Greening Your Home (VIDEO): Too Much Red Tape?

Greening your home from the ground up sounds is always a good idea, but for the Millers from northern Florida, the venture proved to be a bureaucratic mess, the Today Show's Kerry Sanders reported.

When tropical storm Fay hit northern Florida in August 2008, the Millers saw the hurricane as an opportunity to rebuild their home, making it green every step of the way and recycling the old house for the new, Sanders said.

The Millers reused 1.38 tons of glass, 1,920 pounds of combined metals, 1,600 pounds of aluminum, and 280 pounds of insulated wire.

All that reuse is impressive and undoubtedly cut some costs. But for the bulk of the financing that should be coming from the government, $95,000 to be exact, the Millers are still waiting, 20 months later. We applaud home owners for taking green initiatives --we hope the government will work to start rewarding these great efforts instead of creating too much red tape.

WATCH Sanders' report:

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Comments

[Caliwoman]

12:35 AM on 04/30/2010

We are slowly building a straw bale home out of pocket. Architect designed, gorgeous, but no loans available.

[Rebecca Brown]

06:11 PM on 04/28/2010

My family just built an off-the-grid green home... rammed earth, passive solar design, solar powered, soy based sealants, recycled denim insulation, et al. Now we're having issues getting financing for a mortgage because (supposedly) off-the-grid homes aren't easily resold on the secondary market... There's this huge push to go "green" but in most cases, the powers that be only want you to throw in an extra layer of (toxic) fiberglass insulation, and buy energy efficient appliances.

[The Meek]

09:36 AM on 04/28/2010

Dealing with the bureaucracy can be a real hassle. There have been books written about it. The one that first comes to mind is The Peter Principle.

Before the Tea Party type people get all "I told you so." about it, I would also like to point out that big corporations have the same problems. One difference is that if it is government , you can always go over the crats head and still get something done, but with corporations your complaint just gets placed in file 13 or it's electronic equivalent. [the delete key]

I have always tried to avoid dealing with the government by being as self sufficient as possible, but when I have had to I have found most people in the bureaucracy pleasant and helpful.