Last night we were visited by the Clean Calgary Association as part of their 'Healthy Homes' program, a free service being provided to the first 400 households that sign up (there are still some spots available, get involved here).

I wasn't sure what to expect from the visit but I was impressed by the scope of what was accomplished over about an hour and a half. The program takes the whole home into account and the visit started with a quick interview about our house and some of our habits.

Then we did a room-by-room walk through of the house and I was surprised to see how much power was being used by my home office even when everything was turned off or in "stand-by mode". We also looked at all of our cleaning supplies and which are good and bad and they made several recommendations for improvements. They tested the toilets for leaks, gave us free compact fluorescent light bulbs and even offered to provide a free low-flow shower head as well as information about the City of Calgary's $50 rebate for low flow toilets (pdf brochure).

Given the age of our house (built in the 1960's) I was actually pleasantly surprised to see our electricity, gas and water use compared quite well with the average Calgary household. Did you know that the average Calgary household uses 6000 liters of water per person per month? Also, 12% of the water used in Calgary is lost to leakage.

We talked about indoor air quality and the effect of different cleaners and different types of vacuums and furnace filters. We compared our energy bills to averages for similar sized homes to see how we were doing by comparison.

They looked at all the appliances and prioritized updates and improvements that could be made there and even discussed how we can adjust our landscaping and gardening plans to make them as clean and sustainable as possible.

My overall impression of the program was excellent, I would recommend it to anyone who is concerned about reducing their waste (ie. bills) and improving things like interior air quality. The program is FREE and there are still spots open if you're interested.

Visit #2 will be in about 3 months when they will be bringing us a second composter for the backyard AND a rain barrel to be connected to our downspout.

The Healthy Homes program has many sponsors, including the Alberta Real Estate Foundation.