Whether you have an eco-friendly mindset or not, the threat to the long-term viability of life on earth posed by the environmental pollution and the resultant global warming means that it is high time to live as sustainable as possible. There are many changes you can make to your lifestyle, such as eating organic food, cycling to work at least once a week and using cloth or paper bag instead of plastic bags.
But the biggest change you can make is to your home, and the way to do that is to make sure that you use only sustainable building products when building your own home, or look for homes that have been designed especially with sustainablity in mind.
Sustainable products are made from natural sources without depleting the earth?s resources and harming the environment. Building a sustainable house does not only involve using sustainable products, but also incorporating techniques to make optimum use of natural resources such as sunlight, air and water. Here are some things to look out for, or ask your real estate agent about:
- Natural light and heat: Ample space for sunlight to enter your rooms means you won?t have to use electricity for lighting at any time of the day, except on very overcast days. This can be done with large, double glazed glass windows. Sunlight also provides heat in the morning during cold weather.
- Natural Aeration:? Provide ample space for fresh air to flow into and out of your home. This keeps you healthy as well as reducing your dependence on fans and air conditioner during hot weather.
- Solar power: Install solar panels on your roof or wherever sunlight is available to generate your own free and green energy. This will require a considerable investment initially, but will recover the cost and also help make extra income for you in the long term. When buying a home with solar installed, be sure to ask how old the panels are. Solar panels should last at least 25 years, but efficiency does decrease over time, so if you are paying extra for this feature, make sure you are not paying too much. Solar power is much cheaper to install now than it was even a few years ago.
- Evaporative cooler: If you live in a hot and dry or less humid area, such as the western United States or southern Australia, then consider installing an evaporative cooler instead of an air conditioner. Unlike the latter which uses ozone-depleting chemicals to cool a room, the former uses only water and air. Evaporative coolers also consume four times less electricity.
- Sustainable timber: Use only timber from sources that do not contribute to deforestation for your furniture needs. Avoid any wood that comes from rainforests or old growth forests.? Use bamboo and sustainable growth wood, instead. These grow very quickly to replace the ones that have been cut. You can also use reused wood to save costs and trees. To make sure that timber is from sustainable sources, look for the Forest?Stewardship?Council?logo. Of course, an existing house does not require any new timber, so may be considered more sustainable than building new, in that sense.
- Green Certification: To make sure that you will use only sustainable building products, look for green certification on products from environmental organizations such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), National Australian?Built?Environment?Rating?System (NABERS), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM, UK), Haute Qualit? Environnementale (HQE, France) and Deutsche Gesellschaft f?r Nachhaltiges Bauen (DGNB, Germany).
Click here to check out?more information on building and living sustainably.
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Source: http://realestateleadsguide.com/six-ways-to-choose-or-build-a-sustainable-home/
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