How can I make my home more green?
I have all led and cfl bulbs. I recycle 60% of all my trash. I am a vegetarian. I do not know what else I can do. I am very, very poor, so I cannot afford solar, wind turbines, or even something as simple as a composting bin.
How To Make Your Home More Environmentally Friendly
The terms ‘environmentally friendly’ and ‘energy efficient’ go hand-in-hand. If your home is leaking heat as quickly as your furnace pumps it out, if your appliances are less-than-efficient, or if you’re wasting water, your home could use a green makeover. Here are a few simple improvements every person can implement for a more Earth-friendly abode.
Energy Efficiency
Insulate and Seal
This is probably the most non-glamorous, yet most rewarding thing you can do to make your home environmentally friendly. Think about it: a poorly-insulated house, with air leaks around windows and doors, lets all of that heated (or cooled) air that you’ve spent money on right outside. Adding insulation to your attic, basement or crawlspace, and wall cavities will have a huge impact on your home energy use. If you go the extra step and caulk around windows and electrical outlets, you’ll save even more.
Use Energy-Efficient Lighting
Changing out regular incandescent light bulbs for low-wattage compact fluorescents is always a good idea. Over the course of its lifetime, a single compact fluorescent bulb will prevent 500 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. In addition to changing light bulbs, consider installing motion-sensor lights outdoors. Many of us keep our porch or garage lights on all night for security or visibility purposes. We can have the same level of security and visibility (and maybe even more so) from motion-sensor lights. Since they only come on when you really need them to, motion-sensor lights will save energy.
Wrap Your Water Heater
The water heater (which should be set no higher than 120 degrees for optimum energy efficiency) loses plenty of ambient heat to the surrounding area. You can purchase insulating blankets or jackets for water heaters inexpensively at most home centers. Simply wrap the tank, secure with duct tape, and save pollution and money in the process.
Paint Your Home’s Exterior to Take Advantage of Your Climate
The next time you paint or side your home, consider using your house color to work with your climate. If you live in a cold region, think about painting your home a dark color. The dark color will absorb more of the sun’s heat in winter, resulting in lower heating bills for you. Conversely, if you live in a hot climate, paint your house a light color, preferably white, which will reflect 90% of the sun’s heat, resulting in a cooler house.
Make Recycling Convenient
One of the best, and easiest, things we can do to be more environmentally friendly is to recycle as much as possible. Glass, plastic, paper, aluminum and steel should always be recycled. Depending on where you live, you may have curbside pickup. If not, you will have to locate a recycling center. Having a dedicated area of your home, either in your kitchen, basement, or mudroom, to store recyclables until they’re carted away will help remind you to recycle. Consider purchasing a special pre-made recycling center, or simply use cardboard boxes or reusable crates to contain recyclables. Check with your recycling center for their guidelines for what they will accept, and follow them to the letter. It takes a little extra effort, but in time it becomes second nature.
Ditch the Toxic Cleaners
Battling carbon emissions doesn’t make much sense if you spray toxic chemicals into the air every time you use a household cleaner. There are plenty of gentle, eco-friendly brands of cleaners on the market now. You can also make your own organic cleaners with ordinary household ingredients like vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda, and corn starch. Simply search online for ‘organic cleaning’ and you’ll find a plethora of easy, inexpensive, Earth-friendly recipes.
I use only vinegar and bakings soda in cleaning my house. It will save you loads of money at the store. Vinegar is even the best hair conditioner you will fine. Keep your eyes close bend foward and pull a cup full of vinegar on your hair. Keep eyes close and massage into scalp. Rinse really good before opening eyes. This takes out left over shampoo. Helps your scalp and leaves the hair real soft.
Use your dishwasher and not do dishes by hand. People think that you are saving money by doing the reverse. But I tried it both ways. Dishwasher set on normal wash and do not push the dry button. Let them set in the dishwasher and air dry or you dry them by hand. You save money because the dishwasher saves on water thus saves your electric. Every time you turn on the water it makes the water tank refill thus the motor is running when it refills. So actually doing dishes by hand waste electricity and money. I saved over $100 off my electric bill using this method. Try it.
In the winter I reinstall a curtain rod over my doors leading outside. I have taken a fleece double wide bed spread and on my sewing machine made a hem so I could place the curtain rod threw it. Make sure it is long enough to drape on the floor several inches. At night I pull the bed spread closed over the entire door and take the bottom of the spread that is hanging on the floor and push up tight against the bottom of the door. This is like an extra coverage to keep out the wind on snowy nights. I have my door frames all done with the stick foam that you can buy at most stores and wind proof the door frames. All this saves hundreds of dollars on the electric bill. I have brought down my electric bill from $500 to $150 using these tips.
Dont forget your outside pet. If you can not bring them in during the nights then make sure you have a good dog house with lots of hay inside. Threw the roof of the dog house place a heat light. Make sure it does not go down to close to the animal. Keep it fixed up to the ceiling of the dog house. You do this by drilling a hole in the roof and threading the end of the light cord threw the roof. Seal the hole when your done with silicon calking. Fix the house so the wind does not come threw the door of the dog house. You can do this with fence post and tarps. Leave a small opening for the dog to enter the house. Make a like shelter for the cats if you have them. Remember in the winter their water will freeze. I have 8 dogs and 14 cats and they are all indoors.
Dont use the dryer. Even in the winter there are warm days that you can hang the clothes out on the line. If you live in a real cold eastern climate. Do a small load and place them on hangers and hang them over the shower rod to dry. I save $200 by not using my dryer each month.
