The modern enlightened individual is keen on keeping their home as environmentally-friendly as possible – but that can be much harder than you might think. The truth is that you need to approach the topic from as many angles as you can if you really want to make it work as well as possible.
Most people are doing something or other to try and keep their home green – but all of us could do a little more. As it happens, some of the best practices you can take on board for this purpose are actually quite surprising, with some particularly good results to be seen – and fast.
In this article, we are going to look at some of these in detail, so that you can work on making your home as green as you have always hoped it would be.
Installing Solar
If you have a little spare cash upfront, you might want to think about installing solar panels in your home somewhere. Long gone are the days when people thought you had to live in a sunny region for solar panels to be worthwhile. It goes without saying that they are more effective if you do, but you can still make good use of them and get plenty of energy out of them no matter where you live.
What’s more, although they might be a little costly up front, you will be able to make your money back usually within two years. And after that point, you will be able to start selling electricity back to the grid – even better! This is one of those fantastic examples where you are both helping yourself and helping the planet in one go. It’s definitely worth considering this option if you want to make your home greener.
Changing The Curtains
You might not think that something as seemingly simple as changing your curtains can be that effective in helping the environment – but you would be mistaken. As it happens, you can make a huge difference to how green your home is just by making sure to choose curtains which are a little more energy-efficient.
A good example of this lies in thermal curtains. Thermal curtains help you save power in your home, keep you warm when you need to be, and ensure that you are using much less energy on the whole. All of these help in the long run, and you will absolutely notice a difference to your energy bills as well.
Just something as simple as changing your curtains can have a profound effect on how green your home is – so it is definitely worth making these changes if you can.
Living Mindfully
One of the biggest changes you can make is to change how you actually approach the way you live from a mindset point of view. This means that you can then gradually alter every other aspect of your life in the home, in such a way that you end up making some pretty big changes on the whole.
But working to change your mindset can be one of the most difficult things of all, and it is hardly surprising that most people don’t really know where to begin. If you find it hard to stick to an ecological way of looking at things, it can help to keep reminders around the home of why you are making those efforts.
You could print out data on the damage that humans are inflicting upon the environment, such as the amount of plastic produced per ear, and keep it in your fridge.
Whatever you can do to keep your mind straight will make a difference to how you behave, and over time these things will add up to make a huge difference to how much of an ecological impact you are making in your home. All in all, changing your mindset is the prerequisite for changing the world.
Limiting Water Consumption
It is a sad indictment of our times that we might be running out of a resource which you would think is practically limitless, but that’s exactly what is happening.
As a species, we are running out of viable freshwater sources making everything that we can do to help this is a good step forwards. As it happens, there is plenty we can do in the home to limit water consumption, and all of these efforts are bound to add up to make a considerable difference over time.
If you want to reduce your water consumption, you can do so by using water butts – these tanks, located in your garden, will collect water over time, and you will be able to use that water once purified in order to save water from the tap.
You might also be able to simply restrict the amount you use by, for example, being careful not to take long showers, or washing up manually instead of using a dishwasher. All of these things help, so make sure that you are doing as many of them as possible.
Insulating The Home
One of the most vital things you should do is make sure that your home is properly insulated. If it is not, it might mean that you are using a lot more energy than is necessary and that in turn is not the best thing for when you are trying to reduce your ecological impact in the home.
There are many kinds of insulation you should look into, but the most important is on the roof and the walls. You can also make sure that you have double-glazed windows, and that any areas such as basements or cellars are also being looked at. Insulate your home right, and it can help you to save money at the same time as helping the planet – a win, win, win situation.
Take the above on board, and you will find that it helps you to massively reduce the amount that you are hurting the planet. This will feel good for you and your family, and it will mean that your home is more enjoyable to live in too.
