Best Green Home Building Techniques

By Diana Smith

When building an eco-friendly home, there are tons of things you need to take into consideration – from finding a way to utilize second-hand materials to using LED light bulbs that will save money and electricity in the long run. Living in this day and age means you have to do whatever it takes to help preserve our planet and it’s quite important to opt for eco-friendliness when starting such a complex and huge project. You don’t have to do much to ensure your home is the greenest one in your neighborhood, yet you’ll need to plan a number of things in advance. Here are a few techniques and ideas that might prove to be helpful.

Find a suitable location

When trying to achieve the maximum level of eco-friendliness, a proper location makes all the difference. Building a sustainable green home may seem hard, but it’s actually doable if you think in advance and choose your location wisely. If possible, don’t build a home that faces west because this decision will prevent you from getting enough sunlight all year long. Moreover, double check how prone to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other meteorological disasters your location is and avoid it while you still can.

Keep it small and simple

While a spacious house is something every family needs, you might want to think twice if you want to stay eco-friendly. The philosophy behind this decision is quite simple – the smaller a house is, the lower its environmental impact is, so small houses have less consequence on our planet than bigger ones. Not only do spacious houses cost more to design, plan and build, but they also require more energy to stay cool in the summer and hot in the winter, which isn’t good for our eco-system. Moreover, living in a small house also means your everyday costs will be much lower and easier to manage.

Remove and recycle

Getting rid of all unnecessary things is vital on a construction site since things can easily get messy and disorganized in a matter of hours. That’s why you need to recycle all the waste you produce – including the leftover material you might have – as soon as possible, and it’s best to leave it to the professionals. Yes, taking dozens of trash bags to a landfill in the trunk of your car is an option, but it’s neither eco-friendly nor a particularly sensible one. That’s why you should look into trustworthy construction debris removal experts who will dispose of it in the safest and most efficient way possible, leaving you with nothing but a clean construction site ready to welcome your green home.

Use recycled materials

Speaking of recycling, there’s another related idea you might want to explore: using recycled materials instead of new ones. You can’t even imagine what you can do with second-hand resources – such as wood, glass, aluminum, tile, plastic and steel, for instance – and how much money you can save by building with these. Most people aren’t even aware of the potential recycling offers, but you can easily turn old timber into new kitchen cabinets, doors and even floors. This way, you’ll not only save a ton of usable resources, but also elevate the level of eco-friendliness in your new home. Finally, you’ll help save the raw material reserves in the world, and that’s helpful on so many levels.

Some of the other ideas you should think of when building a green home include installing solar panels, using only energy-efficient electronic equipment and insulating all your exterior walls – this idea will enable you to regulate your indoor temperature more easily and efficiently.