Building Solutions
How Can Apartment Dwellers Transition to Clean Energy?
Give yourself credit—apartment living is inherently more energy efficient than a single-family home!
Encourage your landlord or co-op/condo board to get an energy audit of your complex and to implement its suggestions.
Choose Energy Star appliances for your apartment and check with your landlord or board for the feasibility of replacing your gas stove with an electric stove.
Encourage your landlord or co-op/condo board to investigate the possibility of replacing your current heating/cooling system with heat pumps and geothermal. Often apartment complexes are able to borrow the considerable sums required for this significant upgrade and amortize the costs over a number of years. You may be surprised by how fast your complex is able to recoup those upfront costs. Your complex may also be eligible for grants to help pay for the new system; your clean energy contractor should have the most up-to-date information. The significant disruption caused by such a large renovation is not insignificant, but the result could be increased comfort, improved health, lower costs over the long term, higher resale value, and—of course—liberation from fossil fuel.
Some co-ops in Bronxville have already upgraded their electrical grids in anticipation of requests by residents for EV charging outlets. Consider encouraging your landlord or board to make the changes now that will well position them for what is expected to be the fast adoption of EVs over the next decade.
When you renovate your own apartment, please follow the most up-to-date building codes that ensure high energy efficiencies. Consider hiring a “green” contractor who takes care to recycle building material and purchases products that have been responsibly sourced.