Do you plan to move house during the next couple of months? Would you like to ensure that your new property is as environmentally-friendly as possible? Then you need to start working soon to ensure you have covered all the basics. At the end of the day, the chances of your new property using green alternatives to traditional methods are pretty slim. So, you will want to make lots of changes before you finally move into the property. That could put your moving day back a couple of weeks, but it will be worth it in the end. We haven’t published a complete checklist, and so you will need to use some common sense too.

• Did you get solar panels?

The first thing you will need to do is purchase solar panels for your new property. That is the best way to harness the sun’s energy and use the least amount of fossil fuel possible. There are lots of government-run schemes at the moment that allow you to get hold of them very cheaply. Just make sure you pay for a property survey first to ensure the roof is in good enough condition to handle the weight. If the surveyors find any issues, you might have to install them in the back garden. Either that or you will need to pay for renovations to the roof.

• Did you install digital heat controls?

The best thing about digital heating monitors is that you can see how much you are using each and every day. You can also set the heating to come on and go off at specific times. Anyone who feels passionate about protecting the planet will make sure they are installed in the new property before they move. The devices don’t cost a lot of money to purchase, and you can get them online from many different websites. You can also get full digital controls for the entire property. They will let you know how much power each plug socket is using. Having that information at hand should make it easier for you to reduce consumption.

• Did you swap to wooden doors?

We all know there are certain dangers when your home uses UPVC doors. Around 80% of properties currently have them, and that is something that needs to change. The process of making UPVC is harmful to the environment, and the materials are not sustainable. If you haven’t already, you should remove them from your property and replace them with traditional alternatives. You might end up paying a little more for wooden doors, but at least you can buy them from green companies. Just make sure you ask the supplier only to provide you with items that have been reclaimed or recycled.

If you manage to tick all those points off your list, you should be in the best position to move into a truly green home. There are lots of other changes you can make to the property in the future, but that should be enough to keep you satisfied on moving day. When all’s said and done, new environmentally-friendly ideas are popping up all the time. So, you just need to keep your finger on the pulse.

Nick Rice

Perhaps you are a new eco-warrior or maybe you have wanted to make your bathroom more eco-friendly for a while, but just haven’t had the time. Either way, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are here and want to change your lifestyle and make part of your home – your bathroom, more eco-friendly.

Whether you want to help reduce your energy usage or save yourself some money, you have come to the right place.

Photo from Flickr

Updating your bathroom and transforming it into a more eco-friendly space doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, it can be done for little to no cost at all, all you need to do is follow these tips:

Use your bathroom fan

Using your fan might sound like a drain on your household energy, but if you want to prevent mold growing in your bathroom, this is a must. Instead of just turning your fan on for a few minutes after your shower and then turning it off. Turn your fan on before you get in the shower and leave it running afterwards.

If the idea of using your fan more doesn’t appeal to you, due to the increased energy usage, you could open a window instead. It may not work as well, but leaving a window open for half an hour after your shower, should do the trick.

Turn down your hot water

Did you know that your water heater could be using as much as 20 percent of your home’s energy? That’s a crazy amount.

Most water heater manufacturers preset water heaters to heat water to around 140 degrees, which is way too hot. To save energy, reset your water heater to 10 degrees lower – 130 degrees, and you can save five percent on your annual energy costs.

If you water heater is old, then it might be a good idea to consider replacing it with a newer, more eco-friendly model. By swapping your old water heater for an eco-friendly alternative, you could reduce your energy usage, and save money on bills.

Install water saving taps

Believe it or not, many baths, showers, and sinks have taps on them that waste a lot of water. Each year in the US, thousands of gallons of water is wasted because most homes don’t have water saving taps installed.

The next time you want to replace your bathroom taps, have a look online, on tapwarehouse.com, for water saving taps. Or, if your taps are fairly new, you can buy devices that fit onto your taps instead.

Install a flush with two setting.

Instead of having just one flush setting, install a flush that has a setting for number ones and number twos. That way when the toilet is used for number ones, a smaller amount of water can be used to flush them away. Instead of wasting water.

It’s surprising how easily you can make your home more eco-friendly, all it takes is a few small changes.

Living in the modern world and trying to preserve it at the same time is difficult. There’s so much we rely on daily that can be harmful to the environment, such as cars. But while there are times you can’t avoid harming the environment it’s important to try to preserve it in other areas.

The good news is that in your home life it’s possible to be a little more environmentally friendly. There are steps you can take to be greener at home and help the planet in the process. Here are some wonderful ways you can make your home more eco-friendly.

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Solar Power

Using solar power is one of the best ways to make your home more eco-friendly. You can do this by putting solar panels up on the roof of your home. By doing this, you’ll ensure that you use the solar energy from the sun to power your home. By trapping the sun’s rays in the solar panels, they’re stored and then used in the home. So anytime you need to use energy such as turning on a light or powering your television it’s used through solar energy. This cuts down on your energy bills as well as being better for the environment. Solar panels can be expensive to install, but the long-term savings make it well worth it. You might also get an incentive payment from the government at the end of each year for using solar panels.

