From SF Gate

Like a lot of Bay Area homeowners, Alissa Hauser and husband Steve Brown have already done the small things to save on utility bills and pursue a green life: lower the thermostat, install energy-efficient lightbulbs, use old T-shirts for rags instead of paper towels.

But earlier this month, the East Bay couple took a longer stride into the do-it-yourself green home improvement era by spending a Saturday afternoon routing gray water pipes from their laundry machine to their garden. Now, each time they run a load of dirty clothes, the excess H{-2}O runs through a filtering system that waters their apple, plum and lemon trees. "In many ways, environmentalism has become an expensive, consumer-driven effort," Hauser, a director at a nonprofit, said. "But this kind of project proves environmentalism can be a money-saving lifestyle, too."

Hauser and Brown, who spent $250 on materials for a project from which they'll potentially save thousands of dollars, are part of a new generation of green-minded homeowners who are eagerly switching lightbulb brands but can't afford the $15,000 to $25,000 required to install rooftop solar panels. To cut water and energy bills - and to help reduce their carbon footprints - these weekend tinkerers are risking the chance of wrecking their homes and are rerouting gray water lines, insulating walls with recycled materials and constructing rain harvesters, to name a few DIY green home techniques.

"I'd like to think do-it-yourself is going mainstream," said Bob Freeman, editor-in-chief of Smart HomeOwner, a magazine that covers residential environmental efficiency. "But for many homeowners, taking on a project to convert it to green makes them very, very nervous. There's a big learning curve with a lot of the technology out there, and there's also a lot of varying opinions and debates as to how to do things correctly."

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