If you haven’t already realized that there is a completely green brownstone within our midst, then you probably wouldn’t be the first. Gennaro Brooks-Church, Director of Eco Brooklyn, has developed this show house as a way to highlight all the possibilities of creating an environmentally friendly house. His passion for green building techniques is quite obvious if you have ever been to Eco Brooklyn’s website or set foot in the green show house, located in Carroll Gardens. Living City Brooklyn will actually be meeting Gennaro and taking a tour of this house on Wednesday to better understand his process and to talk about potential projects that will take place in Gowanus. I, for example, was thrilled to find a Brooklynite who knew about and had previously installed a graywater system in the show house.

The green investments in this home are unbelievable. Everything from a green roof that grows strawberries to clay walls and solar panels are represented here. To rattle off the improvements would take all day so I’m limiting myself (and my excitement) to elaborating on the concepts of Zero Waste and Zero Consumption.These two concepts are broken down into the time during construction and post construction. Eco Brooklyn then measured to make sure everything in relation to waste and consumption balanced out in order to create a Net Zero home. For example, on site energy production allows for the house to consume more energy one day, but less another, thus creating a net balance of zero. To learn more about the entire process of creating a Net Zero home go to Eco Brooklyn’s website, where they have documented everything about the process.

Everyone at Living City Brooklyn is thrilled to have the chance to see these improvements first hand. Eco Brooklyn welcomes individuals and organizations six days a week, by appointment, to tour the home and ask questions. So make your appointment today and lets transforms Brooklyn’s brownstones to ‘greenstones’.