Keep under the fridge, washer, and dryer swept out each month. Sweep out the motor with a vacuum. Keep the lint traps swept out. If you do use your dryer make sure the line running from the dryer to the outside is vacuumed out. This is one of the biggest reasons for house fires each year.
Winter time: make sure the calking on all the windows and doors are good. Take clear plastic and seal all windows in the house. This saves $200 each winter on electric bill.
Keep the filters on the ac clean and sweep out the grate with a vacuum cleaner then install new filters once a month. Keep the window ac motor cleaned out. Keep the ac motor on the outside cleaned out. Look for ants in and around the motor.
Turn off lights when you leave a room. Keep the doors shut on closets and rooms you don’t use. Keep the grates on the floors closed so you will not heat or cool those rooms.
In the winter keep the faucets dripping if outside temp falls below 32 degrees.
Eat more fruits and veggies-less meat. Plan your meals. Make a list and stick to it. Do not buy prepared meals. They cost more and you can make them from scratch for a fraction of the price.
Keep your gas tank topped off when gas prices are low. Get your oil changed every three months. Keep the motor in good condition. I am a woman and know a lot about mechanics. There are things you can do cheaper than a mechanic. Check your transmission, break fluid, oil , water, tire pressure.
Keep a bag of sand in the trunk along with a shovel in the winter. Keep extra pair of gloves, socks, old shoes, coat, blanket in car in the winter. Keep first aide kit and some tools in the car at all times. If you are not mechanically inclined you can read a book or take a class.
Sources: http://www.epa.gov, http://www.rmi.org, http://www.environmentaldefense.org
paint
http://jsbi.blogspot.com/2007/05/10-tips-to-make-your-house-more-greener.html
when you aren’t using a room, turn off the lights and fans/ACs. you can also switch off the computer when not in use and when the AC is on, close the bathroom door, or any connecting doors, including the closet, so the cool are doesn’t go to places where it is not needed – therefore ot wasting electricity.
good for you in turning green – we need more people like you.
get green paint or get green plants and put them aroung your house
1. Turn off lights in unoccupied rooms
2. Turn your thermostat down/wear layered clothing & throw another blanket on your bed if this makes you uncomfortable
3. Unplug appliances not in use – they still use energy if they’re plugged in.
4. Contact those who send you junk mail and ask to be removed from their mailing lists
5. Switch to natural cleaning products – (vinegar, baking soda, salt, lemons) – they’re cheaper than pre-made cleaners anyway.
6. Hand wash & dry your dishes, rather than using the dishwasher
7. Don’t let the water run while brushing your teeth
8. Line or rack dry your clothes rather than using your dryer
9. Add houseplants to your home – ask around you may not even have to purchase these if you can get clippings/prunings from friends, neighbors or co-workers.
10. Walk, bike, use public transportation or carpool
Hope this helps
Use recyclable boxes for storing food. Also, use a real bag at grocery stores, instead of plastic bags. In addition, you might want to get small solar light for your lawn. They aren’t that expensive. You don’t have to purchase a compost bin. You can simply reuse an old bin and collect green waste material. Then at the end of the week or so, mix the compost in with the soil. If you want more green, it starts at your own very home. It’s not necessary your buy energy efficient/saving products. Turning off the lights when not being used, planting/doing gardening and reducing your garbage waste, are small daily things you can do to help the environment. Remember it all starts at home. Good luck.
you could also use rags instead of paper towels. turn off the light when you leave the room. unplug your cell phone charger when you unplug your phone. stop using the computer and tv!!! take the bus or something. conserve gas. those are some ideas that will save you money and the enviroment.
You can make your own composting bin. It just needs to keep the compost from blowing away.
As for what else you can do? I would say at this point, look for a better paying job. Being green currently takes up more resources than not being green, so obtain more resources.
I’m more of the mind that being green is useless if it prevents you from being a contributing member of society. Leading by example that you can be green (valuable to nature) and sucessful valuable to society would go far in convincing other that it can be done.
Good luck!
think amish
take the yard clippings and smash the juice out, make some dye and paint your home a green stain
There are many things you have apart from money that you can use
1. plant as many trees / plants as possible around your place
2. use your time,ENERGY and enthusiasm to spread awareness to your neighbors; if yourneighbors are green; you become green automatically
3. it will help to keep windows / doors open to reduce electicity usage
4. you should be able to use cold water for taking bath- its more healthy and refreshing – and saves energy
5. go paperless – as far as possible -
compost bin is very cheap
Mix up some blue and yellow then paint it, dopey gonad
plant plants, use less water, use less electricity, buy things that use less packaging, re- use water bottles, walk and/or bike to close places.
hope this helps you^_^
Make your home energy efficient. If you are low income you may be eligible for some programs, I would ask around to see if anyone knows of any. Many utilities give rebates for insulation or other energy efficient upgrades. If you own, then look into adding insulation, you can do it a little at a time. seal any leaks around windows and doors, you can do that with any bits of cloth if you can’t afford weather strip.
Have you ever tried to make your own laundry soap? You use three ingredients (under $10) and can make enough for a thousand loads of laundry (literally). It’s green and saves your green! (just search the recipe for homemade laundry soap) BEST WISHES TO YOU!
do research into the companies who manufacture the products you use. buy only from environmentally responsible companies. that’s what i did. i know the products i use are better on the environment (as well as save money). contact me if you wanna know more.