Change Lights

Believe it or not changing the lights in your home can help you make it more eco-friendly. You will find that you can replace your current lights with high-quality Ecosave Led Lights. These will reduce your lighting bills by quite a significant amount each year. These kind of lights can use up to ninety percent less energy than ordinary bulbs, and they last so much longer. You’ll also find that as well as saving money your bulbs will need less maintenance and fewer replacements.

Recycle

One of the most popular ways to maintain a green, eco-friendly home is to make sure you recycle. Nowadays more people are concerned with recycling than ever before. And plans ensure people always have the option to recycle. Recycling bins are provided by local councils, and a lot more of us are conscious of protecting the environment. There are so many different materials you can recycle nowadays that your rubbish output can be minimal. Glass, plastic and metal are all prime candidates for the recycle bin. As well as the obvious bits of paper and cardboard. You should have bottle banks and such in your local area that you can use if you don’t have a recycling bin.

Use a Water Butt

If you want to go the whole hog, don’t just stop at solar power, think about getting a tank or water butt for the garden. This will trap rainwater ensuring that it doesn’t go to waste. You can then link this to the pipes in your home giving you free water for as long as the tank is full. This will cut down on your water bills and mean you’re using less energy. For the perfect eco-balance, you should try to get solar powers and a water tank. You will notice a big difference and end up saving a considerable amount of money.

Decorating and re-furnishing my home has never been my thing. I’m not that great at it, if I’m completely honest. And, if we are being honest, I do feel insanely jealous when I walk into one of my friend’s homes and everything looks beautiful and matched and complementary. Oh, and clean; Phoebe gets her sticky fingers/snot/puke all over everything. It’s like she’s on some sort of infant dirty protest, though she gets fed, bathed and has an endless supply of toys available, so what she’s got to complain about I can’t imagine!

But, I have come across a revolutionary tool for helping in this area. True it’s not going to enhance your ability to sniff out the right curtains that match the right rug that match the right cushions that match the right coffee table etcetera, etcetera, but it does make life a lot easier when it comes to arranging furniture, buying pieces that are the right size and checking your room still works if you have a move-around and the baby isn’t going to get trapped in a metre squared corner between a bookcase, sofa and wall.

And knowing that a piece of furniture will fit into a room is only the beginning! Knowing that you can still get access to electrical sockets, doors and windows is where full planning is really useful. What happens if you buy all of your lovely new furniture and it just doesn’t look right? This is where stress levels can increase and arguments can occur.

You can now spare yourself and your family this stress with the Home by Me software.

My best friend from uni introduced me to it. She and her fiancée have just bought a brand new house (lucky buggers!) and are desperate to get everything Just Right. So, she’s been using this software to plan every room in meticulous detail, and she raves about it! She’s also one of those people who have that sixth sense of knowing what colours schemes will work and what furniture and accessories work well together. Damn her!

It’s incredibly sadistic of me but part of me – a miniscule part, in fact – can’t wait to see how their perfectly designed home fairs when the kids come along! (Cue evil laugh!)

So What is Home By Me?

Basically this software helps you to design whatever room you want to focus on by playing around with the layout of your furniture etcetera, allowing you to choose exactly the right furniture, in the right size, for your room.

What Do I Like About It?

The Home by Me software has a wealth of features which make designing a room or home as easy as possible. After taking some measurements (WARNING: basic numeracy skills required! For an English teacher, that normally isn’t good news, but even I can use a tape measure and do basic adding and subtraction!), you are able to create an accurate plan of your entire home, room by room. The software allows for multi-level plans which means you can easily switch from one floor to another as well as room to room. Great fun!

For anyone with anything fancy in their home, you can add pillars, casings and bay windows as well as electrical, gas and water points – the sort of stuff you forget to consider in your initial redecorating plans! You can even take into account the position of any radiators, which was where Steve and I fell down when we moved into our first home!

After creating your floor plan, it is easy to drag and drop the furniture from the catalogue straight to where you want it. The dropdown menus are really clearly and logically arranged by room – it’s like designing a computer-based doll’s house! The 2 dimensional view shows whether an item will fit where you want it to, whereas the 3 dimensional view shows you how the room will look once finished. Simples!

After furnishing your home on the plans, the summary section shows you the details of your project. The room by room summary gives you all of the specifications of the rooms including floor space and wall dimensions. This information can make decorating and flooring your rooms extra easy as you do not have to measure again. You will also get a summary of the products you’ve selected in a shopping list format, making your purchases easy and hassle free!

Would I Recommend It?

Absolutely! Besides making life a heck of a lot easier when it comes to redesigning a home, it’s also heaps of fun, and it makes you think about things that might otherwise not have been considered until it’s too late, like the position of light sockets and radiators etcetera.

It’s totally free, so there’s zero harm in giving it a try!