If you are planning to remodel or build a new home, it’s a great opportunity to go green with energy efficient technologies. Cutting-edge building technologies and eco-friendly products will help you enjoy all comforts of modern home, while being sensitive to environmental and budget impacts.
A great way to make your home eco-friendly is to manage the energy use in home and use green lighting technology to improve the home’s overall efficiency. There are numerous affordable green energy saving ideas to reduce carbon footprint, reducing energy consumption, without much effort and money. Small changes in your lifestyle, like using green technologies, is key to reducing your energy costs and ecological impact.
Solar Array: There are numerous financial incentives to installing rooftop solar panels. An average family needs to spend only less than $6,000 after government grants, tax exemption, rebates, and incentives.
Solar Water Heater: Installation of solar water heater, with an initial average cost of $2000 – $6000, can help you reduce expenses and energy consumption. Even though the initial cost of the solar heaters are much higher than the conventional water heaters, the increased efficiency of solar water heating systems can reduce 50 to 80 percent on your water heating bills.
Rainwater Harvesting System: One of the most inexpensive and easy to go green environment is to assemble a water system to collect the rainwater. All the equipments of this system are affordable; you can easily set up the system to collect water and use them to water your plants, and other non-potable uses. You can also get the service of a contractor to get the job done at a minimum cost. The cost of the project can fall anywhere between $50 and few hundreds of dollars.
LED Lighting: This type of lighting is considered to be the perfect energy-efficient lighting solution for residential homes. When compared to standard incandescent lighting, the energy star rated LED bulbs consume 10 times less energy and offer a 25 times long life span. The low price and maintenance-free feature of the LED bulbs make this an easy upgrade to your home.
CFL Lighting: It is yet another option for making your home energy efficient, for long term. CFL lights can be a good source of energy savings compared with incandescent lights however they do contain mercury, which is a known toxin. Because of this, it’s important that homeowners not throw broken CFL bulbs in the trash. Be sure to read this clean-up and recycling advice recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Wind Turbine: One of the misconceptions regarding the installation of wind generator is that you need to live in areas where the wind is strong. For domestic purposes, a small wind can generate about 10 -30% of the energy used in an average home. A giant wind turbine, which can produce about 90% of the energy needed will cost more than $45,000. The price of the wind system varies largely depending on the type and size of wind generator you select.
From your cleaning products to your tile, there are many ways to make your home green. Want to learn more about making your home energy efficient? Hire an energy efficiency auditor on Porch.
