Planning to Build an Eco-Friendly Home? Check These 6 Practical Tips

When building a new house, one has to make sure that the house will help you save money in the future as well as preserve the environment. It is the responsibility of each individual towards mother nature to build an eco-friendly home. With a new disaster hitting a part of the world every other week, it’s hard to believe that a majority of the population still remains oblivious to the imminent threats of global warming.

While it is hard to make a complete switch to a sustainable lifestyle, sometimes baby steps are the only answer. Eco-friendly homes are not just for people building independent houses. As awareness grows, an increasing number of builders are offering “eco-friendly” apartments and villas. Eco-friendly homes, as a concept and product, are at a nascent stage in India.

A green structure stands for its design, construction and is operational to minimize the total environmental impacts and be environmentally sustainable. The carbon footprint from a house minimizes through practices like reduced energy consumption, water conservation, and waste recycling.

In recent years, people have started making efforts to minimize both environmental impact and financial outlay by outfitting their homes with sustainable technology. The resulting boom in sustainable building is driving new levels of architectural innovation. The term sustainable homes are thrown about quite a bit these days. There is more to it than just segregating your waste and calling it a day.

True sustainability consists of many facets, from building materials to the use of renewable energy sources to design that strives for efficiency and harmony with the surrounding environment. In light of the urgent need to design and develop more sustainable homes, there are some essential tips that would help when greener buildings are the ultimate aim.

1. Be smart when it comes to design

Smaller buildings are generally more environmentally friendly and cheaper to run. Intelligent design means making the best use of space possible. It forces designers and developers to start thinking creatively about space, and the future of infrastructure.

2. Using sustainable building materials and features

If building a green home is your goal, then using environmentally or eco-friendly products should be on your list which can reduce the impact of construction on the environment. Each and every part of your house such as roofing material, building material, cabinets, counters and insulation to your flooring should be environmentally friendly.

Products such as reclaimed lumber, recycled plastic, recycled glass or natural products such as bamboo, cork and linoleum are natural, renewable materials.

One of the most obvious, yet recent discovery, in architecture, is the use of ‘green facade.’ The unique exteriors created by planting vines and other climbers on to the facade of a building. The creepers then planted on containers placed at intervals all along the wall or grown in beds, at the base of the outer walls.

3. Install Energy Efficient Lighting

Minimizing energy use for lighting, while optimizing light for residents, is an important feature of zero energy homes. LED lights are the perfect match for these tasks. They are more energy-efficient than CFLs, last many years longer, and contain no mercury. In addition, they can meet a variety of lighting needs from very bright white light to soft, warm light.

Selecting the right LED lights for the task, locating lights strategically, and utilizing natural light as effectively as possible can drastically reduce a home’s energy use.

4. Increasing water efficiency

In order to increase water efficiency at home, one step is to reduce the use of drinkable water for non-consumption purposes.

There are two ways to do this: collect rainwater, and reuse indoor wash water. You can install cisterns above or below ground that will collect and store run-off from rooftops and other impervious surfaces, as well as water from laundry machines, dishwashers, and bathtubs.

The latter is classified as greywater, meaning that it does not include human waste or sewage. These collection tanks can then serve as an on-site supply for watering your lawn and garden.

Install a rainwater harvesting system while building your green home to collect rainwater and then storing it in a tank. The collected water can then be used for other purposes such as toilets and sprinkler systems. Rain barrels are one of the most common methods of rainwater harvesting being used today.

The primary means of reducing indoor water use has to do with the fixtures you choose. Selecting low-flow sink and bathtub faucets, showerheads and toilets can reduce indoor water use by 30-40%. Over the last few years, the quality of low-flow fixtures has increased. Whereas at first they gained a reputation for flushing inefficiently or delivering unsatisfactory water pressure, new products are surpassing the original designs.

5. Using solar energy

Solar energy is clean and renewable source of energy. Solar panels are an emerging and hot technology for people to utilize the natural power all around us, the sun.  Panels may be expensive at first, but its long-term savings and benefits can turn your life from black to green.

The location of your house and the way solar panels are placed can determine how much power you can collect. By taking advantage of solar power you can bring down your energy consumption excessively.

6. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Reduce your need for buying new products that are not environment friendly. Reuse your old material such as wood floors, doors, windows in your next home. Recycled glass, aluminium,  recycled tile, reclaimed lumber, recycled plastic can be used in green home building. Reduce, reuse and recycle principle will help you build an eco-friendly home.

If you have any better ideas to build an eco-friendly home, just leave a comment.