It's winter and you're probably realizing how awful your insulation is -- I'm looking at you, Seattle -- and also starting to rethink that last addition to the house, when you used single-pane windows that now render the room useless.

 

When faced with this dilemma, building owners wonder how to become more efficient at little cost. Last week, Planet Forward, a community of energy experts and concerned citizens, crowdsourced ideas for a church in New England that was looking for a way to "go green." The recommendations we received ran the gamut -- from "retrofit" to "here's how to get a rebate" to "start all over and here's how."

 

The winning idea for Katherine — the member who posted the request — was to start a university competition that would solicit design plans for the community's new parish hall, which will house a school, offices and other facilities. We also like the idea of creating an educational program for parishioners to help engage their community in the work. It's not just about going green, it's about inspiring people to rethink their energy choices.

 

Some practical tips to save energy are always good in frigid times like these:

 

But Planet Forward's members have been looking into much more interesting and innovative ways to increase a building's efficiency. We reached through our archive and came up with a few ideas of our own for how they could retrofit their sanctuary and ideas for rebuilding the parish hall:

 

Insulate with greensulate

Ecovative's insulating material is grown from mushrooms and is completely recyclable -- when you're done with it, just put it into the garden and let it compost. But the best thing about it is that it won't burn and it doesn't use petrochemicals.

 

Reuse your waste: Year-round gardening

Any school is going to generate a lot of waste. Learn from the students at Clarkson University and convert that waste into food. They've developed a system to support year-round greenhouse gardening that will save you bucks, deliciously.