Blue Planet News

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Building and sustaining a house costs you money. Money you earn hard, of course. You go to work every day, eat all sort of bossy-style remarks from your bosses and come home to rest. My ideal place for living is not some fancy apartment, or some big house with concrete or brick walls. I don’t really care what it’s made of, if it does what it has to do: to protect me and my family and to last over the years. And… still protect the environment it’s built in.

It’s a two-bladed knife here, I might say. If you want a strong house, build it big, and use concrete and a lot of bricks. If you want a cheap house, use prefabricated materials. Anyway, here they are:

#1. Use eco-friendly materials. First, see if the materials you are using are recycled, or easy to recycle. Your house is going to last for many decades probably, and you don’t want to throw away the materials your home is made from, in your children’s or your grandchildrens’ world.

#2. Build a thermo-insulated home. Your home must be energy-efficient. If it’s not, that means you will waste a lot of money (or work hours, if you prefer), during your lifetime by paying bills of electricity, heat and gas and you won’t even know you are paying much more than you use! Being energy efficient means your walls (even if they are made of brick or something else) must insulate your home to the outside. And there are a lot of materials you can use in our days to do that. Just google for them and find which is most appropriate for you.

#3. Get energy independent! Once you have a house, you must “energize” it. At first, you’ll have to cable it and have all the electrical system put to work, but don’t rest peaceful, thinking you’ve done all you could. The sunlight has always been free, and it will always be! Put solar panels on your rooftop, and do not buy the most cheap ones, but find efficient ones! Go browsing eBay and you’ll find all sorts of solar panels there. You may also install later a wind turbine in the backyard, for more power. Here you can find instructions on how to build a small, experimental one. It’s a beginning.

#4. Use environmental friendly paint. There are several organic paint manufacturers on the market. Same advice: google on them and you’ll find out quickly what to use.

#5. Use energy efficient appliances. Keeping the TV on all day isn’t economic at all, not for your bill nor for the environment. Or using high-power light bulbs turned on in all your house all the time. But, there’s one aspect in which you can make a difference here: you can buy a low-watt TV, or an economic light bulb. It offers the same amount of lighting power, at about half the electricity consumption! That goes for all other non-stop working appliances (especially for your fridge).

#6. Install smart electronics in your home. What are smart electronics? Electronics that are smart! Try to find out and install a system that manages all your room activity, in certain areas of your house. For example, in the bathroom, when your little Joey forgot to turn off the light, you don’t have to always remember him that, but install a motion detector to turn it off for you if no moves are detected, let’s say, for about 3 minutes. They’re cheap and you can also find some on eBay.

#7. Installing heating in your floor can also be an option if you have more money. But if you don’t have that much money you can spend on luxury, there are many solutions that use the water your instant-heating boiler makes to heat the floor. In that way, heat can come from bottom to top and be much more widespread and efficient in keeping a minimum of temperature in hour home.

#8. Use solar lighting for your garden. These items are commonly used, and they’re also cheap. They charge from the sun and when the night falls, give you light from the energy stored in the batteries over the day. Plus, they’re very sleek and give a high-class look to your driveway or garden.

#9. Try and research all there is about green energy generation, about how to be energy independent, and how to have your share in the good planet’s life. You may also find interesting in your research www.cars-and-trees.com. Go there and find out all usable and pioneering methods of generating energy. Try them out and see what works for you and your global home.