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Sustainability is a huge trend in many areas. You have seen politicians speak about it, while many businesses have gone all in on finding ways to make their products more eco-friendly. However, these don’t really apply to you. The average person is not responsible for significant environmental damage compared to larger corporations, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still live a sustainable lifestyle. If you want to lessen your impact, here are five ways you can make your home eco-friendly.
Generate Your Own Energy
Generating your energy with solar panels, wind turbines, and other options is an excellent way to reduce your footprint. These approaches can help you become energy neutral, as you may create as much energy as you consume. Furthermore, you may also receive government incentives for installing this machinery, giving you more benefits of generating energy yourself.
Grow Fruits and Vegetables
Similarly, you can create a fruit and vegetable patch to grow crops. While you won’t be able to reach the industrial scale of many farms, you can still save yourself the trouble of running to the supermarket for fresh greens. Besides fruit and vegetables, you can also look at the best ways to breed chickens sustainably, as this can produce fresh eggs whenever you need them and ensures you create a safe and cruelty-free environment for them.
Buy Sustainable Furniture
As furniture is essential for your home, you already know you need to buy it. But, if you want to be more sustainable, you need to look at other resources. The typical furniture store may be convenient, but it isn’t always sustainable. Instead, look for second-hand products, make your bed frame from spare wood, or purchase wooden beds that can give you many years of use and are easy to recycle when you need to buy a new one. You can also repurpose other items and transform them into useful pieces to use around the house, such as using barrels as bedside tables.
Watch What You Use
A sustainable household must watch what it uses and adjust its habits to prevent unnecessary waste. One of the biggest household wastes is water. You should already be aware that baths are not environmentally friendly, so taking showers is a better solution. Likewise, wasted food can become a significant issue. While you can’t eat everything, you can still use leftovers by putting them into stews or composting them.
Get Crafty
Too many people feel like they need new things every few months. They need brand new clothes or books or shoes. While upgrading the wardrobe is always fun, it isn’t always necessary. At least not with brand-new things. You can repurpose old clothes or use thrift stores to give many items a second chance. The same goes for household essentials. Making your own cleaning products is cheaper, more sustainable, and more environmentally friendly as you only need to mix environmentally suitable ingredients to get the same results.
Sustainable
A sustainable home can become a happy home. It proves that you can be self-sufficient, and you can do your part for the environment, too. It may not seem like much, but you can find peace in the knowledge that every little bit can help.
You can also make your home more eco-friendly by installing a smart thermostat. The main benefit of smart thermostats is reducing energy consumption for heating. So for every degree, you turn down your thermostat this winter, you’ll use up to 3 percent less heating energy.
Also! Think about installing earth-friendly plumbing fixtures!
Since toilets use much water, switching to a high-efficiency model can drastically reduce water consumption and bills. While older toilets can use up to 7 gallons a flush, most high-efficiency toilets use only 1.5 gallons of water per flush, and some use even less!
Another way to make a home more eco-friendly is to improve how much heat is reserved in the building — in other words, improve its insulation.
Most homeowners invest considerably in their homes’ heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. However, the effectiveness and efficiency of these systems may be highly compromised without proper insulation. Insufficient insulation can cause your HVAC system to work harder and thus generate higher energy costs.
You can also make your home more eco-friendly by using energy-efficient air conditioning systems. Such things as SEER rating and ENERGY STAR labeling show the system’s efficiency. Also, please remember to check recent changes of efficiency standards for HVAC systems.
These changes are legally effective from January 1, 2023.
Another thing you should pay attention to going towards sustainable living is HVAC maintenance. Poorly maintained cooling and heating systems consume more energy and reduce indoor air quality.
To make your home more eco-friendly, also improve the energy efficiency of your swimming pool. For this, switch to a variable speed pool pump. Unlike single-speed pumps, which operate at a fixed speed and consume a constant amount of energy, variable speed pumps can adjust their motor speed to match the specific needs of a pool at any given time. This means that they can operate at a lower speed when less water flow is required, reducing energy consumption and cost.
Also, think about how you can reduce your energy consumption. One sure way to be more energy-efficient is to seal all windows and make sure they don’t transfer heat. However, replacing your windows with newer options might be a better solution if your windows are old. In this case, energy-efficient steel windows are worth consideration.
To make your home more eco-friendly, also consider your air conditioning system. High-efficiency units with programmable thermostats use less energy, while regular air conditioner maintenance can help improve efficiency. Additionally, using ceiling fans and shading your windows can help reduce your reliance on AC and lower your energy consumption.