Over the past year or so I’ve looked into several ways of “greening up” my company. Most of our changes so far have been in the office area and now we our focusing on the production side. As I find more ways to make my own company green I will share them so others can learn from our experiences.

Since we install doors and windows, we use a ton of caulking each year. With exterior caulking comes the need for a place to wipe off the extra caulking and rags to clean up any mess that we make. In the past we have tried the heavy duty paper towels and they tend to rip. We have also tried the cheap hand towels and shop rags that they sell at the home centers without any luck. Last year we switched over to recycled tee-shirts which we purchased from The Paint Store.

Another major change for us was switching over to an environmentally safe, low VOC caulking. Each replacement window that we install requires between 1/3-1/2 of a tube of caulking so over the course of a year it adds up. Now our challenge is to find a way to recycle all of our empty caulking tubes. One of the major rewards of switching over our caulking came from a price reduction, our cost went from $4.33 a tube down to $2.98 a tube! Going green and saving green ($$$) is real bonus. Our new caulking vendor is www.windowcomponent.com

Caulking Specs:

• AAMA Certified
• Non-Yellowing
• Environmentally friendly
• No Solvents, Very Low VOCs
• Can Be Painted in 2 hours
• Fast Cure at a wide range of temperatures
• Aggressive Adhesion to common construction substrates
• Compatible with SBS Flashing
• Available in over 60 colors

In a recent contest on lifegoogles.com, I won a couple of free Green products. One of them is a Sigg water bottle. Granted winning a water bottle is not the most exciting event known to man but it’s worthy of a short post. If you look at Sigg’s website you can learn about how their bottles are doing a small part in reducing the use of plastic bottles. Their site has some really cool looking water bottles,  take a look at some of the cool designs.

My new bottle has replaced my stainless steel drinking cup since the lid prevents my 2 year old from spilling my water. The bottle also travels with me during the day, now I just need a larger version since I drink about a gallon of water a day. Thumbs up to Sigg for producing a product that will reduce waste!