Tag: green home remodeling

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Articles Eco Tips Home Improvement Uncategorized

Tips for Adding Beauty and Value to Your Home the Eco-Friendly Way

When people go about remodeling or adding onto their homes, they often think the involved processes will be overly expensive. Don’t be fooled by this false belief. There are many affordable ways that you can give your home a makeover, and best of all, you can be eco-friendly at the same time. Here are some great tips for adding both beauty and value to your home, while at the same time being mother nature’s best friend.

Replacing Your Roof

Yes, replacing your roof can be a bit costly at first, but if you cover it in shingles or metal that are light in color, this can greatly reduce the temperature in your attic. As a result, you’ll likely reap the benefit of cooler temperatures in your home, which means you can save a considerable amount of money on your cooling expenses.

Decorating with Pallet Racks

Pallet racks are often given away for free from both large and small businesses. By gathering several of them, you can easily recycle them by constructing shelves, indoor and outdoor furniture and lots more. You can paint or stain these racks any color of your choosing, which is an excellent way to add lots of character to your home.

Swap Out Your Showerheads

Being friendly to mother nature involves reducing your water usage. A great way to do this is by switching out the showerheads in your bathrooms to ones that support the low flow of water.

Install Extra Ceiling Fans

Fans can go a long way in adding flair to any room, and better yet, they make it easier to cool your home during the warmer months of the year. Mother nature will truly appreciate it when you turn off the AC and crank up the fans.

Insulate Your Water Heater

There’s a good chance that your hot water heater is already insulated, but if you add extra insulation, this will make it easier to heat your water, and it could save you up to 15 percent or more on the expense of heating your water.

Tint Your Windows

Just the same as you can tint the windows on your car, your home’s windows can be tinted too. In doing this, you’ll be reflecting the sun’s glare, which will make it easier to cool your home.

The Takeaway

Giving your home an eco-friendly makeover doesn’t mean you have to empty your bank account. And even though you’ll be spending money to carry out the projects, you can rest assured that you’ll be saving money at the same time on several of your utility bills.

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Articles Eco Tips Recycling

A Re-Purposeful Life

New isn’t necessarily better. In fact, repurposing items can create a unique environment filled with pieces that can’t be found in chain stores and can keep articles out of landfills. You can take this a step further when you reclaim materials from a deconstruction site. If you’re building or deconstructing a home or business, consider buying or selling materials to use again.

PlanetReuse connects buyers and sellers to materials for repurposing from deconstruction projects. You can build a home or business with reprocessed items from top to bottom. The PlanetReuse Marketplace features links to roofing materials, ceiling fans, wooden beams, lighting, molding, siding, windows, carpet tiles, and pine flooring. There are kitchen cabinets, bathroom sinks and various types of tables waiting to be recycled. For treasure hunters, stained glass windows, vintage clawfoot bathtubs, and antique sconces are yours for the salvaging. Moreover, if you’re interested in redoing your driveway or garden, you can use reclaimed landscaping rock, edging pavers, bricks, cobblestone or granite to create your own work of landscaping art. It’s all available at PlanetReuse, so check out its Marketplace section to see what’s available online.

Habitat for Humanity ReStores are nonprofit home improvement stores and donation centers throughout North America. Its website features a drop-down menu with filters by zip code and state to find Restores in the U.S. and offers an alternate filter for Canadian Provinces. Not only can you buy new and gently used furniture, appliances, home goods, and building materials, you can buy items far below retail prices. As an added attraction, proceeds go to build homes in communities in need of aid.

The Building Materials Reuse Association (BMRA) specializes in finding deconstruction or reuse businesses in your area with its business directory of listings and an interactive map. BMRA works to advance the recovery, reuse, and recycling of building materials by reducing resource consumption and landfill waste.

When it comes to interior decorating, you can adorn your home or business with vintage items from antique stores, yard sales or check out Freecycle.org; it’s an organization dedicated solely to recycling free items. Another option is to conduct online searches for reuse centers and resellers in your area. Lastly, if you see a deconstruction project in your area, contact a project representative or community liaison to see what may be available.

To reprocess an old saying, they don’t make things like they used to, so why not reclaim it? With recycling options at your fingertips, you can make your life a re-purposeful one.

~Maureen F. 

