9 Ways to Incorporate Sustainability Into Your Home and Garden
Are you looking to renovate your home and garden? It would be best to make the home and garden as sustainable as possible. Even when transferring into a new home, people are now moving sustainably in many different ways.
Environmental sustainability is at the mind of every individual as they seek to emulate the natural world. As a result, the environmental consulting market in the US will be worth $20.2 billion by the end of 2021. You could do your part by investing in a sustainable renovation project for your home and garden.
Sustainability at home has both short- and long-term benefits, essentially saving you money. However, the renovation project has to be centralized around the green environmental movement. An eco-friendly home is an excellent investment since each aspect is designed with the environment in mind.
Are you wondering what to do to make your home sustainable? Here are nine ways to incorporate sustainability into your home and garden.
- Minimizing Waste from Your Home
How often do you dispose of your waste? Probably, often, which is a massive mistake on your part. Finding ways to minimize waste from your home and garden is the first step to sustainability.
Did you know most of the waste you dispose of is reusable? The different waste types and how you can reuse them have been discussed below;
Compost Waste
Where do you take the fruit peels and foods after finishing cleaning? If you throw them away, you might not be aware of the gold in them.
Homemade compost is second to none citing its rich mineral content. Compost is helpful within your kitchen garden as a cost-free source of nutrients for your soil.
Remember only to add biodegradable waste into your compost. Plastic waste in the compost can have catastrophic effects by choking life in the soil.
Material Waste
While renovating, you’ll need to take apart some parts of the home to account for the necessary changes. As a result, you’ll likely have material waste, including pieces of wood and stone. Most of this waste finds its way back into the environment and can inhibit growth.
Finding ways to reuse the material waste is critical to minimizing the waste from your home. Consider deconstructing instead of demolishing, meaning you end up with little or no waste.
Waste Water
Let’s be honest, you barely think of reusing water, although you know of its benefits, right? Wastewater reuse is among the ways to make your home and garden sustainable.
With there being water shortage globally, it’s high time you conserve water. Don’t be too quick to pour water down the drain after rinsing your dishes. Look for ways you could use the water, for instance, to clean your house or irrigate the lawn.
- Utilizing Eco-Friendly Material
What are the materials you use made of? If you’re really after reducing your carbon footprint, consider using eco-friendly material.
The green material feature strongly on sustainability within the home and the garden. You’ll need to check the material used for the different creations to ensure they’re sustainable. It’s thus advisable to select building materials with the least environmental impact.
Eco-friendly material comes from locally available raw items, which are cheaper for you. Such items design products beyond your imagination to create appeal within your home. Such product designs have an extended lifespan of over 100 years and thus will be helpful.
When assessing whether the material is eco-friendly, check the carbon emission at production. Eco-friendly materials link the home or garden with its surroundings offering a unique feel. Material like wood, straw bales, clay, and cob is full of character, thus versatile in what they can produce.
Consult home renovation experts handling your project to come up with designs featuring such material.
Experts such as MilanBuild.com have expert craftsmen for eco-friendly material use in the remodel. They ensure the material is sourced locally to reduce the garden’s carbon footprint.
- Factoring in Sustainable Energy
Are you tired of receiving hefty energy bills each month? You could solve the energy bill problems by considering sustainable energy options.
Sustainability is all about getting as much as possible from the environment. The energy needs in any household are constantly increasing throughout the seasons. It would help if you thus designed the home to incorporate sustainable energy options.
Sustainable energy options are expansive, but one that you can use for your home is solar. Solar panels harness energy from the sun to offer energy for your household uses.
The main focus for sustainable energy is also to ensure energy efficiency. If you’re really interested in reducing your energy spending, consider energy capture and use.
The utility of the natural energy from the sun include;
Electrical appliances. They’re probably the highest energy hogs within your house, so you should connect them to the solar grid. Alternatively, think of energy-efficient appliances to save you on monthly energy costs.
Heating and cooling needs: A sustainable home design has lesser heating and cooling needs. You, however, will need your AC operational, and solar energy will do that for you.
Lighting. Your home’s living space needs to be shown off, and there’s a need to consider opening it up to natural light. You can also store solar energy to light the house at night.
- Cut Back on Chemical Product Use
Chemical use in your home adds to the carbon footprint you produce. It’s thus advisable to cut back on the chemical product used for your home and garden.
Chemical cleaning or pest control products emit greenhouse gases to the environment. The burden is higher, especially with the garden chemicals used to control weeds. The chemical emissions stick around, thus affecting the air quality in your home.
