Give as a gift
Golden Real Estate's 1,300-square-foot office building has a gas forced air furnace with A/C unit on the roof, but it was taken out of service in November 2017, replaced by a roof-mounted heat pump unit driving three interior mini-split units. Water heating for bathroom and a car wash behind the office is done by a tankless electric water heater installed in 2007. The 20 kW of solar photovoltaic panels provide more than enough electricity to heat & cool the office, power everything in it, and charge the brokers' four Teslas and one Chevy Volt, plus provide free charging to the general public. The company also has a Styrofoam Corral behind the office, and enough polystyrene is dropped off there 24/7 that the company takes two truckloads of Styrofoam to a reprocessing center in Aurora twice a month, keeping over 200 cubic yards of the stuff out of landfills every year. The company also provides free moving boxes (all reused multiple times) and free packing paper and bubble wrap (also mostly reused) to the buyers and sellers who hire Golden Real Estate. Inside, instead of single-use K-Cups, the company's Keurig coffee maker has a refillable plastic coffee holder in the shape of a K-Cup which is refillable with ground coffee. Daylighting from four Velux sun tunnels provides enough light that internal lighting isn't required on most days. Super-insulation and triple-pane Alpen windows reduce the electricity needed to heat and cool the office. All in all, Golden Real Estate's office is a model for other companies for how to "go net zero."
Golden Real Estate's 1,300-square-foot office building has a gas forced air furnace with A/C unit on the roof, but it was taken out of service in November 2017, replaced by a roof-mounted heat pump unit driving three interior mini-split units. Water heating for bathroom and a car wash behind the office is done by a tankless electric water heater installed in 2007. The 20 kW of solar photovoltaic panels provide more than enough electricity to heat & cool the office, power everything in it, and charge the brokers' four Teslas and one Chevy Volt, plus provide free charging to the general public. The company also has a Styrofoam Corral behind the office, and enough polystyrene is dropped off there 24/7 that the company takes two truckloads of Styrofoam to a reprocessing center in Aurora twice a month, keeping over 200 cubic yards of the stuff out of landfills every year. The company also provides free moving boxes (all reused multiple times) and free packing paper and bubble wrap (also mostly reused) to the buyers and sellers who hire Golden Real Estate. Inside, instead of single-use K-Cups, the company's Keurig coffee maker has a refillable plastic coffee holder in the shape of a K-Cup which is refillable with ground coffee. Daylighting from four Velux sun tunnels provides enough light that internal lighting isn't required on most days. Super-insulation and triple-pane Alpen windows reduce the electricity needed to heat and cool the office. All in all, Golden Real Estate's office is a model for other companies for how to "go net zero."
