Guest Post: Go Green in Your Next New Home Construction and/or Remodeling Tips

Having thoughts of a new home? Have enough money for it? Consider the idea of going green in your next new home construction or remodeling.

The tips for building and remodeling are basically similar, but the goal is identical – having environment friendly and energy efficient home.

Building a green home.

Before you start building carefully plan your new house project. Have good revision of your activities and living habits, and make such a plan that will meet all your needs. This means that you build a smaller but more personalized home.

When the house is built, you have to resolve the problem of heating and cooling the house efficiently. Go solar. Not only the sun is inexhaustible, it is also a clean and relatively cheap source of energy. Besides, you can use solar panels to collect energy from the sun to heat the water, you can also use it to generate enough electrical power for your own needs, and even (depending on your house position and number of the solar panels you would install) sell something back to the company that provides electrical power. The roof is exposed to the sun all day long, and it is a part of the house that is the hottest. Using materials like slate, white tiles or some kind of metal roofing has great advantages.

Using green materials is a long time investment and it will pay off through energy saving. Another idea is to have “living roof”, which is made of soil with growing plants. Not only this cools the roof, but it also provides filtering and collecting rainwater which can be used for watering the plants in your backyard during hot and dry days. Programming heating and cooling using high tech thermostats will save your money in the long term.

As for materials, it is good to use recycled ones. That's the main principle that we follow at JD Security when ordering office supplies or creating new campaigns. Some insulation materials are made from recycled cotton, wool and various by-products, and were proven better than virgin materials. Besides, recycled materials use sustainable materials that are renewable easily, like cork, bamboo or even linoleum. For example, a floor made out of one of these materials has a lifetime from 25 to 40 years, plus it is environmentally friendly.

Do not forget about conservation of water by using fixtures and appliances that use less water than their conventional counterparts, or collecting rainwater that can be used for other purposes and not just drinking, showering, dishwashing and doing laundry.

The last, but not irrelevant, is the landscape where your new greenhouse should be built at. Using terrain slopes for building rainwater tank will save the electric power that will need a water pump to make proper water pressure for irrigating your garden. Use all natural shades of existing trees on the landscape for making the house cooler.

Going green in remodeling your home.

Remodeling your home in a green way is cheaper than building a new one, but there are some limits that you can’t cross. You can’t change the walls of the house that you are remodeling, but there are plenty of things that can be done.

Repainting your walls and refurnishing floors with the paints with low-VOC will make indoor air quality better for you and for the environment.

Making new furniture from eco—friendly or recycled materials will bring your home a new look while at the same time saving nature.

When you compare the prices of energy efficient appliances with their conventional counterparts, you will see that they are a little bit expensive. Treat this like an investment rather than an expense. Using these kinds of appliances will save you a significant amount of money.

Changing the old-school single pane windows with new and energy efficient double pane windows or even Energy Star windows is an amazing spin to things! The result of this investment will be significantly lowered heating and cooling bills!

Refinishing, refurbishing and re-facing old parts of furniture and bathroom equipment is always better idea than replacing it with new ones, because what we really want is a new look.

These are small portions of what you can do to remodel your house and go green. Brainstorm and come up with some ideas on your own and consult an interior designer to help you. Be free to ask for suggestions from a known green contractor in your area.