Thursday, January 24, 2013

Improving Your Home by Making it Green

shiny solar panelsEveryone wants to turn their home into a better living environment. Home improvement has always been popular, but increasingly the trend has turned towards projects which are all about making the house more eco-friendly. There are a whole range of ways to go green and reduce your carbon footprint. What you choose to do will depend on your finances and how much effort you?re willing to put in. Here are a few ways to make your home more environmentally friendly:

Reclaimed and Recycled

If you are looking to make structural changes to either your house or your garden, then you may wish to consider using recycled or reclaimed materials in the construction. Often waste products from one industry may be used constructively in others. For example, Fly Ash, a left over waste product from the burning of coal, can be incorporated into the production of cement. When coal is burned on an industrial scale, then there is a lot of Fly Ash left over as a by product. Reusing it, instead of putting it in land fill, is a greener option.

Old timber beams or a stone fire surroundings can also be reclaimed and used in the changes you are making to your home. Reclaimed products are not always in pristine condition, but they?ll add character and give a more rustic feel.

Energy and Water

If you are looking to make structural changes in your home then you may also want to install energy and water saving devices. These will not only save you money, but are also kinder to the environment. Install new electrical wiring where you are making changes and use the latest energy saving light bulbs. These do cost more than conventional light bulbs, but they last a lot longer and use less energy.

You may even wish to add a solar power system to your home in order to harvest and benefit from the abundance of free energy emitted from the sun. Depending on where you live, you may even be able to get a grant to subsidise the cost of installing the system. If you have enough money to invest then you may be able to install enough solar panels and a good enough system which actually produces more energy than you consume. If you do this then you can actually sell back the surplus energy to your local energy company and in turn make a profit. It will not be very long until the system has paid for itself and you can even make money out of it. Solar power is not suitable for all environments though, so you may be worth finding your local wholesale solar panel supplier. Have a talk to them about your requirements, budget and the location of your home in order to get some expert advice as to what would be best for you.

Living Green

Whatever changes you decide to make to your home to improve it and reduce your carbon footprint, you also need to alter your lifestyle as well. Recycling is something that we can all do and does not take a lot of time or effort to do. With certain products, if you have enough, you may be able to sell them to a recycling company for a small price.

These are all products that everyone goes through at home. Instead of just putting these in the rubbish and sending them off to landfill, set up a system to sort out all of your waste into categories. You can purchase a couple of extra bins and use one bin for one type of product. If you can get different coloured bins then this is even better. Use one bin for waste paper, making sure that if there is any sensitive material that it is shredded before being thrown out, one bin for glass and another for plastics. Make sure that you remove your labels before putting them in the correct bin and even these can go through the recycling process ? paper labels go in the paper bin and plastic labels go in the plastic bin.

If you have a garden then you can even recycle your leftover food. Start yourself a compost heap using the remains of your dinner. While you are at it why not do a bit of gardening and grow some fruit or vegetables? You do not need too much space and you will soon have the perfect compost so you can grow some excellent tasting produce.

We must start doing our part in preserving the environment at home. These simple tips are way easy ways to act more eco and produce less waste.

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About the Author

Max Johnson wrote this article on behalf of Avic International. You can buy solar panels wholesale from AVIC Solar and they are a market leader. Max is a family man with strong feelings about the environment.

Source: http://www.informationgateway.org/improving-home-making-green/

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