Tips to Make Your Home More Eco-Friendly

If you’ve asked the question, “What is my home worth?” only to end up disappointed, you should know that studies have revealed going green is a great way to boost its value, not to mention making a significant difference in lessening your impact on the environment.

You don’t have to go all out, spending thousands of dollars on solar panels and all new appliances. In fact, even if you’re on a tight budget there are lots of cheap, easy changes you can make for a more eco-friendly home.

There are many ways to easily save energy across your home. Even you can help this planet and its environment in many ways, even outside your home. Saving energy has many benefits

• It saves your total energy cost, in terms of reduced electricity, heating or cooling cost
• It does definitely add that drops in the ocean in terms of helping with global warming
• A green home feels a great place to live in
• It teaches your children from an early age

Buy Green Appliances

Even if replacing all your old appliances isn’t an option right now, consider replacing one at a time, especially those that are over 10 years old.

Look for energy-efficient models with the “Energy Star” logo – they use 10 to 50% less energy and water than standard models so they’ll save you quite a bit of money when it comes to your monthly utility bills.

Upgrade Your Insulation

Adding insulation can help keep heat from leaking out from places like ducts, windows, doors, and walls, decreasing the amount of energy your home uses by as much as 20 to 30%.

Another idea if that’s a possibility right now, is to add thermal shades, which helps to block the sun in the summertime while increasing your home’s ability to retain heat in the winter.

Add draft guards to doors and seal windows to lessen energy loss too.

Use Green Household Cleaners

Using green cleaners rather than chemical cleaners not only reduces air pollution indoors and outdoors, it minimizes your family’s exposure to chemicals that can be harmful to health.

Look for plant-based products from manufacturers that have a complete list of the ingredients on its labels.

Or, make your own using environmentally-friendly ingredients such as baking soda and vinegar, which are generally a lot cheaper and just as effective as any special purpose product you buy at the store.  

Mixing four tablespoons of baking soda with one quart of warm water, for example, makes an excellent all-purpose cleaner.

Switch Your Light Bulbs

Energy-efficient lighting makes a significant difference in energy use. Replace standard bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs, and you’ll use 66% less energy, and the bulbs will last up to ten times longer.

Replacing a 100-watt incandescent bulb with a 32-watt CFL can save $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb.

Buy eco-friendly appliances

Your aged appliances cost not only money but they may be harmful to the environment. Both inside your home and the outside. God forbid if you still run the old CFC refrigerators then you are really helping the depletion of the Ozone layer.

An energy star appliance is your way of contributing to your environment and saving on energy bill every month. Also, remove clutter from your home. Clutters do occupy space and thus require more energy to coll or heat your rooms.

Good news, you don’t have to put in the manual labor to move out your clutter. you can hire someone online like Angie’s list.

Conserve Water

Conserving water is one of the most important things you can do no matter where you live, including areas where it seems abundant. It will help you save on your water bill, and it can even help prevent water pollution in nearby rivers, lakes, and watersheds.

There are many ways to save water in your home, such as installing an aerator on all the faucets. That one simple act can cut your annual consumption by 50 percent.

You may want to install a low-flow toilet too, which may save two or more gallons of water each time you flush.

All the little things make a difference too, like limiting shower time and only using just enough water to get your toothbrush wet instead of letting it run when brushing your teeth.