Practicing eco-friendliness and sustainability goes hand in hand with reduced power consumption. As we become more and more eco-conscious, we can adjust our lifestyle to reduce our carbon footprint on the earth. Besides keeping the earth green, we can also enjoy the reward of reduced power consumption and power bills.
There are several ways our homes can represent our eco-conscious mindset and lifestyle. Let’s take a look at a few of these:
Insulate Your Home
Installing insulation sheets in the walls and ceiling is an easy way to achieve an eco-friendly home. Insulating your home makes it easier to maintain your desired temperature inside the home.
An eco-friendly home with insulated walls and ceilings will not require you to run the heater or air conditioner for long. Rather, the insulation sheets will keep the cold from escaping both inside and outside the home, making your home cooler in the summers and warmer during winters.
You can ensure further insulation for your home by double glazing glass windows and doors. Double glazed windows work similarly to insulation sheets in walls and ceilings. You can also get thicker curtains for your home’s windows if you cannot double glaze them.
If you have a chimney at home, consider keeping it shut when not in use to stop unnecessary ventilation. Moreover, sealing the open spaces under the doors can also help your home stay warmer or cooler, minimizing power consumption.
Harvest Rainwater
Harvesting rainwater is a great way to make your home sustainable while reducing water bills. Harvesting rainwater is also very simple and requires a simple DIY setup. YouTube tutorials on the subject are enough to equip you with all the knowledge required to set up a rainwater harvest system.
You can use the rainwater directly to water your plants or clean the exterior of your home. However, installing a water filter can increase the use of harvested rainwater. It will allow you to utilize rainwater for washing and cleaning purposes inside the home.
If you decide to keep your rainwater harvest tank in the backyard, it will also help reduce power consumption for heating the water for showers and baths. Direct sunlight can heat the water container and the water inside it effectively in an eco-friendly way, minimizing your dependence on electrical sources.
Start a Kitchen Garden
A kitchen garden is an obvious sign of an eco-friendly home. Besides saving you money on food, a kitchen garden will also help you reduce the use of refrigerators and microwaves in your home.
The kitchen garden can quickly motivate people to make fresh food every time, lowering the need to buy store-bought ingredients or reheat frozen food. A few weeks of eating fresh food will enable you to switch to a smaller refrigerator and eliminate the microwave.
Switch to Smart Electrical Appliances
While you may think updating electrical appliances is unnecessary, you would be able to change your opinion once you find out the energy-efficient features in newer electrical appliances.
Almost all home electrical appliances are becoming eco-friendly and energy-efficient with time. While buying new appliances will cost you, you can exchange them with your old ones to get a discount or a swapping deal.
In the long run, the energy-efficient features of the new appliances will result in reduced power consumption and lower electric bills. You will be able to recover your investment within a few months and save a lot of money in the longer run.
Install Solar Panels
Solar panels are a long-term investment and the ultimate measure to achieve an eco-friendly home. Depending on how many solar panels you install, you can go partially or entirely off-grid. You will get complete control over your home’s power consumption, saving you a lot more than you invest in the long run.
However, if you cannot afford solar panels for now or cannot install them in your rented space, you can easily switch to solar gutter lights. Gutter lights are yard lights. They recharge with solar energy through the day and utilize this energy at night.
Switching to solar gutter lights can result in reduced power consumption in the exterior of your home and lower your home’s power bills. Find out more at Simple Solar.
Finally, living with an eco-conscious mindset alone can significantly help reduce power consumption for your home and save you money on power bills. An eco-conscious mindset requires you to only use what you need and not waste any resources.
You can adapt this mindset into practice by switching off the lights of empty rooms, not keeping the water tap running, and plugging off electronics when not in use.
