Can This Home Be Greened? Perfect for Her: Improving a Walnut Creek, California, Home

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Judy Adler loves her California home. Photo By Carol Venolia

When Judy Adler and her family moved into their Walnut Creek, California, home in 1978, it seemed just right. The 2,700 square feet, 4 bedrooms and large yard were perfect for two parents and two growing children. Over the years, Judy created an oasis of native and food-producing plants in the garden; an avid environmental educator, she has shared it with schoolchildren and the community. Her backyard wildlife habitat is widely celebrated, and her garden produces enough food to sell excess.

The children are now grown up, and she is no longer married. Still, Judy doesn’t want to leave her beautiful house and garden. Instead, she wants to demonstrate how sustainable suburban homes can be by making her own house as green as possible.

Judy’s gas and electric bills are already pretty low, staying under $100 per month for most of the year. The house is reasonably well-insulated and has double-pane windows. In winter, Judy dresses warmly, migrates to sunny parts of the house, and prefers a small, efficient space heater to turning on the furnace. In summer, she uses ceiling fans and natural ventilation instead of air-conditioning; deciduous trees and shrubs shade the house. She sun-dries her laundry whenever possible. Most importantly, she enjoys each season—feeling warmer in summer and colder in winter.

Still, the house has some issues.

1. High water use 

Problem: Judy’s summer water bills average $250 a month. She’s turned off several automatic watering stations now that the native landscaping is mature, and she’s replacing grass lawn with vegetables and fruit trees. But her backyard wildlife habitat pond and half-acre food garden still require water. One stormy winter, Judy’s rain gutters rusted through. She put buckets under them to catch the water and began to think about how she could use all that water.

Solution: A rooftop rainwater catchment system will let Judy store volumes of clean, free water. This will reduce her draw from the local aquifer, as well as her reliance on the chemical- and energy-intensive municipal water treatment system. Bill Lasell of Rain Harvesting Systems in nearby Fremont designed a rain catchment system that is on the roof and filters water, then diverts it via gutters and downspouts to storage tanks. 

The amount of water one can store usually depends upon the cost of storage tanks. Judy settled on three 3,000-gallon tanks, one 1,025-gallon tank and two 55-gallon rain barrels at downspouts near the food gardens. This will store a minimum of 10,000 gallons each winter.

Cost: $6,300