Eco Friendly Houses - House - Carbon Neutral

“In a recent survey it was revealed that 52% of people where prepared to pay more for Eco homes” - Showing it pays to be Green

A recent government directive indicated that all new homes should be carbon neutral by 2016, but what can we do in our current homes to reduce our carbon footprint and What Eco friendly products are available to help with this task?

Top tips for saving Energy

Make sure you loft is properly insulated; this is one of the most important things you can do to conserve energy in your home. If you install 270mm of insulation you can knock of approximately £200 from your heating bills. Best yet insulating your home is relatively inexpensive and the Government offers grants to help you pay for it.
If you have an old boiler now is the time to replace it. Upgrade it for a new condensing boiler, to help increase household efficiency. Huge savings can be made on your heating bills.
Install energy saving light bulbs, they last up to 12 times longer than their traditional counterpart and are fantastic Eco freindly products in your Eco Home.

Save energy today for free & Create Eco Friendly Houses

Don’t leave any electrical goods on Standby
Wash clothes at lower temperatures e.g. 30 – 40 degrees, and make sure it’s a full load
Reduce the heat in your home, turn down the thermostat and set it on a timer
Your fridge uses loads of energy so make sure it’s properly sealed. You can use a five pound note, shut it in the door, if it falls you need a new seal
Use a pan lid when you boil your vegetables and pasta it cooks quicker this way, make sure you only use the water you need
When brushing your teeth don't leave the tap running
Buy organic locally produced from your local supermarkets or grocery store
Peel and wash fruit and vegetables, make sure you composte your peel.
Never use pesticides in you home or garden use natural products which won’t harm wildlife
Select fresh, frozen or dried foods as aposed to canned foot. Tin cans are not always eco-friendly to produce
Don’t use PVC cling film to rap your food in, cling film is not biodagrable, and therefore not good for the environment or good for your food
If possible mothers should breast-feed babies. If not, they should use, non polycarbonate bottles for feeding their babies
You should never need to use air fresheners (many are full of damaging chemicals) open your window instead
You can now buy eco-friendly cleaning products, look on the lables to check for soap, shampoos and cosmetics that don’t contain synthetic fragrances.
Use glues, paints, and varnish that have a low VOC content, or water-based solutions

Appliance is Eco Science

When you are buying a new dishwasher, washing machine, fridge freezer etc

Make sure they come with at least an A rating in terms of efficiency. There are plenty of products which do; you can even get an A+++ energy efficiency range.

All major retailers display the energy efficiency of their products, remember its not just white goods all electrical goods should come with energy efficiency ratings.

For instance did you know that in general, eco friendly products like LCD televisions use less energy than their equivalent plasma counterpart? Check the energy efficency rating before you buy.

Showers vs Baths

Showers use less water than baths, Correct?

Well maybe not! A power shower can easily use up as much water as an average sized bath.

Typical bath uses up 80 liters of water, while a power shower can often use up 80 + liters of water (depends on model and duration of use).Low flow showers use up less than 30 liters of water (depends on model and duration of use).

If you are fitting a shower make sure it has a low flow rate e.g. Hansgrove showers.
EcoSpy showers - reduce water flow by 50%
Fit your shower with a timer, which switches the shower off after a set time

Eco Toilets and Eco Flush

When you flush a toilet you use up to 13 liters of water. This is a lot of water wasted, so what can we do to help.

You can now buy dual flush toilets, whereby one Eco flush uses less water, aprox 3 -4 liters

These Eco flush toilets can be bought for around £266 from Twyford bathrooms - www.twyfordbathrooms.com you can also find slightly more expensive eco flush toilets at Jasper Morrison - www.jaspermorrison.com

Another way of conserving water from your existing toilet is to by a Hippo, which is basically a plastic box that is placed under your cistern and can save up to 3 liters every flush. See - www.hippo-the-watersaver.co.uk

Eco Taps

Mixer taps can be bought that reduce water flow; they have a specially designed control lever with a water break.

You can also buy taps with aerators which mixes air bubbles with the water to reduce water flow.

