Many Hollywood types have hopped on the green bandwagon in recent years, but Ed Begley Jr. gets credit for having been on board for decades. I caught up with the 58-year-old actor and environmental activist at the International Builders’ Show on Friday, February 15, to talk about things green and a product he was pitching. (Celebs rarely show up at trade shows unless their hawking something.)

“Growing up in smoggy L.A., by 1970 I’d had a bellyful, and I wanted to do something about it,” says Begley, perhaps best known for his role as Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the 1980s TV show St. Elsewhere, about his initial interest in green matters.

His first move was the purchase of a Taylor-Dunn electric car in 1970s. The vehicle, recalls Begley, “was little more than a golf cart with windshield wipers and a horn.” These days, Begley walks and bikes to his destinations and also drives a fully electric Toyota RAV4, which he charges using solar power at his home in Studio City, California.

His house is equipped with all kinds of eco-friendly gear, including solar roof panels that can track the sun, a solar oven, and a rainwater-collection system. (See just how green Begley is at the Web site of his HGTV show, Living With Ed.)

The house also has the new A.O. Smith Vertex 100 power-vent gas water heater, the product Begley was promoting at the Builders’ Show. The Vertex uses an unusual helix configuration, basically 30 feet of coil that transfers gas-fired heat to the water (shown). This 100,000-Btu unit operates at 95 percent efficiency, according to the manufacturer, besting the 80 percent level of the most-efficient traditional water heaters. It is supposed to produce as much hot water as a typical 75-gallon model.

With a suggested retail price of around $2,000, the Vertex 100 (available only through wholesalers) isn’t cheap, though the manufacturer says it’s comparable in cost to premium water heaters. That price tag puts it above what Begley calls the “low-hanging fruit” of household energy conservation, products like compact fluorescent lightbulbs and thermostats. But, Begley reasons, the money people save using those products can eventually go toward more-expensive items.

“We’re heading in the right direction,” Begley says about making homes greener. “We haven’t completed all the tasks [toward building truly energy-efficient homes], but we’ve proved we can get there.”—Daniel DiClerico

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