Revamp Your Home with Sustainable Style: a Guide to Green Energy Remodeling
There’s going to come a time in every homeowner’s life when the same color palates and decorations are just too etched into your mind to look at them for very much longer.
That’s when most men and women embark on a months-long process to update their homes and remodel as much of it as they can while staying within a predetermined budget. These remodels can be as simple as refreshing the paint on the walls or as involved as knocking out walls and replacing floors.
How in-depth your remodel gets is up to you but there are plenty of options for any sized remodel when you want your work to be as sustainable and green as possible.
It’s a good idea to have an energy assessment run on your house before you start deciding on what you want to change and how you want to change it. That assessment is going to let you know where your energy consumption can be improved and where your biggest losses are coming from.
Passive Remodeling
If you’re more concerned with your sustainability than with the look of your home, you can choose a passive remodel that will simply improve your energy usage and waste throughout your home.
These types of remodels and home landscape design schemes will seal up your house to stop any heat or cooling from being wasted and it will have a huge impact on your utility bills. This typically involves resealing your fixtures, checking your insulation, and considering the best layout to get the most efficient energy consumption possible.
Of course, if you have your heart set on changing your home around, there are plenty of passive options for that as well and they won’t have to drain your bank account to do it.
Additions like skylights are great for adding natural light and heat to your home without revamping your entire heating and cooling system. It will also flood your room with sunlight, lowering your need for artificial lighting.
Sustainable Remodeling
When it comes to making your home as sustainable as possible, there are plenty of things you can do to change the outdated materials that you’re tired of looking at and using.
There are many options when it comes to choosing sustainable woods that can replace any countertop, cabinetry, or tables that you have and they’ll have a real impact on the environment. This is a path that’s best taken when the materials you already have are past their life expectancy and no longer possible to use safely or efficiently.
Of course, if your features still have some life left in them, you don’t have to feel bad about replacing them, just because you want to remodel your home and change things around.
Functional cabinetry and countertops can easily be donated to organizations that give them to people in need at a deeply discounted or free rate. That’s just one more way that your remodel is improving the world you live in!