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PODCAST

Home Green Homes

This channel explores affordable, resilient, and sustainable homes through conversations with green building professionals, architects, designers, homeowners, developers, and real estate professionals.Topics include green building, energy-efficient homes, electrification, climate-resilient housing, and future-ready real estate.The podcast is for homeowners, buyers, and realtors interested in sustainable real estate, as well as builders and designers working at the intersection of affordability,

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All Episodes

00:37:33

107. Mushrooms in Net-Zero Home with Bill Spohn

Home Green Homes ·

2026/09/28

Most home tours happen on move-in day, when everything's shiny and nobody's tested anything yet. This one is different — Bill Spohn and his wife built a net-zero, airtight, modular "Pretty Good House" outside Pittsburgh, and they've lived in it for six years.So what actually happened? A factory installation mistake led to a rotted subfloor and — yes — mushrooms growing under the shower. Two windows still won't seal in winter (there's blue painter's tape involved). The AC failed once from a bad

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00:54:04

106. Wealth=Health On Planet Earth - David Gottfried...

Home Green Homes ·

2026/09/01

David Gottfried — often called the godfather of the green building movement — co-founded the U.S. Green Building Council in 1993 and the World Green Building Council in 1998. He's the author of four books, including his newest, Regen360, and he joins the show to talk about something more personal than LEED scorecards: what it actually took to green his own homes, and what he wishes more buyers, sellers, and flippers understood.We talk about the 1930s Craftsman kit home in Berkeley he renovated into

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00:35:29

105. Beyond the FEMA Map with Albert Slap

Home Green Homes ·

2026/07/16

Sustainability alone won't protect your home from Mother Nature. In this episode, Izumi Tanaka talks with Albert Slap — environmental attorney turned founder of RiskFootprint.com — about why resilience and sustainability are two sides of the same coin. Albert breaks down why FEMA flood maps miss huge amounts of real flood risk (120,000 homes flooded outside the FEMA zone during Hurricane Harvey), why he pays $5,000/year just for hurricane wind coverage on his own home, and how a $5,000 roof-to-wall

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00:34:29

104. Eco-Flip Playbook: Real Talk with Mary Love

Home Green Homes ·

2026/04/30

What does it actually look like to flip a house the green way — and make the numbers work?In this episode, Izumi sits down with Mary Love, a North Carolina-based green realtor, building scientist, and project manager who has been doing eco-conscious real estate investment long before "green homes" was a mainstream term. Mary shares hard-won lessons from decades of rehabbing and renting energy-efficient properties — from wrangling reluctant HVAC contractors to educating appraisers on the value of

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00:38:29

103. Built to Last. Or Fail? with George Siegel

Home Green Homes ·

2026/04/01

Are homes really built to last… or just built to sell?In this eye-opening episode, Izumi sits down with documentary filmmaker George Siegal, creator of Built to Last: Buyer Beware, to uncover the uncomfortable truth about how most homes are actually built—and why so many fail when disaster strikes.From hurricanes in Florida to wildfires in California, George shares heartbreaking stories of homeowners who lost everything—and the common patterns behind those losses. The biggest takeaway? Most homes

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00:31:01

102. A Father's Journey for Green Home with Nick Grimm

Home Green Homes ·

2026/03/18

In this episode of Home Green Homes, Izumi Tanaka talks with Nick Grimm — a father, homeowner, and sustainability professional who is gradually transforming his 1953 Los Angeles home into a healthier and more energy-efficient space.Nick didn’t begin with a master sustainability plan. Like many homeowners, his journey started with basic maintenance: replacing appliances when they broke and making upgrades when necessary. But as he learned more about sustainability, each decision became an opportunity

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00:32:30

101. Electrifying Made Easy with Elephant Energy: ...

Home Green Homes ·

2026/02/25

If you're a homeowner wondering whether it’s time to replace gas appliances with electric alternatives — this episode is for you.In Episode 102 of Home Green Homes, Izumi chats with Akanksha Mathur, General Manager for Southern California at Elephant Energy, to discuss what it really takes to electrify your home.From heat pumps and induction cooking to rebates, incentives, and indoor air quality — we break down the electrification process step-by-step.Elephant Energy is a Certified B-Corp focused on

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00:23:46

100. Prefab for a Changing Climate: A Conversation...

Home Green Homes ·

2026/02/11

What does it really take to build homes that are beautiful, efficient, resilient, and responsible?In this special 100th episode of Home Green Homes, Izumi Tanaka welcomes Steve Glenn, founder and CEO of Plant Prefab, for an in-depth conversation that weaves together architecture, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and climate action.Steve traces his path from an early love of architecture to founding LivingHomes and later Plant Prefab—companies created to challenge the waste, inefficiency, and

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00:40:15

3.37 Creating Super Cool Future with Josh Dorfman

Home Green Homes ·

2025/06/27

“So when I think about a future that is solving climate, I think about raising our quality of life. I think about more inclusive cities with wonderful parks, and it's a fantastic mass transportation that's really considered a luxury good because whether you're the wealthiest person in that city or the poorest, you all want to be on the same subway or the same bus because it's simply the best way to get around and everyone enjoys these types of amenities.There are examples of that all