Instead of using chemical products, you should consider natural or chemical-free solutions. Here are some practical solutions when cutting back on the use of chemical products;
- Use of chemical-free cleaning products
- Uprooting weeds on your garden by hand
- Keep off caterpillars by having bird’s nest close by the garden
- Introducing beneficial insects to the garden to deal with the pests
- Kill annual weeds using plastic cover sheets that are weighted down
- Maintain a layer of compost and mulch to repel weeds
- Use Permeable Paving
Floods are a massive problem in most parts of the country, which you can try resolving when remodeling. The leading cause of floods is the runoff water flowing through the solid surfaces. Using permeable paving can be a quick and sustainable fix to the flooding problem for your home.
Solid surfaces on your front garden make runoff water draining impossible. The effect is an overload on the property drainage, especially in heavy rains.
You could solve this by using permeable paving on your outdoors to deal with the runoff. Remember, the ground can absorb water, and covering it with a solid surface isn’t a great idea.
Permeable surfacing material include;
- Block paving
- Recycled plastic grids
- Porous asphalt
- Slate chippings
- Crunchy gravel
The permeable paving borders your lawn or flowerbed, meaning the seeped water supports yard growth. As a result, you’re able to enhance the sustainability of your home while reducing floods. The permeable paving is cheaper to construct, thus saving you money while offering great designs.
Speak to your landscaping planner to know what permeable paving material is suitable for you. They’ll direct you to great solutions that you can use to enhance sustainability in your home and garden.
- Consider Passive Design for Your Home
Do you know your home’s design has a considerable impact on its sustainability? A passive design for your home can assist meet your sustainability goal.
How much do you incur when heating empty spaces within your house? Also, how do you adapt the home to the seasonal weather patterns? Such questions will be essential when remodeling the house to feature sustainability.
A passive design uses the understanding of your houses’ physical attributes to work out essentials. The effect is ending up with a space that requires minimal heating and cooling all year round.
The main elements within the passive design include;
Thermal mass involves opening up your house towards the sun’s direction to allow heat into the home. As much as your house will be appealing, you’ll capture heat better.
Airflow mechanics work to cool the house during the summer. You thus enjoy lower cooling needs, also saving you money in the process.
Insulation is necessarily introduced to the home to retain heat. Heat loss results in high energy bills and can be solved by insulation. You thus save on the heating needs since most of the heat is retained within the house.
Orientation entails the creation of specific facets for specific uses within the home. For instance, you can orient a small space in your living room to improve the lighting and warming of the house.
Double glazing ensures energy efficiency by retaining heat within the home. It also controls the amount of thermal change in your home from the sun’s rays.
- Repurposing Item Use
How many items do you get rid of in a year? Did you know there are some items from your collection you could repurpose for better uses? Repurposing items is an underrated way of ensuring sustainable living within your home.
Go around the home and check for items lying around with little to no use. You might consider moving them to other home areas with better use.
Repurposing items is an improved form of reuse for your commodities. Therefore, you’ll have an easier time managing the carbon footprint from your home.
Refacing your home can also help find uses for several abandoned items. You don’t have to invest in home upgrades when you have such items lying around. The potential in each repurposed item is unending, and it all depends on your creativity.
If you’re stuck with the repurposing of items, remodeling professionals can help. They’ll help you work around calculating your household carbon footprint.
You’ll need to borrow their insight on the different item uses, thus saving you some dollars.
- Invest in a Green Roof
The popularity of eco-roofs is increasing by the day due to their numerous benefits. Consider investing in a green roof as a way to make your home sustainable.
The benefits of installing a green roof include;
- Improved airflow
- Controlled water run-off
- Offer great insulation
- Allow for biodiversity in your home.
There are numerous eco-friendly roofing options like;
- Cool roofs
- Wood shingles
- Metal roofs
- Slate tiles
- Clay tiles
- Plant roofs
Green roofs vary in their construction techniques, so you can get creative when retrofitting them. Green roof installation can be a huge addition to your existing shed or garage.
Their many advantages make them costly to install, but they’re cost-effective in the long run. The green roofs offer your home a natural feeling with vegetation covering part or the whole top.
- Consider Biodiversity
You want a more delightful garden and home, right? Encouraging biodiversity ensures sustainability for your home and garden.
Consider adding eco-plants to your yard by creating a natural garden. The organic nature of the garden ensures comfort for the plant as they grow. You’ll most likely have a flourishing yard in no time.
Depending on the plants you’ve installed in your garden, you’re able to attract specific animals. For instance, bees love nectar-rich flowers and will therefore swarm your garden.
Plants take care of themselves when planted where they’re contented. You’ll not have to worry about constant maintenance to keep up appearances.
With biodiversity, you form an ecological system that is impressive to see thriving. The benefits of a healthy ecosystem extend to improving the property value. Ecological systems are mutually codependent, meaning they’ll make your garden more entertaining.
You Now Know How to Incorporate Sustainability Into Your Home and Garden
Remodeling your home is a good idea, especially if you plan to incorporate sustainability. The remodel design has to focus on finding suitable materials for sustainable living. Consider the above ways to integrate sustainability into your home and garden.
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