Village Road resident Ed Haemmerle is a strong proponent of practicing what he preaches. And what he preaches has him slowly but surely transforming his house until it becomes completely carbon neutral.##M:[more]##
For Haemmerle, a firefighter in Robbinsville by day, who has also been involved in the GroWW (Greening of West Windsor) environmental fair planning, his commitment to reducing his effect on the environment is even extending into his own construction business, which he has converted to a renewable energy focus.
Haemmerle grew up in Montgomery and attended the Hun school. His mother worked for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Plainsboro as an administrative assistant, and his father worked most of his career at Western Electric/Bell Labs on the fiberoptic cables that run along the ocean floor from country to country. His stepfather worked as a statistician.
After graduating from Hun, Haemmerle was accepted into Rider University, but chose to take a year off and never attended because it just wasn’t for him. He worked in various places, including a couple of years at CUH2A, an architectural engineering company. He also worked as an EMT in Union City for seven years. He ultimately decided to become a firefighter like the three generations of firefighters on his mother’s side. He had begun volunteering in West Windsor about 15 years ago, until he became a career firefighter eight years ago in Robbinsville.
Haemmerle moved to West Windsor after renting a room in a house in Dutch Neck in between jobs. He then moved to what is today known as Avalon Watch, which is where he met his wife, Louise, a music teacher at Grover Middle School. “I lived on the third floor, and she lived on the first floor,” he said. He said he was having a party, and knew two girls moved in downstairs. He knocked on their door to invite them, and “the rest is history.” His wife also shares his eco-friendly philosophy, he says. Then moved back to Dutch Neck eventually, and the couple live on Village Road West with their two sons, Eddie, 5, and Daniel, 3.
While Haemmerle says he has always been interested in sustainable development — his sister also has a degree in the field from Brown University — and while he has always respected Al Gore’s stance on the environment, it was watching his “An Inconvenient Truth” that sparked the motivation to transform his home and his business about a year ago.
“I saw that our future, not only our nation’s future, but the planet’s future, meant that we needed to change the way we use and produce energy, and I wanted to get in on the ground floor of doing it,” Haemmerle says.
He started at ground level, and began to “chip away” in getting rid of everything that uses fossil fuels.
“The first thing anyone should do is conserve and reduce what they’re using in the first place,” Haemmerle explained. He said he started paying attention to turning the lights off, and just cutting back on his use in general. He then began replacing normal light bulbs with those that use low energy, creating a compost pile, and buying energy-efficient appliances.
From there, he sold his pickup truck and bought a Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and installed a geothermal system in his home for heating and cooling and hot water. He videotaped the installation process, turned it into a documentary to inform others how to do the same, and posted it on YouTube. He is looking next at installing solar panels, and eventually even a windmill, and he is working toward becoming certified to do so.
Because his house was built 55 years ago, it cannot be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, but he does want it to be completely neutral at some point. He no longer has a gas-fired furnace, and there are only three remaining appliances that use natural gas in his home — his barbecue grill, clothes dryer, and cook top. “I’m trying to convert everything to electricity,” he explains. “I can’t make gas, and I can’t make oil, but I can make electricity. Everything is going to be electricity at some point.”
Haemmerle says he stopped treating his lawn with any type of fertilizer, and when he cuts it, he mulches the grass clippings instead of bagging it.
When he is “carbon neutral,” Haemmerle will be emitting no net carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus reducing his impact on the environment, or removing as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as we put in.
And converting his business, Haemmerle Construction LLC, also proves to benefit Haemmerle, who says “it’s twice as enjoyable when you can make money and do the right thing.”
“My sole purpose isn’t to make money,” he explains. “I have a sole purpose of having an earth my kids can live in when I’m gone.”
Haemmerle also has been working on his website — www.njrenewableenergy.com — to show people what he has been doing, why he has been doing it, and to get them to join him. Originally created by using a basic web editing application on his iMac, Haemmerle says he is considering hiring someone to give the site a more professional look, especially if he is going to develop his green construction company. In fact, his website is what drew Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman, one of the founders and organizers of the GroWW event, to ask for his involvement .
For Haemmerle, converting his house not only reduces his carbon footprint, but will also serve as a model to show clients of his business, who, in the future, might be interested in having him install some of these sustainable features. Haemmerle says he has already received a few phone calls from people who have asked him to install their geothermal systems.
One of the common reasons people give for not indulging in sustainable products is that they feel that it is too expensive, but Haemmerle says the industry is starting to change a corner to become more cost-effective. “Like anything, it has an up front cost,” Haemmerle says. “Over time it’s an investment that you’re putting into your house, to the earth, to everything. I’ll have my system paid for in six to seven years. Who buys an appliance and says, ‘When is it going to pay me back?’”
And when it comes to hybrid cars, people may question why someone would buy a hybrid when it costs $7,”000 more — $7,”000 that could be used toward purchasing gas, he says. “Everyone fails to calculate the fact that it’s destroying the earth,” he says. “Cheap oil has been what’s been holding us back. Finally, it’s caught up. As sad as it to say, I hope it goes up another dollar.”
He says there is not one answer to becoming more environmentally conscious, but it all begins with changing society’s mentality. “I’m not saying I’m not one of them,” he emphasizes. “I still own one big gas-guzzling SUV. I’m not perfect by any means.”
“We as a people, as Americans — to some point — many of us are arrogant,” he added. “We think we own the planet. Everyone else is subservient to us. We have to change the way we see ourselves and the way we do business.”
At this point, Haemmerle says he is waiting for the costs of solar panels to come down slightly more, and says he feels solar panels are a better choice then windmills for residents in West Windsor because the area does not have a large amount of wind activity, compared with places near the ocean. “If I spend $9,”000 to install a wind turbine, but save $200 a year, it doesn’t make much sense,” he says. “I can buy a solar panel that works 10 times better.” Still, he says he is looking to install the windmill in the future because he wants his house to be a model.
Another common misconception, says Haemmerle, is that purchasing environmentally friendly appliances or cars means that a person is “settling” for something that is of lesser quality. But, for example, in the case of having a geothermal system, it actually works five times better, and it saves money in heating and cooling costs, he says. He says when he purchased his hybrid, many of his friends were shocked to see that the car actually has all of the same features as its non-hybrid counterpart.
“It’s human nature,” he says. “People don’t like things that are different. I’m doing it because I believe in it.”
And Haemmerle also does not buy into the notion that changing the way people live means that the earth will be worse off, or that the economy will be ruined by environmental initiatives. He says that going out to drill for more oil does not solve the problem of high gas prices.
“If you’re addicted to heroin, how do you solve the problem?” he said. “You don’t go out and say, go get more heroin.”
