Climate change, rising sea levels, floating plastic islands and increasing energy costs are all results of natural resources being unsustainably managed. With much-needed attention being focused on creating a sustainable environment, did you know homeowners can play their role in supporting this cause? One of the ways you can contribute, in your personal capacity, is to create an eco-friendly home.
There are a number of ways you can do this. For example, consider skylight installation Melbourne homeowners are opting for as a way to cut down on energy costs. Or, encourage your family to recycle while also minimising the use of plastic packaging whenever you go shopping.
See? It’s not that difficult! To help you find ways of making your home eco-friendly, use our list of five energy-saving tips to kickstart your personal sustainable practice today.
1. Tap Into Natural Lighting
If there’s one thing Australian homeowners have plenty of, it’s ample sunshine! By capturing this natural resource, you can effectively bring daylight into your home and reduce the use of artificial lighting. While having big windows is one way of bringing in natural lighting, installing skylights is also a simple solution.
With the use of advanced technology and modern designs, skylights can be installed quickly with minimal changes to your home’s infrastructure. Tubular skylights have replaced conventional designs by optimising the use of sunlight and using it to light up even the darkest room in your home. Skylights help to drop energy costs while the health benefits of natural light are numerous.
2. Use LED Bulbs
While skylights will bring in natural lighting during the daytime, you’ll still need to use light bulbs in various situations. Incandescent and halogen light bulbs may be cheaper, but they have no place in an eco-friendly home. These light bulbs are being phased out throughout Australia and being replaced with the energy-saving LED bulb.
LED bulbs use up to 75% less energy than a halogen bulb uses for lighting a home. If you’re still using incandescent bulbs in your home, start swapping them out with LED bulbs. This way, you’re saving on costly energy bills while protecting natural resources being used to generate electricity.
3. Say No to Plastic
No plastic? This takes some serious commitment especially when so many of your food products are packaged in plastic. But, look for alternative ways of buying food products so you can at least cut down on the amount of plastic being used. Ask your local butcher to place cut meat into your own containers. Do the same with fresh fruit and vegetables at your local supermarket.
A few habits that are easy to incorporate:
- Take your own fabric tote whenever you go grocery shopping
- Buy in bulk when purchasing laundry powder, dishwashing detergent and other similar products
- Drink tap water or opt for glass bottles only
Lastly, no eco-friendly home should be without a recycling bin. This way you can recycle plastic and help reduce the energy costs of producing this type of packaging.
4. Install a Low-Flow Shower Head
A low-flow shower head saves on the amount of water you need whenever you take a shower. But, you can also reduce the amount of energy required to heat water when taking a shower with this “green” device. By cutting down on water consumption during a shower, you’re also decreasing energy usage.
5. Know Your Off-Peak Hours for Running Appliances
You can save a lot on energy by running household appliances such as your dishwasher or washing machine during off-peak hours. This is often in the middle of the night so make sure your appliances can be pre-set to run a wash cycle during this time.
Check when your electric service provider’s off-peak hours are and take advantage of them to reduce demand on the grid. While this does take some planning beforehand and ensuring your appliances have advanced technology for programming wash cycles, you’ll be doing your bit for the environment. And, you may even save on your monthly energy bills.
Additional Tip: Go Solar
Earlier, we talked about tapping natural lighting. By cutting down your reliance on artificial lighting, you can enjoy more of a renewable resource and save on energy costs in the process. But you can have a lighting system that can still take advantage of sunlight even when it’s not daytime, and those are solar lights.
You can transform your outdoors by adding wireless solar post lights to your deck posts. They are easy to install, as you simply need to mount the solar caps on your posts. No complicated steps are required here. You just need the post cap light to bask in the sun in the morning, and you’ll immediately see their effect as soon as the sky turns dark.
Since this kind of deck lighting harnesses the power of sunlight, you do not have to worry about your energy bill skyrocketing.
Other Quick Tips for Saving Energy at Home
Here are some other quick tips for saving energy while living an eco-friendly lifestyle at home:
- Reuse old T-shirts instead of using paper towels to clean up spills
- Clean the fridge coils regularly so it uses less energy to keep your food cool
- Clean the filter in your washing machine and dryer regularly so they’re more energy-efficient
- Use cold water when doing the laundry
- Use grey water when watering houseplants
- Switch off the water heater during the day
By implementing these quick energy-efficient tips every day, you’re placing less pressure on natural resources. And, you’re saving on expensive monthly energy bills.
Final Thoughts
Everyone has a responsibility to curbing the overuse of natural resources. Knowing how you can contribute to saving the environment makes it easier to create an environmentally friendly lifestyle. From teenagers to politicians are all talking about it. Let’s DO something about it!