After spending a lot of time indoors over for two years, people are feeling just a tad more positive. What occurred because of this time spent at home for many was changes to their homes. In fact, there has been somewhat of an astronomical rise in the sales of home décor and home improvement products, with many unsurprisingly decidedly bored of literally staring at the same four walls.
However, with everyone changing their minds over décor, ripping out the old and bringing in the new, is there a more sustainable way to do this? For the environmentally-conscious amongst you, here is how to design an eco-friendly home and garden.
Your Garden
The world of construction has come a long way in the last few years, and now reputable and renowned professional companies such as eComposite Products sell a wide plethora of shapes, sizes, and styles of entirely sustainable and 100% eco-friendly fencing and decking panels.
In terms of your garden and the lawn itself, ensure you conserve water at every opportunity, the easiest way to do this being the insertion of a stopper on every single downpipe to collect as much water as possible. For a sustainable garden, only source eco-materials such as green materials that are made by members of the local community and focus on planting, nurturing, and growing low-water and high-tolerance plants and shrubs.
Your Home
Perhaps the most well-known but, disappointingly, still not used by everyone, way of reducing your carbon footprint in your home is to remove all of your ordinary lightbulbs and replace them with energy-efficient ones.
It is important to keep your food wastage to an absolute minimum, only use the volume of water you actually need, choose entirely environmentally friendly fabrics and textiles for any rugs, cushions and bed linen, and ensure any and all wallpaper and paint you use is eco-friendly in itself.
Other affordable ways to design your home in an eco-friendly way include replacing your carpeted floors with wooden panels instead, ensuring every wall within your property has high-quality and maintained insulating materials, and using low maintenance indoor plants to decorate your interior living spaces.
The Passivhaus Design
As a notable mention, it would be prudent to make you aware of the Passivhaus Design, which is essentially the principle of lowering one’s carbon footprint by keeping your home at a constant temperature of twenty degrees without using any air conditioning, wood-burning methods, or radiators.
This principle is really only for those homeowners who are planning an entire redesign and rebuild of their home, but if this sounds like you, then continue reading to discover how to create your own Passivhaus home in this country:
- Construction modeled on the ‘thermal bridge free’ principle
- Airtight building fabrics
- High-performance windows surrounded by frames of superior insulation quality
- Mechanical ventilation systems with a built-in heat recovery
- Insulation levels to the highest possible standard
Follow these steps above, and you should have yourself a Passivhaus home before no long and be doing your part in having a more eco-friendly home.
