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If you’ve recently started to think a bit more about how your lifestyle affects the environment, you might want to make some changes to your daily living. The best place to start is your home, and there are lots of things you can do to make your lifestyle a lot more eco-friendly.
Understand that making impactful changes can take time and effort and that every little helps. Even if you only commit a little bit, you’re helping the environment that much more than you were before – and if everyone put in the same amount, it would be incredibly impactful.
Double or triple glazing
Keeping the temperature in your home regulated can often consume a lot of energy, and if you’ve got the money to make home improvements, you could be wasting it if you’re not making sure your home has the proper insulation. Starting with your windows.
Older homes may still have single glazing on them if no one has ever invested in an upgrade, and while it may feel like that’s enough to keep the cold out – it can make it much more expensive to regulate the temperature of your home. During the winter, making sure you have double or triple-glazed windows can both knock numbers off of your heating and make your home more energy efficient.
Smart appliances
Being energy efficient in your home is key to an eco-friendly lifestyle, but staying on top of things while you’re busy is not always easy. Smart technology is evolving every day, and thanks to things like smart thermostats, you can be sure that your home isn’t needlessly wasting energy when you’re not home, or when it doesn’t need to.
With the right appliances, your thermostat will deactivate whenever you’re not home, so your home heating isn’t being wasted. It can also more effectively regulate the temperature of your home based on outside temperatures, so that your home will always be comfortable without the risk of manually adjusting things too much or too little. Not only does this make your home living situation more energy-efficient, but it’s much more convenient and comfortable, too. Overall, it’s a win-win improvement.
Insulation improvements
Insulation is another part of your home you should look into. If your home hasn’t been renovated recently, then the chances are that there are lots of spaces for insulation in your home that aren’t being used. The wall cavity can be a great place to include modern insulation, and you’ll notice that it makes a huge difference during the winter.
There’s also the possibility of filling the gaps underneath your floorboards. This can be a lot of work, and can make home living a little inconvenient while everything is installed – but in the long run, it can save you a lot of money while being the more eco-friendly option.
Home maintenance
Staying on top of repairs in your home is important, especially when it affects your energy bill. Leaving things like your window seals to degrade over time can easily let in a draft, which is costing you money each and every day. It’s not just your windows, but your roof also needs regular maintenance if you’re going to keep your home energy efficient.
Everyone knows how inconvenient it is to have to call out repair services just for a seemingly small issue, but every day that small issue is making your living situation worse, and ramping up your energy bill.
Transform your garden
If you’ve got a garden, it’s a great opportunity for you to live a more sustainable life, while also providing a great environment for the local wildlife. A garden transformation can be a lot of work, and Castle Rock Landscaping experts can be a great help in getting things ready for you to work with.
One of the first things that you might want to consider, which is perfect for any beginner gardener, is providing shelter for potential wildlife. Of course, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get wildlife in quickly, but providing that opportunity can ensure your garden is a safe place for vulnerable animals. Things like a hedgehog house, or a birdhouse require almost no maintenance, and you can simply find a safe place for them and forget about them for the time being.
Then there’s also how you treat your garden as a whole. If you leave it to get wild and don’t try to maintain a clean, open, and controlled garden – you might notice that the local wildlife appreciates it more. There are many benefits of letting nature reclaim your garden, and it can look beautiful at the same time. Just because you’re letting it get a little bit wild, doesn’t mean it has to look a mess or unpleasant.
Your garden is also a great place for you to grow your own food. If you’ve got the space for it, growing your own fruit and vegetables is a very real possibility for you. You would need to take time and effort to care for them and ensure they grow properly, but it’s part of creating a more sustainable home. By growing your own fruit and veg, you’re reducing both your spending and your waste. There’s a lot of variety to choose from, and you can grow anything suitable for your climate.
Invest in a rain barrel
There’s only so much water to go around, and during a drought, you don’t want to be stuck without it. Your garden will suffer as a result, and you may be tempted to use your hose regardless. You can avoid this issue completely if you had a rain barrel installed in your garden. Collecting rainwater is completely free, and you only need to use it when it’s necessary. You can be sure you’ve always got water that’s ideal for watering your plants all throughout the year.
Get a compost bin
Another way to make your home more environmentally friendly would be to make it easier to reduce your waste. Having your own compost bin is ideal, especially when you plan on doing your own gardening. A place for you to naturally break down a lot of your waste is perfect and convenient and requires almost no input on your part.
It’s cheap and easy, and it doubles as fertilizer, so you can dispose of your waste cleanly while helping your plants to flourish.
Invest in new lighting
Another problem with older buildings is that they’re yet to upgrade the lighting. Old lighting fixtures and bulbs use a lot more energy than newer ones. You could be wasting energy daily just to keep your home from being dark, and that can be solved quickly and inexpensively. It’s not just about upgrading to modern lightbulbs, there are plenty of different ways to cheaply light up your home.
You should also try to be a little more conscious about keeping your lights on when you’re not around. Remember to switch them off whenever you leave the room. It might not seem that expensive of a change, but little by little and day by day, it makes a difference. If you find that you need to turn lights on during the day because your home is too gloomy, you should instead work on ways to light the place up with natural late a bit more. Having more windows installed, or having more mirrors and reflective surfaces to spread the light further can make a huge difference. You’ll be losing less energy, and you’ll feel better overall when at home.
Renewable energy
If you’ve ever heard someone talking about investing in renewable energy for their home, one of the first things they may have mentioned is how expensive it is. While it’s true that having something like solar panels installed in your home can be expensive, you should know that it could work out to be a profitable investment in the long run. That’s if you’re planning on staying put until that happens, but the main focus is the benefits it’s going to have on the environment. You’re not fully relying on unsustainable energy for your everyday electrical use, and you can know that a decent portion of it is green.
Paying for your own personal solar panels isn’t your only option, and there are multiple ways you can go about having sustainable energy in your home. In some areas you can sign up for renewable energy and rent it, meaning that you don’t have to pay for it completely on your own.
There are plenty of ways to make your home more environmentally friendly, and while some of them are expensive and can make home living a bit different – the long-term effects are worth it! Ultimately, your home living experience won’t be completely different, and there’s no change that can’t be adjusted to if you’re looking to make that difference in your everyday life. If everyone had the same attitude to make even a small change, imagine the serious environmental impact that would have.