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00:42:59

3.36 Nature Inspired Robotic Design

Home Green Homes ·

2025/06/13

“We’re always inspired by nature and using nature as a starting point. So we can use the most advanced technology whether it’s robotics or parametric design using algorithms, AI. Regardless of the technologies our goal is to create something that’s beautiful and it’s just works as far as the simplicity. And there’s kind of a synergy in the work we do. So we’re hoping to use this advanced technology beautiful forms in the nature and having everything work together really well.” - Joseph

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00:38:22

3.35 Why Earthen Buildings with Sasha Rabin

Home Green Homes ·

2025/05/18

“I think there's a whole new awareness right now after these fires in LA, at least for people who live in California of like, just actually how toxic our whole houses are. So, you know, the answer for some might be, “oh, I was going to buy a new couch and I'm going to buy a couch that's cotton instead of like plastic,” you know, just smaller things. And, yeah, the more people that could be building a whole house out of natural materials right now, that's amazing.” - Sasha

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00:36:39

3.34 Resilient and Affordable Zero Energy Homes with...

Home Green Homes ·

2025/04/21

“The secret is cost shifting. That’s the secret. So we shift the cost from expensive mechanical systems into the quality of the building shell, of the building envelope. We have what we call a super-insulated building envelope. We have triple-glazed windows. We have insulated frames. They get installed in a certain fashion. And we basically take… we beef up the building envelope. it’s super-insulated that means insulation is cheap. Insulation is the cheapest building material on the planet.

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00:33:35

3.33 Creating Toxin Free Homes with Karen Bloom

Home Green Homes ·

2025/03/06

Healthy home supports your health, in my opinion, from the air we’re breathing, the materials around you, it's designed to promote your health and it prioritizes air quality, has items that are made from non-toxic materials, and it actively reduces toxins, you can actively reduce toxins when you have practices that support a healthy home. So all that is also going to be good for the environment typically. - Karen BloomKaren started her career as a consumer protection attorney, fighting against

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00:46:36

3.32 Navigating the Electrification Rebates with...

Home Green Homes ·

2024/12/13

"The fact of the matter is your heating your home and cooling your home and heating your water are the two biggest loads to your electric bill. They cost the most in in your home. So this is an opportunity to yes decarbonize and do right for the environment and our grid but also for energy usage. And the products are there. There's more and more coming for sure. " - Anita SinghaThe much anticipated rebate part of the Inflation Reduction Act, HEEHRA, Home Energy Efficiency Rebate program

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00:31:25

3.31 Let's Go Electric with Incentives with Aimee Bailey

Home Green Homes ·

2024/10/03

We are focused on incentives for home upgrade projects. We’re focused right now on residential space. If anyone is listening or you might have applied for a rebate program in the past, like an appliance rebate program through a government agency or utility, it oftentimes can be quite challenging. So we provide an end to end solution to make it very easy for folks to pre-qualify projects for all available incentives as well as then to claim the funds. And you can think of us as kind of a TurboTax

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00:49:52

3.30 Living in Harmony at Eco-Village with Lois Arkin

Home Green Homes ·

2024/07/22

If you’re thinking about starting an Eco-Village, you wanna know, essentially you want to know what are the issues with soil, with air, with water, in your bio-region, in the ecological region that you live in; what are the relationships that you have with your elected officials that have the power over the area where you want to make this happen; who are your neighbors, and what kind of relationships you have with those neighbors whether they’re rural, farm neighbors, or whether they’re urban

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00:38:37

3.29 Getting Comfy with the World's Smartest Heater...

Home Green Homes ·

2024/06/20

“And what we did was, ‘let’s combine the performance of heat pump, off the shelf heat pump, heat pump water heater, with thermal storage with really really smart controls, and you can reap the benefit of that heat pump by shifting the load to the middle of the day and giving you a heat and hot water whenever you need it.” - Jane MeliaJane Melia, Co-founder and CEO of Harvest, the smart thermal battery system explains the genesis of Harvest. She discusses the limitations of traditional heat pump

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00:27:14

3.28 Reducing Plastic Waste One Product At A Time...

Home Green Homes ·

2024/04/29

“During Covid I started to think more about the products I was using and plastics. I’d always used refilled bottles for water and I’d reuse plastic bags at the grocery store. Then I heard the statistics that 2.5 billion tons of trash are in the landfill just from hand and body lotion alone and hand and body wash… “ - Libby Bourne Libby Bourne is the store manager for a sustainable store Sun Moon Rain in Santa Monica, offering refillable cleaning and personal care products. The store aims to

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00:33:01

3.27 Live Natural with Ali Davin

Home Green Homes ·

2024/04/15

"We’re not sacrificing anything aesthetic. We’re not sacrificing anything ergonomic by being mindful. We’re just pausing and thinking about it and making a good decision instead of rushing through to check everything off the list. It’s not going to be apparent in the final end result that you did everything in a very sustainable mindful way. It looks the same. It functions the same. It’s just going to last, and it didn’t hurt anyone in the process. And if it’s ripped out, it’s not going

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00:35:33

3.26 How To Reduce Waste in Daily Life with Denise Braun

Home Green Homes ·

2024/04/01

“You as a consumer, I as a consumer have enormous power to make the transformation that we want to see. But one of the transformations as a consumer is selecting the right products because the competitor who is not doing the right packaging or the right product is going to see that they’re losing clients to the competitors that are doing more sustainable product, produce and materials, so he’s gonna change. He’s only going to change because us as consumers are driving the change by purchasing the

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