5 Ways to Make Your Home More Eco-Friendly
Every now and then your home needs a makeover. When this moment arrives, it is very important that you get an overall perspective of what should and should not be done. Going green with your remodeling project can reduce the environmental impact and carbon footprint of your home. It can also reduce the cost of its upkeep and maintenance. Because of this, going eco-friendly might be just the perfect way to handle your renovations. With this in mind, here are the top 5 eco-friendly renovation ideas you might want to consider for your home.
1. Think About Energy Efficiency
The first thing you need to boost is the energy efficiency of your home. To get there, you need to make your home cheaper to heat up in the winter, as well as less costly to cool down in the summer. In order to achieve this, you need to focus on improving several aspects of your home. The first thing you want to do is insulate your household. Luckily, numerous countries offer insulation grants and even provide free materials for homeowners who are interested in such a thing.
Another thing you want to do is replace all your single-pane windows with double-glazing ones and even replace all your exterior doors. Finally, you shouldn’t underestimate the amount of energy that leaves your home through the roof. As for the roof insulation, this can easily be done as a DIY project, which can make this renovation a bit more frugal.
2. Produce Your Own Energy
The next step towards making your home truly eco-friendly lies in the idea of making your own energy. One of the easiest ways to do so is to install some solar panels on your home, however, this solution may be a bit too pricey. You see, it takes 7 to 20 years for such an investment to pay off, which might be more than you are ready to go for at the moment. As a cheaper alternative, you might want to go for a solar-powered water heater, which can pay itself off in as little as 2 years.
3. Repurpose Old Appliances
As for your old household appliances, there are more than a few eco-friendly ideas. First, you might want to check if there are some of them that could easily be repaired and put to good use once more (If not, you might want to consult specialists such as the Total Appliance repair centre). If you want to get rid of them, Instead of throwing the appliances away you might want to donate them or even repurpose them and use them as decoration. Either one of these methods reduces the amount of waste that your household produces and in this way minimizes its environmental impact.
4. Rethink the Lighting Situation
One of the best ways to make your home less power-reliant is to rethink its light situation. For instance, the more your home relies on the natural light, the smaller your utility bill and the smaller its power consumption. By installing larger windows, removing non-supporting walls and pillars and even placing mirrors at strategic locations, you can easily get the most out of the natural light.
The next thing you can do in order to make your home eco-friendlier is replace all off your artificial light sources with LED ones. Namely, LED has four times better Watt-to-lumens ratio than their incandescent counterpart. For instance, in order to produce the light of 600 lm intensity, you would have to either use 40 W strong incandescent bulb or a 10 W LED one. Apart from this, LED bulbs also last significantly longer, which reduces the amount of waste your home is producing.
5. Use Reclaimed Wood Furniture
Finally, when it comes to furnishing your home, you might want to take a closer look at the material. For instance, while reclaimed wood may be a bit more expensive, it is completely eco-friendly. By investing in it you are showing your stance against a rampant deforestation and making your interior completely unique at the same time. A more frugal alternative to this would be to purchase furniture made out of pre-owned materials instead of getting brand-new items for your household. As for the rest of your design, you might also want to turn towards accessories made out of recycled materials.
Your Home Will be More Valuable
The best thing about making your home eco-friendly is that you are making a long-term investment in it. Low-cost of the utility will not only make your budgeting easier but also give your home a resale-value boost, should you ever decide to move. For all these reasons and many others we failed to mention, it would be a good idea to make your next renovation an eco-friendly one.
