In July 2011 I had a new Aluminum shingle roof installed on my house by American Metal Roof. After the project was completed, my attic and roof were much better vented, my second floor was cooler, my rainwater was no longer fouled by asphalt and I had a great looking roof with a lifetime warranty. I am quite pleased with the roof.

This week I will be having my home insulated by Streamline Enterprises. They use a unique spray in insulation called "AirKrete" it is nontoxic, fire proof and provided great R-value, which is a rating for how good of an insulator a material is per inch. The higher the R-value, the better the insulator. So I plan to provide updates on progress in greening my home so that others can learn from my experiences and hopefully be inspired to start making some improvements to their own homes. Improvements that will save them money right away and help our environment as well.

This last fall, I had the home energy audit done by Pro Energy Solutions. Pro Energy is a small local company that only does energy audits so they do not have any financial incentive to sell you products that you may not need, which is why I chose them. While my home scored fairly well in the audit, the report also identified a lot of room for improvement. The biggest issues that I faced was that the second floor was really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter. Since my home inspector recommended replacing the roof, I decided to make the roof my top priority.

So I researched the different roofing options available to me and I decided to go with a metal roof from a local Michigan company, American Metal Roof.
Among the many advantages of a metal roof included greater sunlight reflectivity for keeping my home cool in the summer and better snow shedding ability in the winter. I also liked the idea of getting rid of my asphalt shingles since they break down into toxic chemicals that would end up in my soil in the yard.

Greeting everyone on Patch.com! My name is Stephen Kiluk, I've lived in Saint Clair Shores my entire life and I really like this town. I currently serve on the Waterfront Environmental Committee for the City of Saint Clair Shores, I facilitate a local Transition Town Movement group in Saint Clair Shores and I am a practicing Pharmacist at St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital In Warren Michigan.

This is my first blog post and I plan on providing many more as I work to help our community become more sustainable.
The Challenges that local communities all over the world face are substantial. Lack of money, lack of jobs, lack of new business activity, capital, people and resources leaving the area the list of issues that we face is lengthy, but so are the potential solutions to these problems.