Building Homes for a Greener Future: 3 Tips for Eco-Friendly Construction
Here are some ways and some eco-friendly materials to construct the perfect sustainable and biodiverse home.
According to BBN Times, one of the most important aspects of eco-friendly construction is energy efficiency. Energy-efficient technologies and principles stretch far beyond the occasional solar panel nowadays. With the advent of heat pumps and other energy-efficient technology breaking ground, incorporating it into your home build has always been challenging.
1. Passive solar
“Passive solar” is one of a home’s first energy-efficiency principles. When building your home, its positioning to the sun and the positioning of the rooms within the structure are crucial.
You should position your building’s north-facing axis, include the day-use rooms on this northern wall, and use the sun’s positioning most effectively. Windows should be double-glazed to maximize heat gathered during the day. Good insulation practices should also be used, including placing insulation outside the thermal mass.
2. Smart Technology
Smart technology is coming in leaps and bounds within the home, from smart TVs to things that save you energy, like smart plugs and smart appliances that tell you when you’re using the most energy or if your fridge door has accidentally been left open. Other eco-friendly smart tech includes low-flow showerheads that use less water (1.5 gallons per minute) without compromising that clean feeling.
If you water your gardens or lawn, smart tech can also analyze weather systems and conserve water usage during rainy seasons while timing sprayers during the day when the weather is hottest or at a set time. These are controlled via control units and Wi-Fi connections within the home via applications on your phone.
3. LED Lighting
You may not think of suitable old LEDs as environmentally friendly, but they are some of the most environmentally-friendly lighting systems out there! LEDs convert 95% of their energy into light, meaning that you only lose 5% as heat.
This high conversion rate means that LED lights require less energy overall to produce light. LED lighting tends to be more expensive initially than incandescent lights but has an almost 50 times greater lifespan.
Building energy efficiency into a home initially will mean spending more money upfront. However, the return on investment (depending on the scale of the investment) could be as little as 51 months or less than five years.