back to us and we will have Sriram handle this for you. KREDL will also help if you are in Bangalore.

6) For lighting and appliances, do not trust your electrician or electrical contractor. Please get back to us and we will recommend specific products. They normally take a small commission from the suppliers and hence, in general, are not trustworthy. Of course, there are exceptions. There are good electricians out there too.

7) You may be considering going in for an UPS. Ideally, your wind and solar hybrid can take care of this need if sized properly. We can do this for you when you get back to us. Otherwise, a smaller UPS only for bare minimum emergency is better. Across the house UPS with a higher capacity will cost you heavily in terms of running cost. Even under unused state, the UPS will continue to discharge and charge and hence cost you money.

8) A plasma TV or a LCD TV is more energy efficient than the good old CRT TV.

9) Please do remember that any electronics product on 'Standby' mode will consume energy. A small HP 1018 laser printer will consume 17 watts in standby mode. So will your television and computer. Switch them all off once you are done using them.

10) Hope you are not going to air condition your house. It is not necessary in a city like Bangalore. But, if your lifestyle demands it then go in for a 5 star or at least a 4 star rated product. Ask your supplier. Star rated products come with a Star label sticker placed visibly on the front surface of the product. You may know this already.

11) On water, please do shop for water efficient faucets. Aerator taps save water. Insist on them.

12) I would personally recommend not installing a shower in bathrooms. Bathing from a bucket of water is far more efficient that a shower. But if you cannot imagine living without a shower, then please buy and install lowflow showerheads. Any hardware shop will give you those.

13) Go in for dual flushing closet system. Most brands have such a system. This alone could save about 30% water in your house.

14) Ideally you must have a dual piping system - one for gray water and another for black water. Gray water, from your kitchen, bathing, and washing machines can be recycled for use in flush tanks. Black water, from your w.c., can be recycled for garden and car washing uses. However, that requires physical space and some investment. Again, if you are in an apartment this may be impossible to try unless the builder can be convinced. It will cost you a good fortune as well. But for a builder it is a minor cost. BCIL installs a waste water treatment system in every building that it builds. In BCIL T-Zed, not a drop of waste water leaves the campus.

15) A front loading washing machine saves plenty of water as opposed to a top loading washing machine.

16) Solar cooker needs sun light. If you have a balcony that has exposure to direct sun light then you can either buy one or assemble a small one with your family / (particularly if you have your own kids/relative kids). Please get back to us and we will suggest ways. The system is useful to cook rice. It will take a few hours to cook, please keep that in mind. Full scale solar cooking is not yet viable unless you have enough space and plenty of time and of course willing to invest a good deal of money in it.

17) Kitchen waste can either be made into compost or into biogas. Home based Biodigesters that produce gas from wet waste require the volume size of a 165 liters refrigerator. Plus it is only advisable to keep it outside your house and pipe the gas into your kitchen. Amit, another aspiring ecopreneur with us, has experimented with it. He will help if you wish to get one done. Compost bins are available with 'Daily Dumps'. Easy to handle and maintain. Please check with them.

18) Paper and other recyclable waste from your home are best reused by making them into some art and craft form. Sky is the limit on what you can do with such waste if you have an inclination for crafts making. Our children at home keep playing around with such waste. It is not advisable to convert them into an energy form. You can only burn them, which means pollution again. There is an interesting method of making some of the 'burnable' waste into pellets. But this, in my mind, is not practical to apply at home.

Hope this helps. Do get back to us if we can help in any other way.

--
I Am New,
Krish Murali Eswar.