If you want to live an eco-friendly lifestyle, a big part of that is having a home that is energy-efficient. Unfortunately, many homes (especially ones that are large) can use up a ton of energy on a daily basis. From lighting the home, to heating and cooling it, the energy usage can be staggering in some cases.
Thankfully, there are several different eco-energy solutions you can use to build and maintain a home that is eco-friendly. These can not only save you money, but conserving energy can also help to protect and save our environment.
Without any further ado, let’s look at a few eco-energy solutions to help you build an eco-friendly house.
Choose the Right Energy Provider
First up, the energy provider you choose can often have an impact on the eco-friendliness of your home. Not all providers are created equally in terms of their features, their plans and their prices. If you live in a deregulated market, it’s a good idea to shop around a little bit and see what each provider has to offer.
Choosing the right one will ensure you reduce the amount of energy costs that you incur each month. Also, you could consider using green sources of energy that can bring your costs way down, and also do much more when it comes to helping the environment. A very common choice is to outfit your home with solar panels.
Have an Energy Monitor
An energy monitor is a great tool to use if you want to see the eco-friendliness of your home in real time. They are an inexpensive tool that can quickly and easily show you a breakdown of how much energy your home is using at any given time. Installing them is fairly easy and they will help you to identify potential problem areas within your home.
This can also be a great tool to make sure that other environmentally-friendly changes you have made are working as expected. Sure, it comes with a bit of a cost, but this cost can often be recuperated very quickly as you can now easily monitor and reduce your energy usage.
Install and Use Efficient Appliances
One of the best things you can do to have a more eco-friendly home without having to change your behavior in a huge way is to install efficient appliances. All appliances, from your dishwasher, to your dryer, to your fridge all use a fair amount of energy. This can add up, especially if you use them often.
While cutting down your usage can have a big impact, so can replacing them with more efficient models. These will do the same job as a traditional appliance, only with much less energy and water usage. There are many different brands and providers that sell these efficient models, and they are becoming much more affordable.
Improve Your Insulation
Oftentimes, having insufficient or low-quality insulation can lead to energy problems in the home. If your insulation is poor, it can often let in a lot of the cool or warm air from outside into the home. This means you will have to heat or cool the inside of your home for longer periods of time to reach the desired temperature.
A good way to check the quality of your insulation is to perform an energy audit of your home. This involves checking throughout your home to ensure no problems are showing themselves. One common problem that will appear is a slight draft from areas where insulation is not the best.
If you find yours could use a little work, consider speaking with a professional or reading up on how to do it yourself. There are also many different types of insulation that can be used, so be sure to perform a bit of research to see which is the best option for you.
Recycle
Recycling is another great thing that you can do to make your home more eco-friendly. This goes for a variety of materials, but especially plastic. Plastic being simply tossed in the garbage can wreak havoc on our environment. Recycling reduces the amount being thrown in landfills and the amount of waste that needs to be incinerated.
In addition to recycling in your home, also consider using and buying recycled materials when possible. This could be recycled building materials for renovations or building out the home, or products that come in recycled packaging. This can greatly reduce your carbon footprint and ensure your home is as eco-friendly as possible.
In conclusion, we hope that the solutions and information in this article have been able to help your home be more eco-friendly. Between the cost savings and helping the environment, there are many reasons why having an energy-efficient home is a good idea.
Infographic Provided by Rock Solid Stabilization & Reclamation, Inc.
