With environmental consciousness rising globally, many homeowners are starting to recognize the importance of building a sustainable home. Even the Hollywood stars are seeing the impact of their lavish lifestyles and realizing how they can sometimes be unsustainable. While some are putting effort into creating energy-neutral homes, others are becoming green activists. While us, regular folks, may not change the homes we live in entirely, we may improve our ecological footprint by borrowing some ideas from sustainable homes. And the best part – most of these ideas involve DIY in one way or another.
Food
The first thing that comes to mind is food. Organic, locally grown food is your aim. Every patch of land around your home can be used to grow your own food. Even the inside of your home can serve this purpose. While you may not be able to make this the only source of your food, you can reduce your costs a lot. Investing in a greenhouse will provide you with vegetables throughout the year. More ambitious people can consider building a DIY fishpond or even growing a couple of chickens. It doesn’t take that much work. Of course, these are the options for those that have the space for this.
Energy
First, keep the energy and heat lost that you already spend to the lowest. This is achieved by insulation, responsible consumption and eco-friendly appliances. These are the things that every sustainable household has. The next steps are the solar panels and wind turbines. Needless to say, investing in these energy sources pays off in many ways. A lot of people choose to install these systems themselves, especially when it comes to home insulation. Making and installing your own home insulation can save you a lot of money, and the best part is that it can be done in an eco-friendly way by using cellulose fiber.
Solar power
One of the cleanest, greenest, and most sustainable ways to power your home is by relying on solar energy. The best place to start would be to learn more about your home’s energy efficiency. Next, you want to assess your home’s solar potential and estimate how much solar electricity your home will need. After that, you can proceed to obtain bids from solar installers. In order for your home solar power system to perform at an optimal level, you’ll also need to invest in high-quality components such as a high-powered solar inverter while keeping in mind the size, capacity, input voltage, and the type of inverter. Installing a home solar power system can also earn you rebates and tax credits, not to mention the giant favor you’ll be doing to Mother Nature by switching to renewable energy sources.
Water
Water is recycled and harvested from the rain. The water that you use for showering and washing your clothes and dishes is cleared and used to water the plants in your greenhouse. A rainwater harvesting system can provide you with the majority of the water you need. This will cut down the yearly bills for water significantly. For this system to work, you need to make sure you have all the filters needed to avoid polluting the greenhouse with cleaning products you use. Perhaps you don’t have a garden to water or but you can build the system that will reuse that water for flushing. You can even build it yourself.
Comfort
Some people have prejudice when it comes to sustainable living. Regardless of their thinking, it doesn’t have to be basic and cave-like. All the perks of modern life are still there for you to use. You use energy and water in a smart way and get hold of it in a way that doesn’t involve paying for it. This is true for fully sustainable households. Yours doesn’t have to be that way, but it will definitely benefit from some of these things.
Living free from bills, costs and credit rates in your own solar home is a dream come true for many people. Some of them even managed to pull this off and now they live fully sustainable lives. However, this kind of life means changing all your habits entirely. For the time being, using the experience of sustainable living to save some money and improve your home will be enough.
