Written by, Sophie Andersen
As modern human beings, we always fret and worry about getting our money’s worth, even though there is a price that can’t possibly be measured in dollars, pounds, or any other currency known to man.
By this, of course, I mean the price of the toll that constructing a house can have upon the environment.
An increasing number of people are looking to help the environment by minimizing the impact their homes make on our planet. You need to remain aware, however, of the fact that outfitting your home with sustainable technology doesn’t have to mean more investment, at least not in the long term.
We’ve outlined a few examples of sustainable homes, as well as some advice on maintaining them:
ZEB Pilot House
From an internationally-based architecture company, Snøhetta, comes an interesting experimental house equipped with solar panels, which generate as much as up to three times the amount of energy necessary for running. Everything, from a large photovoltaic array, to a rainwater collection system, to an efficient heat exchanger – this house has it all, when it comes to sustainability.
Waste House
At the University of Brighton, UK, lies a sustainable house built almost entirely from discarded waste. These items, however, do not only incorporate your usual materials like brick, wood and ceramics, but waste such as 20,000 toothbrushes, 2,000 floppy disks, 4,000 DVD cases, and 2,000 used carpet tiles. They haven’t, in essence, let anything go to waste.
Richardson Apartments
San Francisco has always been America’s first go-to place when it comes to progressiveness and eco-friendliness. Despite its modern look and updated technology, this apartment building is actually a low-income housing project.
Shipping Container Homes
As an example of this impressive type of a home, we’ve chosen a prominent Dallas house built from 14 shipping containers. Totaling 3,700 square feet, this home offers 1,000 square feet on the ground floor, while inspiring a rich look of taste and class. An inspiring idea, plenty of shipping container homes use Royal Wolf as a main supplier for the containers.
Running and Maintenance Tips
Opt for a Clothesline
While you can’t exactly make things work without a refrigerator, its main competitor when it comes to power consumption, the energy-guzzling dryer, certainly can be excluded from your list of necessary home appliances. Simply buy a pulley kit at your local hardware store, or go DIY and make one for yourself and enjoy a clear conscience.
Tubular Skylight
It is most likely that you will have a dark place in one area of the house, no matter if it’s a hallway, a bathroom, or your garage. If used frequently, these parts of a home tend to guzzle energy, not to mention work up that electricity bill. This is where a tubular skylight can do wonders for you – It will provide you with something like a wall lamp, which requires no energy whatsoever, seeing as how it depends on sunlight as a sole mean of providing illumination.
Insulate Hot-Water Pipes
This will reduce the need for over-using a boiler and help you conserve energy, helping the environment as well as keeping your pockets turned the right side in.
There are plenty of eco-friendly, sustainable home ideas out there, which pay compliments both to the environment as well as to your finances. The myth that eco-friendly homes have to be expensive is a busted one.