For existing taps you can use cartridges that reduce the water flow creating a spray of water. - See Eco Taps

Use Eco Paint

Always try and use paint made from natural resources and that are chemical free. Have a look at the Eco Chick range - www.earthbornpaints.co.uk

If you are building a house from scratch consider using lime plaster and a water based glase.See www.greenshop.co.uk

If you are going to use wallpaper look for wallpaper that has been recycled - www.ewmoore.com has a selection of recycled wallpaper.

Carpets

Eco friendly carpets are made from natural resources such as

Hemp
Wool
Organic Cotton
Rubber
Sisal
Hessian (for underlay)

For more details see www.thenaturalflooring.com and www.floorsourceuk.com

Wooden floors

Always try and keep existing floor boards, you can always give them a revamp with a sanding and a coat of varnish. If you have to replace damaged floorboards then use FSC approved timber or sustainable eco friendly products like bamboo.

Eco Building

If you are involved in building a new house then this is a perfect oportunity to use Eco friendly building material to reduce energy waste and create amazing new carbon friendly sustainable Eco homes. More and more people are rejecting the usual building route of concrete and morta, in order to create eco friendly houses, using greener building materials such as,

A very good book to read about building Eco homes, that blend perfectly within their natural surroundings is "Diary of an Eco-Builder" (published by Green Books, www.greenbooks.co.uk)

Also have a look at www.ecovation.org.uk Which includes articles by George Marshall (www.theyellowhouse.org.uk)

Ecovation, is a new initiative for those who have renovated their homes to a high environmental standard and willing to share their experiences good and bad with others including ideas, tips, those all important contacts for creating eco friendly houses.

"Ecovation is a collective, informative site for inspiring and enabling practical change." - www.ecovation.org.uk

We can all do something to help the environment no matter how small, whether these be lifestyle changes or the introduction to our households of energy saving devices, Eco Friendly Products used to create Eco Friendly Houses.

Comments

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Posted By Amelia

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Thankyou for the article. Im doing a project at school at the minute on energy saving and youve really helped me get some ideas! Thankyou Amelia (age 11)

Posted By someonesomethingnumthing

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Posted By someone

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something

Posted By Jules

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http://www.ecohouseagent.com/Talking about eco friendly products for in the house, you need to look at a website: milestone.uk.net those guys have really got eco friendly kitchens sorted out. They've helped us go totally recycled in our new kitchen. Service was great too !

Posted By Shihuai

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thank you for everything for my homework and my father recommended this website to me so thanks from him!

Posted By Shelly

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Being as green as possible is so important. There is a site that I love to shop at Clean Spirited, http://www.cleanspirited.com/ They sell eco friendly organic apparel and bath and body products including lots of organic and natural hair care. And, each product has rating telling customers how green it is. One dollar from every order is donated to environmental causes. I love it!

Posted By Yo!

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yippeyyyy..!! thank u so much..!! My h.w complete .. ! nice :)

Posted By Justin Tan

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http://www.ecohouseagent.com/Nice tips!

Posted By Riley

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http://www.ecohouseagent.com/Very helpful tips. It helped with building my current house.

Posted By george wragg

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Hi Ed, i really enjoyed this article as well. Add me on facebook and i'll give you more information on eco houses. Sincerely george wragg

Posted By Jenny

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I am going to embark on buying a house that requires quite alot of work doing to it. As it will be taken back to its bones so to speak, I am finding it very difficult to come across architects, builders etc that know about taking it down the eco route and installation. Please could you pass me some information on people with whom I can contact about what products could be affective for me. This would be a great help, I am based in the NorthWest are, thanks.

Posted By Eco Friendly Houses

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Buying an old home that would otherwise be torn down is a great, low-budget option for eco-friendly housing (if the building is still structurally sound). Think about all the framing lumber that would end up buried in a landfill if the structure were not preserved. You can gradually improve the energy efficiency of the house, starting with good insulation and new windows. Restoring wood floors hidden under old carpets or linoleum is green, healthy and cost-effective. And using salvaged materials to fix up a house often adds character without the cost of a traditional remodel. http://www.greenliving9.com/eco-homes.html

Posted By ana

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http://www.ecohouseagent.com/ I agree full of great info, I'm trying to create an eco home at the moment, and need good advice like this

Posted By jess

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nice

Posted By ed

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nice Article :>)