If you’re building your dream home, you have a unique opportunity to do right by the environment. A custom home is exciting for any homeowner because it allows you to add all the features you want to make your home your oasis.
But along with the new features, you can choose to make your custom home more environmentally friendly. Choosing a green home construction process is not just a cool feature but also better for the overall environmental good.
Here are the nine things you should consider when you choose to build your home.
1. A Smart Roof
Heating and cooling a home is both expensive and detrimental to the environment. Cracking the thermostat up in any direction doesn’t do much to converse energy.
But what are you supposed to do if your home is too hot or too cold? You might not know that the reason your home has uncomfortable temperatures is that you’re losing all your cool and hot air through the roof.
If you’re building your own home, consider adding a cool roof. In the spring and summer, the roof reflects sunlight, keeping your home cool. In fall and winter, the thermal materials create insulation to keep warm air inside.
2. The Classic Three R’s
You’ve heard reduce, reuse, and recycle more than a dozen times by now. These are important steps to take to be more environmentally conscious. But if you’re planning to build a green home, these are three things to take seriously.
The occupants of a green home should minimize how much waste they create. Take steps to make all three of the classic environmental R’s possible.
Have places to collect recyclable trash and add a compost bin for food scraps. Reduce the number of resources you use, whether that’s plastic, water, or electricity. And reuse items as often and as many times as you can.
3. Harness the Sun
If you live in an often sunny place, then you have access to one of the best energy resources, and you may not be doing anything about it. Of course, we’re talking about the sun.
Installing solar panels in your home can help make your home much more green. You won’t have to rely on traditional energy like gas, which can save you money in the long term.
You don’t have to live in sunny states like California to Florida to harness the power of the sun. You can still harness the power of the sun on cloudy days.
4. Use Sustainable Materials
Building your home offers the unique opportunity to make a lot of the decisions on which materials you use. So if you’re planning on building an eco-friendly home, then choose environmentally friendly products and waps.
These simple swaps can reduce the impact that construction has on the environment. Choose roofing and building materials that don’t leave a huge environmental impact.
Recycled glass and plastic, bamboo, and cork are all great options to use instead of harmful alternatives.
5. Attract Pollinators
Pollinators are so important to keep the eco-systems running smoothly. Pollinators are incests like bees and butterflies. But they can also be animals, especially birds.
Attracting pollinators is one of the easiest ways to make your home more environmentally conscious.
So when building your home, create a space you can use to attract pollinators with a few different flower species. You can also use birdhouses from https://nature-niche.com/ to attract birds to your home.
6. Replace Your Windows
Similar to how your roof lets out a lot of energy, heating, and cooling, your windows can do the same. Air can escape through tiny cracks and seals, creating a much bigger impact than many think
Choose windows that are labeled with windows that come with an Energy Star able. You’ll want windows that are rated low by the Energy Star company. This means the windows are more energy-efficient.
There are so many styles of energy-efficient windows, so no matter what style you’re building your home in, you’ll be able to find windows that best work for your home.
7. Save and Conserve Water
In many places, water is a commodity. It’s the one common resource that’s finite. Meaning needlessly wasting water does much more harm than it could ever do blue.
Save water by setting up a water harvesting system. Harvest rainwater from outside your home by collecting it from the roof and storing it in a tank. You can use these for the toilet or in your landscaping.
You could also add a tankless water heater to your bathrooms to conserve water. Tankless water heaters heat up what’s needed rather than a full tank that might not get used.
8. More Efficient Landscaping
Trying to keep your lawn lush and green might be one of the reasons your home isn’t very eco-friendly. The amount of water needed to compete with direct sunlight is not eco-conscious.
But you can get creative and more efficient with your landscape design to create an outdoor space that doesn’t harm the environment.
Try adding trees to block your lawn from direct sunlight. The best place to plant them is on the Southern and Western sides of your law. This blocks the sun rays from doing too much damage to the grass and other plants.
9. Check for Electricity Efficiency
Energy is one way that homes aren’t doing right by the environment. The modern home uses so much electricity, and almost none of that energy is renewable.
If you’re building a custom home, you should ensure that your home uses electricity wisely. This can be through energy-efficient light bulbs or lights that are on a timer.
You should also check out how much energy your appliance. Replace old appliances with energy-efficient versions.
Choose Green Home Construction
Our homes can be one of the biggest producers of waste and pollution. This is especially true during the building process. But if you choose to build a custom home, you can make that process more eco-friendly.
Create a cleaner home from the start by adding a few of these nine ideas during the green home construction process. You may see a benefit in your future bottom line. But, above all, you’ll be helping the environment.
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