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Eco Tips Home Design

Eliminate Fossil Fuels, Electric Bills and Natural Gas Bills With Solar

While the pressure to find alternatives to fossil fuels has eased due to somewhat lower gas prices and the media attention has shifted away from the ecology again, that doesn’t mean these issues have gone away. In fact, based on past behaviors, these issues will come to a peak yet again sometime in the future. However, one way you can know you’re doing your part for the ecology, plus saving yourself a lot of money in the process, is to switch everything you have to solar power.

You may wonder how this is possible. With today’s technology, not only is solar power more affordable and efficient than ever, but by replacing or supplanting what you currently have with electric equivalents, you can actually accomplish this. Here’s how:

  • After installing a solar system, replace appliances that use natural gas with electric ones. This includes hot water heaters, stoves, ranges and ovens.
  • Replace your heating system that may use natural gas, kerosene or fuel oil with an electric one.
  • If possible, replace your vehicles with EV (electric vehicle) equivalents. Today, not only can you find small vehicles that are EVs, but SUVs and performance vehicles as well.

Granted, the initial investment in solar isn’t cheap and replacing your existing natural gas appliances and gasoline powered vehicles isn’t an inexpensive prospect, there are lots of compensations. First and foremost, you’ll receive tax breaks from the Federal government and many state governments also provide tax breaks as well.

Also, since you’ll have eliminated electric bills, natural gas bills and gasoline expenses, those funds can be applied to defraying the costs of the solar build. What most people don’t realize is that going solar can actually be subsidized by the electric companies as well. That’s because excess electricity generated by your solar system can be “sent” through the existing power grid and redistributed by the electric companies. This means you can actually accrue credits or even be paid by the electric companies for your excess electricity.

Determining your actual ROI (Return On Investment) can be somewhat challenging. Most solar ROI calculators are limited, but can give you a general idea of your break even points. By replacing fossil fuel factors, this number can drop dramatically which means you could actually be making money from your solar system in just a few years. Not only can you save money and reduce your carbon footprint with solar, you could actually make money in the process!

~Brian C.

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Featured Home Design

Why You Should Choose Recycled Glass Countertops

Have you heard about recycled glass countertops and wondered what exactly they are or maybe you’ve never heard of them before. The glass that is used in the recycled countertops is from both post-consumer and pre-consumer sources.

Where is the glass from?

Post-consumer sources are plenty however it is most commonly found from consumers (glass bottles). Although curbside recycled glass is common, salvage glass is an “emerging new source”.  Recently a lot of state and local governments are requiring the recyclcing of the glass that is pulled from demolished buildings.

Why is it considered a green alternative?

Most of the common countertops that are built use Corian, plastic laminate (Formica), tile, and granite. However because of its petroleum base, Corian and other solid machine-able counter materials are a poor ecological choice. Recycled glass countertops have a low impact environmentally as both the cement and glass used in this product contain recycled content. These countertops also help create end uses for hard to recycle types of glass.

Where can the recycled glass countertops be used?

The recycled glass countertops aren’t limited to just the kitchen counters. You can use the recycled glass in kitchen backsplashes, bathroom counters, fireplace surrounds, shower bases, or virtually any other flat surface, such as a kitchen table top.

What colors are available?

Recycled glass countertops are available in a wide variety of colors – both single color and mixed for the glass, and several color choices for the cement it’s embedded in. The size of the glass pieces is also optional.

Where can I find my own recycled glass countertop?

There are many companies that carry recycled glass countertops. Some of the major companies include IceStone, Vertrazzo and Geos. If you go to their websites you can find local companies that carry their lines!

Sources: healthyhomeplans.com, (http://www.healthyhomeplans.com/articles/information12.php)

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By Topic Home Improvement

Green Materials to Use for Home Improvement

In need of a new look for the inside of your home? Widespread concern regarding pollution and the conservation of natural resources has prompted more homeowners to consider greener ideas and environmentally friendly materials.

Install Bamboo Floors. Most people think bamboo is wood, but bamboo is actually a grass … and one that grows quickly, within three to five years to be precise. This means bamboo is a good renewable resource. Most bamboo is grown and harvested in either Hawaii or China. Bamboo is resilient and comes in a variety of colors and shades.

Use Reclaimed Wood. Reclaimed or salvaged lumber can be used to build walls, as support beams or even in roof construction. Instead of dumping previously used lumber into a landfill, it can be put back into new construction projects.

Choose Low or Zero VOC Paint. A new coat of paint can transform the look of an old room into an exciting new space. However, most paints contain harmful volatile organic compounds that contribute to air pollution, smog and respiratory problems. By choosing low VOC paint, you can help reduce the volatile organic compounds in the air and still have a beautiful, freshly painted room.