Click on a room of the house to link to information on greening that room. You can also click on the attic and on the outdoor areas.
Whether you are a homeowner or a renter, in the market for a new home, or making home improvements, this site identifies the key environmental and energy issues at hand, and suggests solutions that will add value to your home, reduce energy use and energy costs, fight climate change, and help protect your health. Use the house graphic above or green home solutions links below to navigate to topics of interest.
If you don’t have any money to invest in green, sustainable, eco-friendly products or strategies you are in luck! Here are 15 ways that you can start to trim your utility bills by using less energy and water. Unless you have been living under a rock you have probably heard some of these before, but they are still worth repeating.
1. Turn Off the Lights: This is a favorite of dads everywhere. I can still hear my dad, and now I’m repeating it to my kids: “When you leave a room, turn off the lights.”
2. Turn Down / Up the Thermostat: By adjusting your thermostat down a few degrees in the winter and up a few more in the summer you can make a significant cut in your heating and cooling bills. There can be added benefits to doing this: more snuggling in the winter and less clothing in the summer.
3. Stingy Showers: By taking shorter showers or even skipping one here and there, you can save thousands of gallons of water a year. As an added bonus, your energy bills will go down as well, since it typically costs more to heat the water for your shower than for the water itself.
4. Wear it Once More: Wear your blue jeans and dress shirt more than once before you wash it and save hundreds of gallons of water and cut your energy bills at the same time.
5. Power Down: Don’t just let your computer sit there and let the screen saver run all day. If you are going to be away from your computer for more than a half an hour, go ahead and turn it off.
6. Line Dry Your Clothes: Hanging your clothes out to dry will not only save you energy, but your clothes will smell better (no dryer sheets required), be less wrinkled (saving you on ironing), and will last longer – effectively saving you money in four ways.
7. Open the Windows: On those wonderful days where it is in the 80’s in the afternoon, but temperatures drop to the 60’s over night, open all your windows when the temperature drops below 78° (recommended thermostat setting in the summer) at night and let that cool air in. Then in the morning close all your windows to keep the heat of the day out. With the help of a couple of window fans you can easily avoid turning on your air conditioner well into May or even June (depending of course on where you live).
8. Open the Drapes: On those wonderful sunny winter days, open the drapes and let the sunshine in. This energy from the sun will help to warm your house and help to lower your heating bills a little too.
9. Close the Drapes: Yet, on warm summer days that very same sunshine can be an unwelcome guest in your house and a considerable burden on your air conditioner. On those days, closing the drapes can keep the temperature in your house several degrees cooler and keep your air conditioner from running quite as much.
10. Wave it: On of the most efficient method of cooking is with a microwave oven. Microwaves concentrate the cooking energy on the food and avoid heating up an entire oven, stovetop or even kitchen.
11. Keep it Raw: Better yet, eat it raw. Avoid cooking all together and enjoy a green salad, but keep in mind that a green salad need not be limited to some lettuce and spinach, with a few baby carrots and cherry tomatoes thrown in. Consider adding several of the following: onions, radishes, any one of a variety of nuts, broccoli, peas, cucumbers, celery, bell peppers, cheese. Along with your salad you could enjoy a deli sandwich and some fruit. Why heat up your food and your kitchen, especially on those how summer days?
12. Wash in Cold: Many laundry detergents these days do a fine job of cleaning clothes in cold water. By washing your clothes in cold water your clothes will still get clean and your hot water heater will get a break.
13. Close it Off: Many houses built over the past ten to twenty years have a room that is called a living room on the floor plans, but it is there primarily for resale value and is seldom used. Many of these same houses have a guest bedroom as well that may be used a few times a year. By closing off these rooms your heating and cooling bills could be significantly reduced.
14. Up with the Sun: "Early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." This may be an old idiom by Franklin, but is also good advice if you want to save some money on your lighting bills. If you don’t stay up so late you can turn off all those lights and save a little money.
15. Be a Water Miser: Only turn the water on when you need it when you are brushing your teeth and shaving and you can save hundreds of gallons of water a year.
Take a few free steps to save some energy and water, along the way you will find a little extra money in your wallet as well.
About The Author
Dan Bossenbroek is a registered architect and has been incorporating energy conservation design strategies into his projects for over seventeen years. He has extensive experience in residential design, is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED™ AP) and his area of expertise is high performance buildings and sustainable design. Furthermore, he is an avid do-it-yourselfer having renovated several older homes. For indoor air quality products and home improvement advice he recommends www.justgreenhomes.com
Green design generally focuses on developing practical pollution prevention technologies and lowering costs, by recycling scarce resources, using fewer raw materials and creating better products and processes that both cost less and pose fewer threats to workers, consumers and the environment. Green design objects are created to endure - structurally and artistically - to last for generations, without harming either the environment or the people that make or use them. In furniture design, this work is done using domestically grown solid wood, logged following sustainable forestry guidelines and whenever possible, the manufacturing waste products are recycled or repurposed. In interior design, Green Design is a home design strategy that could transform homes and businesses through appropriate utilization of green and eco-conscious interior decorating solutions, while incorporating modern and vintage colors and fabrics, and using new and reused furniture. Usually, furniture, along with many other interior pieces and decorative objects are too often thrown away, destroyed, and never reused or recycled. Using these recycled and refurbished items is one of Green Design’s favorite economic, and earth-friendly ways to refurnish, and redecorate homes or businesses.Green Design passionately introduces green design philosophies into every affected home while enabling homeowners to define their personal style. Green design is a cost-effective decorative means for a safer and healthier living environment. The target is to educate homeowners, men and women, and bring in uncomplicated ways that each individual household can effect to make a difference not only by improving their quality of life but also in the environment they live in.Green Design's unique requirements offer a fresh and innovative approach to interior design. So whether you have ideas about color and design already, or are at a loss to even know where to start, the three principles for the attainment of Fine Green Design shall guide you, namely:
Refresh: If you want to "spruce up" a particular room or maybe would just like to do a "walk through" of your entire home for specific suggestions and ideas, then a refresh will suffice. And whether you need to decide on a new color for the walls, how to better arrange your furniture, how to place pieces of art in just the "right spot", what to do with windows or lighting, or just need some new interpretation of your own idea, do the refresh and define your particular style and get inspired to begin your project.
Reinvent: If you want to make the most of your existing furnishings, and maybe incorporate a few new things, but need to pull the look all together. Or, maybe you just want translating or disclosing your ideas into a room that is polished and accommodates your lifestyle, then reinventing will do. For concrete practical styling using your existing furniture and introducing new pieces and accessories, a reinvention that is designed to fit within your needs and your budget is just what you need. Your space will be transformed by repositioning and repurposing what you have, and blending in new pieces to create a coordinated look, all designed to reflect your individual style.
Redecorate: If you are waiting for that complete makeover of your room, then redecorating might just be timely and appropriate. Whether you are starting with a new home, or injecting new life into an old space, it is best suited for you if you are looking to buy all new furnishings and accessories. If you have been thinking about an entirely new look, this is the way to go. By redecorating, you are going beyond reinventing and starting from scratch on your room. It is similar to the reinventing, but goes a step further by including more detail in the finished plan.
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